Kent ISD Ron Caniff retired in December. (Supplied)
Do you feel the next Kent ISD superintendent should have a doctorate degree? Should he or she have been a principal? Should he or she be a good listener?
These are just some of the traits that the Kent Board of Education is asking the community to weigh in on the Kent ISD Superintendent Search Stakeholder Survey. The data from the survey will be compiled to build a profile that will be used in the superintendent search, which is being facilitated by the Michigan Association of School Boards.
The survey consists of 14 questions and takes about 10 minutes to complete. It asks participants to consider and rate the education level, experience, expertise, skills, and characteristics they feel are important to have in a Kent ISD superintendent. The anonymous survey is open to all community members — residents, business leaders, teacher, and Kent ISD staff.
Kent Intermediate Superintendent Ron Caniff retired in December after more than 30 years in education, the last eight as the superintendent for the Kent ISD. Ron Koehler is serving as interim superintendent.
Applications for the Kent ISD superintendent are being accepted through March 15. The Kent ISD Board of Education hopes to have a new superintendent in place by July 1.
The Kent Intermediate Superintendents’ Association, during a Tuesday, June 23, teleconference, released the results of a survey of more than 30,000 Kent ISD area parents asking questions related to the school reopening issues.
The bottom line of the extensive survey (link at end of story), according to a summary shared with media during the teleconference, is that while some parents seek continued distance learning for various reasons including their child’s safety, the majority desired “safe, in-school” education for their children.
“Most parents would like to see a return to school as normal in late August,” Ron Caniff, superintendent of Kent ISD, said in supplied material. “Our superintendents are working to ensure a safe opening, researching all information regarding the steps necessary to protect students and staff, and will remain connected with the health department and parents throughout the summer to ensure they are well informed about school re-opening plans.”
Kent ISD website photo. (Supplied)
The survey results come in preparation for the planned release June 30 of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “Michigan’s Return to School Roadmap”, which is expected to set state directives for the reopening of schools in August.
The survey, commissioned by the Kent ISD on behalf of the superintendents’ association and administered by Gartner Marketing, was conducted from May 29 through June 10. The 30,000 responses represent parents from the 20 public school districts across Kent ISD but did not include any private or charter school parents, according to the Kent ISD.
The Kent Intermediate Superintendents’ Association (KISA) Future Learning Committee hosted the meeting. The speakers included Superintendent Caniff; Kevin Polston, Superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, KISA Future Committee Chair and member of the Governor’s Return to Learn Advisory Council; Sunil Joy, Data Scientist at Kent ISD; and Ron Koehler, Education Consultant and former Kent ISD Assistant Superintendent.
The Kent Intermediate Superintendents’ Association represents the superintendents Kent ISD and each of the 20 school districts it serves.
Survey summary results highlights
Among the key findings of the survey, according to the KISA summary (link at end of story), is that parents want to see school open in the fall, in a traditional face- to-face setting; continued parental concerns about safety will likely necessitate an online option; and a hybrid option has many of the same challenges as an online learning option and “It is also not highly preferred by parents.”
Part of the reason for a hybrid option — where students would spend part of their time in school and part of their time at learning remotely — is that there would be little cost savings on the part of the districts currently facing possible loss of state funding due to COVID-19’s economic impact. (See a WKTV story on the possible funding losses here.) And there would be little difference between the costs of an in-person or hybrid option.
Kevin Polston, Superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, KISA Future Committee Chair and member of the Governor’s Return to Learn Advisory Council. (Supplied)
“We know that hybrid and in-person costs are going to be very similar,” Superintendent Polston said during the teleconference, “because even though you may have fewer students back each day you still have your full compliment of staff the needs to be back each day.
“And, in addition, for a district like Godfrey-Lee, … we served more meals closed than we did open. That means for the students that aren’t at school each day are still going to need the nutritional services that schools provide. So we are going to need to allocate additional resources.”
The survey summary presented at the teleconference (link at bottom of the story) was, as explained by the Kent ISD’s Sunil Joy, a “stratified random sample of 800 respondents … (that was) … representative of the demographic makeup of our region.”
Sunil Joy, Data Scientist at Kent ISD. (Supplied)
“A random stratified sample just is a statistical method to ensure the respondents to the survey actually look like the county’s demographics,” Joy said to WKTV. “For example, if East Grand Rapids parents made up a significant percentage of all respondents — that wouldn’t be very representative of our county as only a small percentage of our county is from East Grand Rapids. So that’s why it’s a stratified sample — so it’s more representative of our districts as whole.”
The survey data was also “disaggregated by respondent groups (e.g. race/ethnicity, special education, income, etc.)”
“This simply means that I reported data not just ‘overall’ but also for different respondent groups,” Joy said to WKTV. “For example, in the question of whether childcare is an issue if school did not open 100 percent this fall, I included both what parents said overall, but also by different grade-levels. As no surprise, parents of younger kids had greater concerns with childcare if school didn’t open normally in the fall.”
In addition to the overall, county wide survey results released at the teleconference, each district has access to their own district-specific reports.
“Each district will share the results in the way they see fit with their constituents,” Joy said to WKTV. “The best way to get them is to contact the district directly, if it is not already available on their website or social media.”
School Re-entry Plan
At the teleconference, and using the results of the survey as part of their guidance, the superintendents’ association also released a School Re-entry Plan, in both English and Spanish. (See links to both at bottom of the story.)
Among the highlights of the plan are: a “desire” to return to full-time, face-to-face instruction, per state health requirements; the intent to provide a high-quality online learning option for students and families; districts will share best practices in virtual instruction to maximize efficiency and quality; families who choose an online option will have continued access to local district extracurricular and co-curricular activities.
The plan also makes clear that a a hybrid option — a mix of face-to-face and online learning — is “not preferred and will be implemented if it is the only way to have in-person instruction as mandated by state executive order.”
Superintendent Polston, in summing up the position school districts could be put in come June 30 and the result of the Governor’s “Michigan’s Return to School Roadmap” plan, said the best interest of the students must and will come first.
“Regardless of the model for teaching and learning, together we must be ready to meet the challenge that awaits,” Polston said. “And we will.”
A term all-too familiar to educators is “Summer Brain Drain” — that students tend to regress in their educational skills over the summer school break. It is expected to be even more of problem with the final months of the 2019-20 school year moving to online learning instead of in-class learning, the so-called “COVID Slide”.
