Hot Agenda Items: 1/11/22 Upcoming Board Meeting
We want to help you better understand the upcoming issues the WCSD Board of Trustees will be discussing this week. Take a minute to review these agenda items so that you are prepared to submit a public comment or attend the meeting and make a public comment.
Election of Officers
Agenda Items 2.01-2.03: The nomination and election of the President, Vice President and Clerk for the WCSD Board of Trustees.
Consent Agenda & Budget Items
3.01 - 3.21 Discussion of, and possible approval of $5,000,000+ in various budget items.
Items for Presentation, Discussion, & Public Comment
Superintendent Search
4.01: Presentation and discussion regarding Search Advisory Group in facilitating the search for a new Superintendent.
4.02: Discussion regarding timeline, communications, stakeholder data collection and qualifications regarding the position of Superintendent.
Reporting of 2020-2021 Performance
4.05: Reporting of metrics from 2020-2021 school year related to the WCSD Strategic Plan. Update or revise 2021-2022 measurable outcomes. The problem is when you look at the numbers being presented to the Board in the attached agenda materials they only go back to 2018-2019, just one year pre-COVID to see the success or failure of WCSD’s past plans. WCSD has, for many school years, and increasingly still, instilled Social Justice/Social Emotional/Equity and Diversity type learning. They claim it will close the learning gap. There is no hard evidence that strategy is effective. In fact, when looking at item 5.1.3 of the Strategic Planning Report SY 2020-2021 we don’t see proof of the success of social and emotional learning, instead they report under the heading “Barriers” that “Perception data is more difficult to act upon compared to academically-based metrics.” Then why are we putting so much money toward educating teachers and students in these perception based ideologies when we see in the remainder of the data given, the academically and easily measurable data in actual course work (Math, English, Social Studies ..) they are not improving or are failing?
Goal 1: to ensure academic growth through a system of curriculum, instruction and assessment that is aligned, rigorous and relevant.
Goal 5: ensure schools are safe, secure, supportive and welcoming for students and staff.
The following are some highlights (or lowlights) from the report:
Under Goal 1: ACADEMIC GROWTH
1.1.1 increase graduation rate target was 92% but in 2021 it fell to 82%.
2020 graduation rate was 85%.
1.1.5 Ninth Grade Core Course Failure
Went from 24% in 2019-2020 to 42.3% in 2020-2021
Cannot find a target set by WCSD.
1.1.4 Increase the percentage of students attaining sufficient core credits through 10th grade
2019-2020 was 70% of students
2020-2021 dropped to 57% of students
Target set by WCSD was 78%
COVID District Policies
4.06: Discussion of current COVID Mitigation Policies.
At present, the district still has a 10 day quarantine policy and will be addressing the recent recommendations by the CDC to lower that to 5 days.