GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The report is in for how an outside firm did in trying to turnaround Green Bay’s Washington Middle School in its first year of service.
District officials are pushing for a second year of outside help from American Institute of Research or AIR. However, one school board member says teachers would rather have the money spent elsewhere.
Green Bay’s school board is scheduled to vote on Monday whether to spend $216,000 on the second year of consulting from AIR. The amount is lowered from the $286,000 the district proposed last month.
John Magas, Associate Superintendent of Continuous Improvement for the district, tells FOX 11 they’re pleased with the $394,000 investment the district made for the first year of AIR’s work at Washington Middle School.
“We wanted to see the decline in student performance not only stopped but moving in a positive trajectory and that is what we’ve seen this year.”
One of AIR’s goals was for at least 49 percent of students to score basic or above in language arts this school year. Washington students achieved the mark, at 50 percent, according to the newly released report.
In math, the goal was for 42 percent to score basic or above. Only 29 percent reached the mark.
In all, nine measures of success were set. Three don’t have results yet. Of the remaining six, district officials say half of the benchmarks AIR set for itself was fully met.
Besides the math goal, Magas says the two other unmet goals would have required 100 percent of students to improve.
“I think AIR was a very powerful force in stabilizing the situation at Washington and really being a catalyst for not only growth this year, but growth in future years.”
“Right now, I have yet to see anything that tells me that this was worth the investment,” said Rhonda Sitnikau, a member of Green Bay’s school board.
Sitnikau tells FOX 11 she hasn’t had any Washington teachers reach out to her to say she should vote for another year of help from AIR.
“I’ve heard the exact opposite. Teachers are coming forward and asking me to not approve this, to consider truly investing in the classroom. They are not feeling this is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.”
Among the services, AIR says it would deliver in a second year are 80 days of on-site staff coaching, 43 hours of virtual staff coaching, and monthly meetings to assess progress.
As part of a lowered investment in a second year of AIR services, the district says it is also using federal grant money to train other principals on AIR’s turnaround practices.
A full-time behavior coach is also being hired to split time between Washington and Franklin Middle Schools.
While AIR tracked some behavior and attendance data, it was primarily hired to focus on academic improvement.
The extra attention on Washington Middle School started in the summer of 2017. That is when a former teacher resigned to the school board and outlined a variety of safety concerns at the school.
The district has said out of school suspensions dropped this year, but it did not provide data on referrals.