According to a 2019 article by GreatSchools.org, teachers spend an average of 4-to-8 weeks every fall reviewing materials students have studied but lost mastery of over the summer, and most fall behind particularly in math and spelling.
But again this summer, educators across Kent ISD are collaborating with partner organizations — including the Kent District Library — to turn a brain drain into a brain gain, and to keep learning going all summer for all students through the ISD’s free Summer Brain Gain program.
The program provides online learning, resources students can engage with on their own and printable packets available to students in grades K-12 in Kent County and beyond.
Registration for instructor-led courses is available by grade level for all public, private and homeschooled students began June 15. These courses and other learning opportunities continue to begin June and July and conclude Aug. 7.
“We have brought together experts in curriculum and instructions from all around Kent ISD to create courses, gather learning opportunities and connect families with resources appropriate for their students at every grade level,” Kelli Brockway, Director of Teaching and Learning at Kent ISD, said in supplied material. “The idea is to bridge the learning gap between June and the start of the new school year.”
Preliminary estimates suggest additional learning losses due to the pandemic, or “COVID slide” as it’s been called.
A report by Dr. Megan Kufeld and Dr. Beth Tarasawa for the Collaborative for Student Growth at NWEA suggests learning loss may range from 30 percent in reading, to more than 50 percent in math and in some grades, according to supplied material. It also suggests when students return in the fall, learning may be nearly a full year behind what likely would be observed in normal conditions.
Summer Brain Gain programs offered include GRASP, the Grand Rapids Public Schools Program for math and reading that is free for Kent ISD students this summer.
Connections to vetted online apps, resources and links to learning that children and teens can engage in on their own are also part of the program, according to Kent ISD. Summer Brain Gain also links students and families to educational offerings by area cultural and community organizations who are School News Network Education Everywhere partners such as John Ball Zoo, Grand Rapids Public Museum, Van Andel Institute, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park and more. All resources are located at kentisd.org/SummerBrainGain.
Printable packets and links to Kent ISD’s Summer Brain Gain program are available through partnerships with Kent District Library, Grand Rapids Public Library and Literacy Center of West Michigan. Packets can be ordered for printing and pick up at library locations throughout Grand Rapids and Kent County.
Through the Kent District Library partnership, students can order printed packets from their local KDL branch and KDL will print it and have it available for them to pick up. For more information visit here.
Registration is now open but the deadline to register for GRASP is June 30. Summer Brain Gain materials and connections will be available through Kent District Library, Grand Rapids Public Library and Literacy Center for West Michigan starting this week, on June 22.
Kent ISD is a regional educational service agency that provides instructional and administrative services to more than 300 schools, 20 public districts, three non-public districts, and many public school academies and non-public schools within the ISD’s boundaries.
For more informant about the Kent ISD, visit their website kentisd.org.
Education leaders local and statewide are warning of what Superintendent Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Kevin Polston calls “unprecedented budget deficits” at Michigan public schools resulting from decreased tax revenues due to the COVID-19 economic crisis.
While the looming school funding concerns are just beginning to hit the news, the community may have some questions, need a little background and history.
Why will lower tax revenue impact public school funding? How does the state fund public schools? What is the recent history of changes in tax-payer funding of schools? How do public schools spend their state funding?
The Kent ISD recently produced informational videos that tries to explain the state’s taxpayer funded public school finances — including one specific to current school funding concerns. (See additional information videos descriptions and links below.)
Superintendent Polston, in a recent Godfrey-Lee schools community-wide email, makes clear the current — and urgent need — for community understanding and action on the current threat to public school funding. He also urges increased state and federal support for public schools.
“Without federal intervention, the budget shortfall for the remainder of 2019-2020 through 2021 school year would total $6.2 billion for all Michigan public schools. Godfrey-Lee alone could see a deficit of over $1.2 million ($700 per student) for just the 19-20 school year that is about to end,” Polston said. “Further cuts are projected for the 2020-21 school year that begins on July 1, 2020.
“Put in context, this is roughly twice as large a deficit as Michigan public schools faced in the Great Recession, yet federal aid to date has been less than 20 percent than was given at that time. In fact, of the $2 trillion of aid granted by the (federal COVID-19 recovery) CARES Act, less than 1 percent went to fund public education.”
Polston points out that school districts are required by state law to present a balanced budget by June 30, 2020 for the upcoming school year, even though the state has not provided an answer about the shortfall for 2019-20 or given a projected budget for 2020-21.
“This is unacceptable,” he said. “To meet our legal requirement, we have to use the budget forecasts that have been provided (to Godfrey-Lee schools). These forecasts call for $2,750,000 in cuts for our upcoming school year. Cuts of this magnitude would devastate GLPS and would challenge the district’s future solvency.”
To aid Kent County schools districts explain the current funding system, and the need for community support and action, the Kent ISD produced a series of short videos.
An ISD is a regional education service agency. The job of Kent County’s ISD, one of the state’s 57 agencies, is to “help local school districts with programs and services that are best done on a regional basis — things that are highly specialized or that would be far too expensive on an individual basis,” according to the Kent ISD.
The videos:
History of Michigan Public School Finances, which details how school financing in Michigan is guided by Proposal A which was approved by Michigan voters in 1994 which shifted ‘day to day’ school finance to a state-based model.
What Public School Finances Fund, which details how public schools in Michigan spend a majority of their resources on personnel and describes how dollars are divided up to fund education in this state.
Taxes and Public School Education, which explains how everyone who works or lives in Michigan helps to support public schools by paying taxes, and where tax dollars for public education come from and how they are spent.
COVID-19’s Impact on Michigan School Funding, which details how school finance will be greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the economic impact will negatively affect Michigan’s public schools.
All Districts: School leaders working together to plan fall and beyond
Now that school districts have distance learning up and running, local education leaders are turning their attention to the next urgent concern: the future of schooling. An ad hoc committee of 13 Kent ISD school leaders — which includes Wyoming Superintendent Craig Hoekstra and Godfrey-Lee Superintendent Kevin Polston — are working on contingency plans to prepare for the next school year and beyond. To learn more about the discussion, click here.
Tara Jones plays with son, Cole, during a Bright Beginnings playgroup. (School News Network)
All Districts: Supporting parents as teachers
Bright Beginnings, which offers parents support and services to help them become the best first teachers for their children, recently received a Blue Ribbon accreditation from the Missouri-based Parents as Teachers program. Free to families in the Kent ISD, to learn more about the program and the accreditation, click here.
