Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Comment Titleix Testing Devices topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Parents, students urge clarity on Title IX, state testing and phone rules at Winneconne board meeting
Summary
At the Oct. 7 meeting, multiple residents and students urged the district to explain DPI assessment changes, align parental policies with Title IX, and revise the personal-device policy; students provided violation counts and asked for limited leniency during nonclass times.
Community members used the board’s open forum on Oct. 7 to press administrators for clearer explanations of state testing changes, adjustments to parental-policy language tied to Title IX and consideration of student requests on the personal-device rule.
Laura Ackman, a district resident, asked the board and administration to hold a listening session to explain recent DPI guidance that the state’s forward assessment results for ELA and mathematics are not comparable to previous years. Ackman said the DPI materials make it difficult to compare trends and asked the district to ‘‘stand up to DPI’’ and demand a practical bridge to interpret historic data for parents.
A high-school student, Rebecca Williams, presented statistics she said were provided by the district for the first month of school: 64 total personal-device-policy violations districtwide, 55 of which occurred at the high school; 21 of the total were repeat incidents involving nine students; and 48 violations happened during class time. Rebecca asked the board to consider leniency during lunch and merit study hall while keeping phones out of instruction time.
Other speakers thanked the board for recent community conversations and urged the district to ensure any revised parental policy complies with Title IX when state guidance and court orders are finalized. A parent whose child attends the district but lives outside the district asked to continue participating in community conversations.
Board members and administrators said they appreciated the input, noted the district is collecting additional data and recommended revisiting the personal-device policy after more information is available (suggestions included end-of-first-semester review and monthly feedback). An administrator said staff have already begun collecting teacher and disciplinary data and would survey again in November.
The exchange did not produce immediate policy changes beyond the adopted open-forum rules; board members said they would consider amendments to the device policy and schedule opportunities for further explanation of DPI changes for parents and staff.
