Cadott School Board; How to mitigate COVID’s impact on junior high math instruction?

By Julia Wolf

Cadott School Board members got a look at Trimester 2 grades, during a Committee of the Whole meeting March 29.

District administrator Jenny Starck pointed out a drop in students getting a C- or better in junior high math.

She says she has heard similar things at the national-level meetings around COVID, middle school math, where students start getting into areas of pre-algebra and the current year first-graders, who were in kindergarten during the spring 2020 shutdown, were some areas reported as impacted the most.

She said the math curriculum was also harder to do in virtual and hybrid settings, because it was created with partner work in mind.

Starck suggested they may want narrower goals, with resources, to target those areas where they would like to see improvement.

“We are doing the grading handbook,” said Starck. “Last week, I made a bunch of parent calls.”

She says she doesn’t think the calls themselves have a big impact on the results. Starck says she has not talked with a parent yet, who had no idea their child was struggling.

“The struggles they had two weeks before that, are the same struggles they have now,” said Starck.

She says they are talking about other options to help students with their grades, some of which can be implemented yet this year, depending on the next round of stimulus money.

“I’m a little bit hesitant to commit to that, until I know for sure that we’ve the funding that will cover it,” said Starck.

Board member Becca Blanchette asked if students with low grades are still missing work, or if they are scoring poorly on coursework.

“I would say, for many of them, it’s missing work,” said Starck.

She says additional work-time in the school is one idea that has been tossed around, but she is not sure on the feasibility of that yet. Starck says, with COVID and quarantines, teachers are also balancing rigor with common sense, when determining what is absolutely critical students do.

Al Sonnentag, board member, asked if it is possible to tie in work on areas that need improvement, into summer school. Starck says they are working on summer programming under the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) umbrella to keep kids engaged.

Starck also gave an update on the school forest logging plan. She says they would like to get bids out and get moving on the project.

“It’s a multi-year plan and we are kind of a few years behind on it,” said Starck.

Starck says there have also been some discussions about having buffer zones.

“It will look different there,” said Starck, adding the changes are for the health of the forest.

Blanchette asked if the logging will be a cost, or if they will get money for the lumber. Starck said the district should come out ahead, but the money the school forest generates must be earmarked for the school forest.

Board members also heard an update on how the initial graduation planning is going. Starck says the original idea of doing the ceremony on the football field with a rain date, quickly grew complicated. She says the plan now is to set the date for Friday, May 28, and move the ceremony indoors, in case of inclement weather. “So, how we’re probably going to do it, is have two colors of tickets,” said Starck.

If the ceremony is able to be held outdoors, both colors of tickets will be valid. If the ceremony is inside, only one color of ticket will be valid. Starck says graduation will be livestreamed either way.

Starck also presented a number of proposed policy changes for board members to look at, ahead of the first reading at the next regular meeting.

One policy change the board will consider, going forward, is how many times a potential policy change will come before the board. Originally, the Policy Committee, which was just a portion of the full board, saw the policy, before the whole board saw it twice.

Because the board moved to a Committee of the Whole, the entire board sees the potential changes three times. The policy change would allow members to vote to suspend the second reading, during a first reading held at a regular meeting, and adopt the policy in its final form.

“It might happen, where there is a certain policy where you feel like we’re not ready yet, so you wouldn’t have to do it,” said Starck. “But, it gives us that option.”

Another policy change board members got a first look at, was on the role of public comment during school board meetings.

“The idea is to try to help people understand, they are not necessarily a participant, but there are pieces on public comment,” said Starck, noting the annual meeting is the exception.

Ced Boettcher, board member, also asked if they wanted to limit public comments to items on the agenda, since some districts do. Starck said that could be added, if the board wanted it to be.

“Is that good or bad?” asked Boettcher. “I don’t know.”

Starck says it can sometimes get messy if the comment addresses something that is not an agenda item, and a dialogue starts, without the item being properly noticed as part of the agenda. She says, as long as the item can be held to a public comment, the item can be added to a later agenda, no problem.

Blanchette says she thinks it would be a good idea to have the board president say, before the public comment section, that the board will not respond to the comments.

“We could include that,” said Starck.

Brad Sonnentag, board member, says he kind of likes limiting comments to the agenda, since people should reach out to board members to add issues to the agenda, instead of blindsiding the board.

A. Sonnentag says, even if the board is blindsided, it can be added to a later agenda for discussion.

“And then it gives us time to digest,” said A. Sonnentag.

Donna Albarado, board member, also pointed out that it is part of the board president’s or superintendent’s job to follow up with those who have comments on items not on the agenda. Blanchette suggested they say that during the meetings, as well.

A. Sonnentag also asked if three minutes is long enough for each public comment. Albarado says it ties into the meeting being the board’s meeting, not the public’s, and comes down to how much time they want to allot for public comment.

“Not that I don’t want to hear them, but I also want us to do our work,” said Albarado.

Starck also said, if someone gets cut off at three minutes, they can remind that person that someone will reach out and connect with them. She also said, for issues where more members of the public have questions or concerns, they could hold a special listening session and possibly give each person a little longer to speak.