Cast members from Godfrey-Lee’s production of ‘The Wiz’ prior to school building closures (courtesy photo/School News Network)
Godfrey-Lee/Wyoming: The show might go on
Last year it was snow days, this year it was COVID-19 that caused area schools, such as Godfrey-Lee and Wyoming, shutdown with school productions left in limbo. And while the show may not happen – some directors remain hopeful – there still is the story of community that brought everyone together. To learn more, click here.
Kentwood’s Sylvia James, right, is sworn in to serve on the the Kent ISD School Board. James is also serving as Trustee on the Board of Education for Kentwood Public Schools. (Supplied/Kent ISD)
By WKTV Staff ken@wktv.org
The Kent ISD School Board recently announced the appointment of Sylvia James to fill the opening on the board created when Bill Joseph retired. James is also serving as Trustee on the Board of Education for Kentwood Public Schools.
According to the ISD statement, in addition to her service in Kentwood’s public school system, she has extensive professional experience in operational and strategic human resources practices and management at Pridgeon & Clay, Inc., and previously with Steelcase, Spectrum Health and Robert Bosch, LLC.
“We are pleased to welcome Sylvia to the Kent ISD School Board and look forward to enlisting her experience, passion and dedication to serve all students in the Kent County area,” Ron Caniff, Superintendent, Kent ISD, said in supplied material. “The board is grateful to Bill Joseph for his 18 years of service, countless insights and many contributions throughout the years. We look forward to continuing this important work with Sylvia’s leadership and commitment to public education.”
James has lived in the Kentwood area for more than 25 years and is interested in expanding her reach to help meet the needs of students throughout the region, according to the ISD.
“I love how Kent ISD works collaboratively with all of the districts to provide programs and services to the residents of 23 public and non-public school districts.” James said in supplied material. “I am committed to ensuring that our students are well educated, as we provide for their safety and welfare.”
James was sworn in at the February Kent ISD School Board meeting. She will serve until the June 2021 election, at which time she can run to serve the remainder of Joseph’s term, through 2025.
Kent ISD is a regional educational service agency “devoted to achievement for all students,” and provides instructional and administrative services to more than 300 schools, 20 public districts, three non-public districts, and many public school academies and non-public schools.
For more information on the Kent ISD, see kentisd.org.
Glen Finkel smiled as he stood in front of 75 superintendents, business managers, and technology directors and system administrators.
“One of the reasons we picked October 31st for this event,” the Kent ISD Director of Information Technology said, “is this is kind of scary.”
Those in attendance – primarily from Kent ISD plus a few from Ionia, Montcalm and Muskegon counties – chuckled appreciatively, if not a little nervously.
They’d just heard from presenters at Kent ISD on the ways school districts are vulnerable to cyber attacks, including ransomware.
Scary, indeed.
But, said Finkel, one of the purposes of the workshop was to make things a little less frightening for district leaders, including IT professionals.
“Due to the dramatic increase of ransomware attacks on schools across the state, we wanted to give our school districts an opportunity to hear from industry experts on how to prepare for and respond to this type of cyber attack,” he noted.
“Since effective cybersecurity involves many departments within an organization, we set up this learning opportunity to cover the many perspectives and diverse backgrounds of our audience,” Finkel explained.
Russell Hoorn II, director of technology for Kelloggsville Public Schools, and Terri Ricketson, director of business services, participated in the workshop
‘Why Would Anyone Want to Attack a School’
For Russell Hoorn II, director of technology for Kelloggsville Public Schools, the event provided some good reminders on how life has changed for schools in the two decades he’s worked in K-12 at his alma mater, Kenowa Hills, and the last 15 at Kelloggsville.
“The focus (of cybersecurity) used to be making sure students couldn’t change their grades,” Hoorn said during a break between sessions. He said the workshop underscored how important it is to be vigilant going forward.
“I used to think ‘why would anyone want to attack a school?’ That’s not the case anymore.”
Session speakers made it clear “just why.” Alex Brown with Plante Moran gave the day’s opening talk and his message to attendees was plain.
“What you guys hold,” he said, “is the ‘creme de la creme,’ which is records.”
Brown said that on the dark web – what he referred to as “the Walmart of bad things” – a fully loaded record can be purchased for around $3. Schools, he noted, have lots of fully loaded records, typically where name, address and social security number are all together.
In addition, he said, child records are a prime target for hackers because they are a blank slate – without a lot of history attached to them compared to a data record for an adult.
“That blank slate,” he said, “is a great resource for a lot of bad things.”
In fact, in a 2017 story by DataBreaches.net on children’s records being hacked from pediatricians, it was estimated that the fully loaded patient records of 500,000 children are available on the dark web. DataBreaches estimated another 200,000 records were stolen from elementary schools.
I haven’t had specific training like this,” Hoorn said, “so this is great. “I am interested in the security of our school district. I think we do a pretty good job, but I want to make sure we are following best practices. We don’t want to be a school district in the news because we had to recover something we should have been protecting.”
For more stories on local schools, visit the School News Network website, schoolnewsnetwork.org.
A series of first-time tests of kindergarteners in Kent County shows many of them need exposure to more early childhood programs, according to Kent ISD educators specializing in early childhood development.
The tests showed 40 percent of kindergarteners tested were considered ready for kindergarten while 35 percent were “approaching readiness.” Twenty-five percent were classified as “emerging readiness,” the lowest category. The tests were given in the fall of 2018 to 65 percent of kindergartners in 19 of Kent County’s 20 school districts.
Students from low income families and Hispanic and African American households tested lower than students from white households, according to the test results.
Although kindergarten readiness tests were not given statewide, Kent ISD officials were able to compare the results to similar statewide tests in Maryland and Ohio. Those tests showed Kent County kindergarteners – especially those in Hispanic and African American families — were not as prepared as their peers in Maryland and Ohio.
Ashley Karsten, Great Start Readiness Program supervisor for Kent ISD, said the test results show the need for early childhood programs. The first round of funding from a countywide early childhood millage that was approved by voters last fall will help establish those early childhood programs, she said.
Last fall, Kent County voters approved a “Ready by 5” millage request to support early childhood development programs. The request for 0.25 mills, to provide an estimated $5.7 million per year, was approved 142,875 to 109,513.
