Board Holds Vision Planning Workshop
by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board held a workshop meeting on Tuesday January 6 to discuss broad educational issues and the state of the schools. Foremost among these, of course, is how pandemic restrictions and the various remote learning arrangements employed over the past year have affected the schools’ educational effectiveness. But the discussion went beyond the immediate pandemic-related predicament of the schools and discussed strategies to promote student success both while they are in school and after they graduate.
Schools Superintendent Patrick Dailey noted that for the first time in many years, no State of Schools report was presented last August, because there was very little data. Most of the testing that would have happened last spring was canceled because of the pandemic. But after nearly a year of fully or partially remote education, he felt the need to share with the Board an assessment of how the students are doing, and the news is not good.
The data about the Elementary School presented by Elementary Principal Amy Netti are from NWEA reading assessments and Fountas Pinnell testing from Fall 2020. She said in normal years there are usually some students who show a slight regression, but very few students show substantial regression (defined as 10% or more) in reading and math skills. Testing from this past fall shows substantial regression in significant numbers – in the neighborhood of 20% in reading and 40% in math. If you look at how many students have shown either a slight regression or a substantial regression, it is over 40% in reading and well over half in math.
High School Principal Michael Hall presented data on how many students are failing their classes in the High School, and the numbers were high. In the eighth grade, for instance, a quarter of the students are failing all of their classes, and half are failing two or more classes. For comparison, Hall presented similar data from the third quarter last year, which generally had less than half as many students in each category. The only category shown in all of the datasets presented was the number of students failing two classes or more. In that category, the number in the third quarter of last year was 43, in the 1st quarter of 2020 it was 182, and in the interim reporting for 2nd quarter of this year it was 239.
Board member John Helft said, “I’m appalled. I’m scared. What do we do?”
Dailey said over the past year or so the District has had to adjust its priorities to focus on safety because of the pandemic, but he said as soon as possible “we need to shift back and re-focus on educating children.” Administrators and board members alike felt that a good deal of educational progress had been lost to pandemic restrictions. While there may be a role in the future for remote learning, and there are even some students who do better with remote learning, there is a significant population of students for whom remote learning does not work.
Dailey said for many of the students the home environment is not favorable for learning, and they need personal contact with teachers and fellow students. He said he hopes to get sports and extracurricular clubs re-started as soon as possible, as they are an important part of students’ engagement with the school.
But the issues Dailey has been talking about with his administration and staff go beyond the immediate problem with the pandemic and remote learning. To introduce his thinking on this, he presented some slides with national data about student experience with college. Only a third of students who go to a 4 year public college graduate on time in four years. For private colleges, that figure is 52.8%. Of students entering 2 year public colleges, 5% will graduate in two years and only 25% will graduate in three years. Even among those who do graduate from college, there are questions – 40% of college graduates work in fields that do not require a college degree, and 40% of college graduates work in a field different from the one in which they hold a degree. So while college may be an enriching experience and beneficial for the student’s overall intellectual development, its connection to the student’s ultimate working life and earning ability may not be as direct as some assume.
In light of these figures, Dailey suggested the District may want to re-think its strong emphasis on college preparation for all students. He said he remains committed to high academic standards and providing advanced courses for those who are able to go that route, but if it is only a minority of the students who will actually end up graduating from college, the District may want to put more emphasis on helping the majority to focus on realistic plans for life and employment. This may involve vocational programs, apprentice programs, internships and the like. It may involve partnerships with local businesses, more and earlier counseling about career goals, and more courses relevant to real-world experience, such as personal finance management. Dailey said he expects that developing programs to address these concerns will probably take years, but he wanted to present this initiative to the Board to get its approval to have him move in this direction. The Board was broadly supportive.
Dailey said he envisions this initiative as a way of providing additional pathways to graduation and to successful adult lives, and to that end he will be working on adding new pathways to graduation. In addition to the local diploma, Regents, and Advanced Regents diplomas, he plans to add a NYS Skills and Achievement Credential, and a Career Development & Occupational Studies Credential as alternative pathways to graduation.
He also discussed revising the goals that the Board sets each year for the District to strive for. These have been primarily aimed at academic achievement for the past ten years, but Dailey suggests adding some goals that set targets that measure ethics, morals, character, drive, or grit. No one got into details about how such goals would be measured or implemented, but the Board seemed open to broadening its goals to include some of these things.
The full video of this Vision Planning Workshop remains available on the District’s web site on its YouTube channel. The next regular meeting of the Hoosick Falls School Board will be Thursday, February 11 at 6:30 pm.