“Our biggest takeaway from the test is that it confirmed early childhood programs are effective. The tests show that where they had early childhood experiences, they were ready for kindergarten,” said Kelli Campbell Brockway, director of teaching and learning for Kent ISD.
“We’re going to keep trying to provide that opportunity to as many students in Kent County as we can.”
For more stories on area schools, visit the School News Network website, schoolnewsnetwork.org.
Every Thursday this school year, Anna Rivera, Libbie Drake, Marie Geiken, Deanna Mockerman and Rendel Todd met to discuss one thing: getting students in their seats, on time, every school day. The five staffers comprise the attendance team at Lee Middle School, and while their work is always a work in progress, their strategies have yielded big results in a short period of time.
Mark Larson, Kent ISD’s truancy and attendance coordinator, said that when it comes to reducing chronic absenteeism, defined as 10 percent of missed school time or 18 missed days per year, “They’re the poster child.”
For the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years, truancy rates at the school were between 18 and 19 percent. The attendance team convened in the 2017-2018 school year, and the rate dropped to 12.9 percent. That year, said Todd, assistant principal of Lee Middle and High School, the team was, “kind of fumbling through, trying to figure out our processes.”
This school year, the team hit the ground running and the truancy rate was 10.5 percent for the 2018-2019 school year.
Follow Steps, Document
The promising numbers come in the wake of an area-wide campaign known as “Strive for Less than 5,” which kicked off in the fall. The campaign encourages students not to miss more than four days of school per year. It was adapted from successful work done by Grand Rapids Public Schools.
Between the Strive campaign and various strategies employed by the team to reduce absenteeism, it’s clear that there’s no magic to reducing absences. Rather, improving attendance relies on a constant combination of awareness, documentation, outreach and collaboration between staff, students and families. (Oh, and maybe an alarm clock.)
Mockerman, success coach at Lee Middle School, said the Strive campaign was really helpful when school kicked off last fall. “At the beginning, we had a big push for ‘Strive for Five.’ We had the posters up, we were talking with the students, we had the signs up.”
She also monitors attendance and, once a few weeks had elapsed, uses that information to catch absence patterns early and begin the interpersonal work, reminding students, “Let’s make sure we’re here all day, every day,” she said.
Drake, the middle school counselor, owed much of the team’s success in reducing absences to a simple spreadsheet.
“The ISD has very specific steps that you follow (for the truancy process), so we put it on a spreadsheet and made sure before we had our first truancy that we had everything we needed. We documented the date, who did what, and it was a lot easier to keep us organized.”
Having everything in one place — student attendance, who has communicated with the student and family and other relevant information — made it much easier to manage absences and spot patterns of absence for quicker intervention, Drake said.
Mockerman added that leaning on Kent ISD’s human resources — Larson and Truancy Administrative Assistant Tori Stafford, who came to the district to answer questions about the processes — has also been valuable in the effort to boost attendance.
Poor Attendance not the Problem, it’s a Symptom
Geiken, the KSSN community school coordinator, said that meeting consistently every week, even if not all of the team members could make it, was key to addressing absences before they got out of hand.
“Most of the first attendance meetings and the parent meetings that we have (are to) uncover barriers, so it’s not just about attendance,” said Geiken. “It’s many other barriers that the families are facing.”
Those barriers range from transportation, to homelessness, to self-reliant students who need to get themselves to school on time when the adults in their homes start work before they leave. Sometimes, middle school students are responsible for getting younger siblings to a school that has a later start time than the middle school, creating logistical issues.
“That’s really hard when you’re in middle school,” Geiken said.
That’s when the attendance team looks at busing options for younger siblings, or asks, “Can we provide you with an alarm clock?’ or ‘is there a grandpa or grandma who can help?”
Communication is Key
Drake said so many middle-schoolers still depend heavily on parents, so communication with parents is key to improving attendance, as is ensuring that the conversation is less an admonition and more an invitation to collaborate.
“We’ve seen a lot of good improvement, and it really has come from parent communication,” Todd said. “We have not seen much change from a student without having that parent meeting.”
“A lot of times, parents do want their kids in school,” said Drake, who added that students refusing to go to school, perhaps due to mental health challenges, is a real thing. “If a kid refuses and cries every morning, you cannot physically pick up a seventh-grader and drop them off at school.”
In such instances, working with students and parents through Kent School Services Network to provide support is key: “Maybe they need counseling, maybe something else.”
Drake said sometimes “outside-the-box” thinking is crucial to making school more palpable — desirable, even — to students who don’t want to be there.
Todd said that once attendance team members get a chance to sit down with a parent and understand the family’s barriers, they can usually find a solution. Also, helping families understand the link between attendance and academic success improves attendance in most cases.
Rivera, KSSN intern at the middle school, says making a personal connection can be a big motivator for some students to come to school in time.
“There are a lot of students that, once you connect with them, that’s when they understand ‘they care for me.’ They start putting effort into the check-ins or they’ll come in and say, ‘hey, I made it here on time!’”
Finally, Drake said that being sensitive to economic and cultural differences is crucial to working with families in the district, where the vast majority of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, the percentage of English language learners is more than 50 percent, and many families travel to see family in other states around Christmas.
Both Geiken and Rivera speak Spanish, which Rivera said can go a long way to forging relationships and building trust when meeting with Spanish-speaking families. In addition, all communications that go home are in English and Spanish.
The ‘Flywheel Effect’
If there is a lesson from Lee Middle School’s work to reduce chronic absenteeism, it’s that persistence pays.
“It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort to make the phone calls, have the meetings with the parents, discuss the academics,” Todd said. “Sometimes you call a home 10 times and haven’t gotten ahold of anyone. It may be the eleventh or twelfth call that does the trick.”
To make the kind of turnaround that Lee Middle School has seen, “You’ve got to have a very good team that’s dedicated to what you’re doing,” said Todd.
Larson said the Strive campaign is not a one and done effort: “I don’t think you internalize something like this in one year,” he said. “We’ve had students who’ve gone years with horrendous attendance. That may not change in one year.”
He said he saw a lot of enthusiasm for the campaign, and has seen districts embrace the concept to varying degrees and with varying results. It’s not easy, but it is simple, he said: districts that are getting out the word about attendance, adhering to the truancy process, and working to systematically reduce chronic absenteeism are seeing positive results.
For more stories on area schools, visit the School News Network website, schoolnewsnetwork.org.
Kent ISD board president Andrea Haidle is not about to take up welding. But she was eager to see the new virtual welding laboratory that was recently installed by the Kent Career Tech Center.
“This is a big deal,” said Haidle, who donned a welding mask and tried the equipment, which uses simulated welding tools and video game technology to teach the art of fusing metal.
“Welding is an important skill,” she said. “More manufacturers seem to want to have people with this skill. This fills a niche we didn’t have.”
Welding is back in demand as the U.S. manufacturing sector is being restored, according to industry experts, who estimate more than 400,000 welding jobs will need to be filled by 2025.
While welding is often self-taught and is offered at the community college level, the Tech Center has not offered welding courses in recent years for its high school students. The new lab will be used for a full two-year program scheduled to begin in the fall of 2019.
Jim Swenson, a veteran welder and teacher who was hired from Newaygo County’s Career-Tech Center, says Kent County’s manufacturing base is ripe for the program. His welding students in Newaygo County were finding jobs in Kent County, he said.
“We’re sitting in one of the biggest markets in the U.S.,” Swenson said. “Eighty-five percent of all consumer goods are affected by welding.” This means welders are highly desired in the workforce, often making six-figure incomes with only a high school degree, he said.
On the virtual equipment, students also learn safety basics without running the risk of injury, Swenson said. “Safety is our No. 1 factor,” he said. While welding relies on technical skills and knowledge, it is also an art, he said.
Kent Career Tech Center welding instructor Jim Swenson explains how the virtual welding equipment helps students learn the art of welding
Saves time, money
The $463,000 virtual welding lab was installed in recent months with the help of a $300,000 state grant. The equipment purchased is compatible with the equipment being used at Grand Rapids Community College.
Before welding classes begin next fall, the Tech Center will have to purchase real welding equipment on which the students can hone their skills, Swenson said. “There’s no job out there for virtual welding,” he quipped.
Nonetheless, the virtual welding lab will save time and money because it simulates the process, which consumes a lot of electricity and creates a lot of waste as students learn the fine art of holding an electrified stick of metal that gets hot enough to melt and join two other pieces of metal.
The virtual tools use only standard household currents rather than high voltage current. They don’t create hot sparks, smoke and fumes associated with welding. They mimic welding on pieces of plastic that never wear out or need to be scrapped. The equipment also can mimic the various types of welding techniques used to bond different materials.
Students using the virtual tools use a simulated welding mask as they wield the welding gun and practice on a piece of plastic. The computerized program grades them on five techniques that need to be mastered for high quality welding.
Andrea Haidle, president of the Kent ISD board, license as welding instructor Jim Swenson explains how the new virtual wedding lab will teach students.
Kent Career Tech Center welding instruction Jim Swerson demonstrates how the virtual welding equipment helps students learn the art of welding.
Kent Career tech Center welding instructor Jim Swernson explains how the virtual welding equipment scores students as they practice the art of welding.
The straightforward message behind “Strive for Less than 5”, the countywide campaign to reduce absences: The more school a child misses, the further they fall behind and the more at risk they are of eventually dropping out.
Kent ISD and Kent County hosted a media briefing recently at the Kent County Building to share that message, backed by statistics presented by Kent ISD data analyst Sunil Joy. There is a 14 percent gap in third-grade reading scores between students who are chronically absent and those who aren’t, with the impact much worse for low-income students, Joy said. Also, students who have been chronically absent every year since kindergarten are performing at levels lower than those never chronically absent.
To address the issue, Kent ISD districts recently created a common definition for chronic absenteeism: missing 10 percent or more school days. Ten percent translates to two days per month or 18 days in a 180-day school year. Then they created the campaign, including flyers, posters, yard signs and a video, with the help of sponsors.
Kent County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Feeney said she helps to connect students who end up in front of her for truancy with transportation, mental health services, housing programs, removing whatever barrier might be keeping them from school.
“We are trying to impress upon parents that they need to take children to school all day every day,” she said. “It all starts with attendance. They have to show up to be successful.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Beth Steenwyk, the consultant hired to review the regional Center-based Special Education programs, says it makes sense for Grand Rapids Public Schools to transfer responsibility for these programs to Kent ISD.
‘Steenwyk says shifting the center programs creates an opportunity for educators to take advantage of the latest research and technology that’s available for special education programs.
‘The transfer of the center programs to Kent ISD makes sense if one looks at how special education has evolved over the past 45 years, Steenwyk says. (see related SNN story:Leaders begin transition of center programs) Legislation requiring special education programs was first adopted in Michigan and the U.S. in the early 1970s, she explained.
‘When state and federal laws first mandated special education for children with developmental disabilities and cognitive impairments, urban districts like Grand Rapids had the most resources to provide those services because of their size and central location, Steenwyk says.
“Special education programs and standards have become more complex thanks to civil rights legislation and federal mandates that have established those students as a “protected class.”
Today, urban districts have a greater need to “hyper-focus” on their core educational missions, Steenwyk said. At the same time, growing suburban districts are sending the centers more students with “super-complex” needs, she says.
Most special education students attend schools in their districts. But some students with complex needs, those with severe impairments or complicated medical issues, ages 3 to 26, are enrolled in the centers, which were created specifically to meet their more complex needs. Early childhood and oral deaf programs provide services to children younger than 3 at home.
Most of the buildings containing these programs, like Lincoln Developmental Center or Pine Grove Learning Center, are owned by Kent ISD, and all are currently operated by Grand Rapids Public Schools. The GRPS School Board voted in August to turn over operations of these programs to Kent ISD beginning with the new school year in 2019. These specialized programs serve nearly 1,400 students from throughout Kent County and part of Barry County (according to Kent ISD).
Special education consultant Beth Steenwyk
Listening to Parent and Staff Concerns
Steenwyk, a Calvin College graduate who began her career at Lincoln Developmental Center 40 years ago, is midway through her review of the center-based programs. Steenwyk is the former deputy director of the Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services for the Michigan Department of Education. The Mecosta County resident consults with special education programs throughout the U.S.
She was hired in May at the request of the regional superintendents association, with the support of GRPS, after questions were raised by parents of students attending the centers and by staff. (see related SNN story:Let’s review center-based programs) So far, Steenwyk has conducted more than 60 hours of town hall meetings and interviews with parents and staff. She recently finished focus group sessions with smaller groups of parents and staff. She expects to send the district her final report and recommendations in early 2019.
During recent focus group sessions, parents told Steenwyk they are troubled by a lack of communication and inconsistent classroom experiences that sometimes overlook the students’ needs in favor of broad-based program requirements.
“Communications seems to be a really hot topic,” Steenwyk explained. Some of the parents said they wished for greater feedback and communications about their children from staff members. Others complained that staff members talked down to them.
But while some parents complained about a lack of feedback from staff, others praised their child’s teacher, saying they were kept in the loop. One teacher set up a Twitter account that included reports during the day, a parent said.
“They’re kind of all over the board as to how they communicate,” Steenwyk told the parents.
During one focus group with 14 staffers, Steenwyk heard complaints about mandatory professional development requirements imposed by the district that did not meet their classroom needs.
Steenwyk says she plans to personally visit each classroom and provide the ISD with specific recommendations for each program. More information, a timeline, FAQs and updates can be found on the Center Program Review pages.
“There are things going on around this country (in special education) that will stop you dead in your tracks,” says Steenwyk. High-tech companies like Microsoft are focused on special education programs as a new frontier. “There are some really exciting technologies emerging out of this space,” says Steenwyk.
This can be “an opportunity for the county to say, ‘This is who we are.’”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Years ago, while teaching automotive service at Kent Transition Center, Mark Larson helped one of his students find employment, and the student loved that job, he recalled.
About a year after he graduated, he visited Larson and told him he lost the job. “They said I missed too much work.”
But it wasn’t that much, the student insisted: “Just like in school: every other Friday.”
It’s that sort of chronic absenteeism, defined as 10 percent of missed school time or 18 missed days per year, that Larson, now Kent ISD’s truancy and attendance coordinator, hopes to target with the recently launched “Strive for Less than 5” campaign.
All Kent ISD school districts have come on board with the campaign which, as the name implies, encourages students not to miss any more than four days of school per year. It was adapted from successful work already done by Grand Rapids Public Schools in conjunction with Attendance Works and the Doug & Maria DeVos Foundation.
GRPS and the foundation shared its materials with Larson and Kent ISD colleagues, who then created the ISD-wide campaign. The foundation also contributed funds toward the materials.
Students who helped make the Strive video strike the “less than 5” pose
Absence Makes the… Grades Founder
Larson said “Somewhere along the line, the perception of school attendance changed from one of primacy — you attend school unless there’s a reason not to — to one of ‘Well, it really doesn’t matter if you miss school, as long as it’s for a good reason.’
“And that’s not true. What we’re learning is any absenteeism, for any reason, is harmful to the learning process.”
Last year, 12.1 percent of students in Kent ISD schools were chronically absent, down from 13.9 percent the previous year. Statewide, 15.6 percent of students in public school districts were chronically absent last year.
The harm from school absences is measurable, said Larson, whose work has become increasingly data-driven. Every 10 days of absence, he said, equates to a drop in one full letter grade. In as little as five absences, Larson said, there can be a drop in standardized test scores. Declines in grades and graduation rates are evident at 10 percent.
“ANY TIME THERE’S CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM FROM SCHOOL, IT’S TYPICALLY A SYMPTOM OF SOMETHING ELSE. OUR APPROACH IS, ‘HOW CAN WE HELP?’”— KEVIN POLSTON, SUPERINTENDENT OF GODFREY-LEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Kevin Polston, superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, said that a few missed school days here and there may not seem like a big deal to a family, but it can quickly put a student on track for truancy.
Bill Fetterhoff, superintendent of Godwin Heights Public Schools, stressed the need for what he called “bell-to-bell teaching.” It goes beyond absences, he said: “To start late or leave early can be devastating to learning.”
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Polston says that absences can be indicative of a variety of challenges that students and families face
A Symptom of Something Else
“It’s not new information that kids need to go to school,” Polston said. “Our parents say the same thing.”
But, he said, issues such a transportation and physical and mental health can be barriers to attendance. Whatever the problem is, Polston said, chances are he’s heard it before. That’s why districts are connected with wraparound services such as mental health services or bus passes — whatever meets the need.
“Any time there’s chronic absenteeism from school, it’s typically a symptom of something else. Our approach is, ‘how can we help?’”
Polston said that with a few exceptions, unless a student has a sustained fever of more than 100 degrees or is vomiting, they need to be in school
A “Strive for Less Than 5” message hangs at the entrance of Kelloggsville Middle School
Spreading the word
Getting the word out about Strive looks different, depending on the district. Kent ISD created communication plans and materials — stickers, videos, posters, and billboards, for example — to help schools spread the message.
At Godwin Heights, Fetterhoff said, some schools are using those materials and others are using novel tactics to increase attendance. North Godwin Elementary, for example, is targeting families with a history of absenteeism with a rewards program that awards gift cards for attendance. Polston said teachers throughout Godfrey-Lee have offered incentive and recognition programs to students for attendance.
While the coordinated public information campaign is new, absenteeism has long been a focus for the region’s superintendents, Fetterhoff said.
Welcome to the 2018-19 school year everyone! Let’s hope this year is our best school year yet. And what better way to kick things off than to talk about state test results, right?
Okay, probably not.
Sunli Joy
Truth is, the new school year also happens to coincide with the release of the last school year’s state assessment data (2017-18) — the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). And for at least a few days annually, the public gets inundated with stories through television, radio, newspapers and social media — all seeking to understand the newest results and their repercussions.Now we realize that most parents have plenty of other things they need to worry about in regards to their child’s education. And it is likely that most busy parents probably don’t fully understand what the fuss is all about, or if M-STEP is something that should warrant their attention. In reality, these results have big implications, meaning we all should have a better understanding of what they are telling us.
For these reasons, we decided to go beyond the simple headlines and soundbites, instead, taking a deeper dive into the test’s purpose and implications. It is our hope this information will equip parents with the knowledge necessary to make meaning of the results for themselves.
Getting Some Background
Before diving head first into interpreting the results, it is important to understand the background behind the M-STEP, including the context in which it exists in our state.
What is the M-STEP?
M-STEP is Michigan’s common assessment system: The M-STEP is Michigan’s mandated state assessment for public elementary and middle school students. The assessment evaluates performance in English Language Arts and Mathematics, along with Science and Social Studies in select grades. The vast majority of public school students—with a few exceptions for special populations—are required to take this assessment during the spring of each school year.
Why are students required to take the M-STEP assessment each year and to what end?
M-STEP is required by federal and state law, and is designed to measure mastery of state academic standards: In exchange for federal and state dollars, public school students are required to take a statewide assessment for certain subjects and grade-levels each school year (Michigan public school students are required to take the SAT exam in high school). More broadly, these tests are aimed at measuring a student’s performance against the state’s academic standards—the subject-level expectations students should be able meet at the end of each grade-level.
My child’s teacher already administers their own tests, why do they need to take the M-STEP too?
M-STEP’s primary purpose is to provide a snapshot of end-of-year student learning across the state: When teachers give students assessments throughout the school year, the primary purpose is to gauge their students’ progress, and make adjustments to their instruction as necessary. Parents also get a sense of how their child is advancing during the school year from the assessments teachers prepare.
The M-STEP does not serve this purpose. Instead, think of the M-STEP as a final exam you would take in high school. Once the exam is over and you’ve received your results, you can’t simply step inside a time machine and take the exam again. Similarly, once a teacher gets their students’ M-STEP results, the school year has already ended. As a summative assessment rather, the M-STEP’s purpose is to provide a snapshot of student learning over the past school year. And because most public school students statewide take the same assessment every year, it’s possible to compare one school’s results to the next.
What happens if my child or school performs poorly on the M-STEP?
Poor performance on the M-STEP has real repercussions both for schools and students: The state uses the M-STEP as one of the primary sources for identifying and intervening in schools that are underperforming or failing. Current state law also requires that teachers receive annual performance evaluations, which in part must be based on their students’ state assessment data.
And while there historically haven’t been prescribed consequences beyond educators and schools, a 2016 state law passed by the legislature requires students unable to pass the third grade English Language Arts assessment be retained in third grade beginning in 2019-20. Though exemptions for good cause exist, in this example, consequences for poor performance aren’t just for adults, but for students.
How to soundly interpret the M-STEP results
Now that you have some background and assuming you are still awake, let’s turn our attention now towards how to best make meaning of the M-STEP.
I’ve heard Michigan’s M-STEP scores are not so great. Should I move my child to another state where kids perform much better?
Michigan’s results aren’t so unique when compared to other states: With each release of statewide test scores, the recent norm for news stories is to point out that Michigan’s students are falling behind the nation. It would lead one to conclude that something distinctively “bad” is happening in Michigan. But as we’ve highlighted in the past, our state isn’t as unique as some would like us to believe. To further demonstrate this concept, we decided to look at state assessment results from Massachusetts and Tennessee—places that experts had previously identified as top education states—as it compares to M-STEP. What we found were headlines not too different than Michigan. While we realize that every state has its own assessment systems—meaning comparisons aren’t exactly apples to apples—the following examples are here simply to illustrate this idea:
According to the 2017 Massachusetts assessment results for third grade reading, 47 percent of students were proficient. In Michigan, 44 percent of students were proficient in English Language Arts for 2017 in third grade.
In Tennessee, 35 percent of students were proficient on the 2018 Mathematics assessment in grades 6-8. In comparison, 34 percent of students were proficient in Michigan.
Now let’s look at a few recent media headlines, putting into perspective our own state’s headlines:
Massachusetts: “Just half of Massachusetts students met MCAS expectations in 2017”
Tennessee: “TNReady testing scores mostly flat, but results dip in high school English”
Michigan: “More than half of Michigan students failed M-STEP literacy exam”
There are clearly areas for improvement. Is this because teachers are doing a bad job or students simply aren’t that smart?
Blaming students or their teachers for subpar results focuses attention in the wrong places: Often when M-STEP results aren’t where they ought to be for a school or district, the immediate inclination is to either blame students or their teachers. This occurs in large part because the major focus of media reporting are often the deficits, with little explanation on “why” such inequities may exist. And when little explanation is provided, it shouldn’t be a surprise that most people would blame either the test takers (students) or the people preparing the test takers (teachers). But by narrowly focusing on teachers and students only, we ignore the systemic reasons that may be contributing to the results. Moreover, this limited mindset distracts us from the questions that need to be answered in order to genuinely move forward:
Are schools and districts receiving adequate and equitable resources to best support student learning—particularly for disadvantaged students who have historically lagged behind their peers? Students face a diverse set of obstacles every day—ranging anywhere from emotional trauma to access to clean clothes. Research from the School Finance Research Collaborative reveals that despite the diverse obstacles students may face, our state isn’t distributing resources equitably to those students who need them the most.
Are we providing schools with relevant and engaging instruction that makes students not only interested in their courses, but able to reach their maximum potential?
Are those schools that are truly making an impact or “beating the odds” being promoted as models for success regionally and statewide?
Does the M-STEP point to a child’s success later in life?
M-STEP is a single data point, and can’t paint the whole story of student success alone: It would be naïve to believe that one assessment given at a single point in time—regardless of quality—can sufficiently predict a child’s future. To be clear, this is not to say M-STEP’s data on content mastery is unimportant. In fact, the Kent Intermediate Superintendent Association (KISA)—a group composed of Kent ISD’s 20 school district superintendents—have anchored three of their four long-term goals on data provided by current state assessment systems.
Rather, we know from our business partners in the region that indicators like collaboration, innovation, teamwork and others are just as vital for life success. Albeit difficult to measure, we simply can’t forget that these matter.
Our purpose here is to ensure our readers are better informed on this complex, yet important topic in public education. Despite its intricacies, the implications behind the M-STEP are too important to overlook.
Ensuring high academic achievement for students is multi-faceted strategy—including the strategic use of data. But it also means understanding what the data is and isn’t telling us. Only by doing so can we truly ensure that success is attainable for all of our students.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Libby Walla, left, shown here with her father, Tom, and a teacher, received excellent services in the early childhood special education program run by GRPS, her mother says, but she feels it makes sense to transfer such programs to Kent ISD
“Libby was never given limits,” Walla said of her daughter’s two years there. “Everybody was just trying to help her work toward her potential.”
But as 19-year teacher in Rockford Public Schools, Walla says it’s a good move to transfer operation of early childhood and other center-based programs to Kent ISD, as the Grand Rapids Board of Education approved Monday, Aug. 6. The change should make program oversight more “cohesive” for students like Libby, who’s entering kindergarten in Rockford’s cognitive impaired program this fall, her mother said.
“The center-based programs are serving all the students in the ISD,” said Walla, a fifth-grade teacher at Lakes Elementary. “It only makes sense to have it be centered around the ISD (and that) responsibility is given to the ISD and all of the districts. It think it helps make every district be a little bit more invested in the center-based programs.”
That’s the aim of Kent ISD leaders who say they are ready to begin a seamless transition to taking over the center programs as of July 2019. The Grand Rapids school board voted 7-1 to discontinue by then operating the programs on behalf of all 20 Kent ISD school districts, currently serving 1,385 students with severe physical, mental and emotional needs. GRPS will continue serving its own special education students who don’t qualify for center programs.
More at the Table
Board members said the time is right to transfer the programs for the benefit of all students in Kent ISD while enabling GRPS to focus more intensively on the needs of its own students. The move makes GRPS part of collective decision-making with other districts rather than the primary overseer, proponents say.
Lincoln School student Olivia Taylor enacts a hand movement with classroom aide Marianne Cool
“GRPS is not walking away from the table, but there will be more people at the table with us,” said board Secretary Kristian Grant. “We’ve all admitted that we need some change. We need more resources, we need more staff for the students, and I’m voting thinking that that means more of that will come to the table when all of the districts are involved.”
Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal and board President Wendy Falb have said the idea has long been under discussion and wasn’t specifically prompted by recent criticism of the district’s special education program. The vast majority of intermediate districts around the state run such programs, they point out.
While expressing gratitude to GRPS for the “fantastic job” it has done over several decades, Kent ISD Superintendent Ron Caniff said he and the local superintendents support the decision.
“It was important for us to follow on this, not lead,” Caniff said. “If Grand Rapids Public were not supportive of the move, we would feel otherwise. Given their support and conversations we’ve had with superintendents, it’s something that we’re embracing, and we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
A Time to Listen
They’ll begin by seeking input from parents, staff and others as part of a Kent ISD-funded review of center-based programs, commissioned this spring with consultant Beth Steenwyk. Listening sessions will be held Aug. 29 and Sept. 5 (see box), to help identify questions about the transition “so we can get to work on what those answers are,” Caniff said.
A big question is how the GRPS staff now working at the center programs will be hired by Kent ISD if they want to transfer, and how those who wish to remain with GRPS will be placed.
Of the 425 center program staff this year, 117 are teachers, while others are therapists, paraprofessionals and other specialists. Those who wish to follow their programs to Kent ISD will have the opportunity to apply, but it will not be an “automatic conversion,” Caniff said, acknowledging many questions must be addressed with GRPS officials and employee unions.
“Just generally, those jobs aren’t going away,” Caniff said. “Those are critical positions. We certainly are going to want to have experienced staff if they’re available in those positions and effective staff in those positions.”
While the pay scale for Kent ISD staff is generally higher than that of GRPS, it remains to be seen what that would mean for teachers and others hired by the ISD, said Mary Bouwense, president of the Grand Rapids Education Association. She said she has gotten many questions from members about pay, whether sick days would be honored, insurance and other issues, which the GREA will “demand to bargain over.”
“Those people are still our members and still under our contract,” said Bouwense, a former special education teacher. “We would want to make sure they get the best they can get in the transition.”
“Those (special education) teachers are in short supply. It will be in the ISD’s best interest to retain them,” said board President Wendy Falb.
Concerns about Transition
Bouwense said she hopes the transfer to Kent ISD will address some of the criticisms the GREA and parents have made about GRPS special education, which continued with half a dozen parents and former teachers who complained to the board Monday night.
Lincoln School student Larkadu Pow enjoys a happy moment with classroom aide Andrea Fisher
Board member Jose Flores, who cast the sole dissenting vote against the transfer, said he fears the perception that GRPS has done “a lousy job” contributed to a hasty decision.
“I just think we’re moving too fast. Without appropriate discussion I feel like we’re doing a disservice” to students, Flores said, insisting it would be “devastating” to them if they got different teachers or schools. Superintendent Neal pointed out most of the center program buildings are owned by Kent ISD, and has said GRPS is interested in renting out its own buildings housing center programs to the ISD.
Other board members argued it makes sense for Kent ISD to run the program, and for GRPS to concentrate more resources on preparing its in-district students for graduation, college and careers.
“This is what the ISD is set up to do, the things that individual school districts don’t have the capacity to do,” said trustee Tony Baker.
Program Origins
Board member Maureen Slade was a student at Grand Rapids Junior College in the late 1960s when a group of GRPS parents began a program at the college for children with Down syndrome. Classes were added over time for students with other disabilities, eventually forming the center programs run by GRPS – an exception to how most programs in the state are run, she said.
Slade worked in GRPS special education for 21 years, as a teacher, director and assistant superintendent, before becoming assistant superintendent for special education at the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, which ran the intermediate district’s center programs. Having worked under both models, she said it’s “in the best interest of those kids” for Kent ISD to run the program.
“The program’s grown, and it’s just right to put them at the ISD where they belong,” Slade said before Monday’s meeting. “If I hadn’t done it both ways I may not have recommended it. But I saw how well it worked at an ISD level when you’re representing all of the districts.”
GRPS and Kent ISD leaders say they’re committed to making as smooth a transition as possible for students and their relationships with staff.
“These families, these children have had a high-quality service,” Caniff said. “We’re very confident we can continue that high level of service.”
Members of the awards committee for the Michigan Council for Exceptional Children spend hours debating applicants for the Teacher of the Year award. From videos of support to written testimonials, it is evident that each applicant is well-deserving of praise, but Michael Spagnuolo stood out and was named their 2018 Teacher of the Year.
Spagnuolo currently serves as the KTC CORE Program Instructor, a specialized training program in partnership with the YMCA that helps equip students with special needs with skills to help them become employable. He also works as the program director for the summer employment program, also for students with special needs.
Each day, he uses the motto “teamwork makes the dream work,” to encourage his students and remind them to work together.
“Michigan has some of the greatest educators in the country, and I feel incredibly honored and humbled to be the 2018 Teacher of the Year,” Spagnuolo said.
Spagnuolo credits his accomplishments to those around him at Kent ISD, Kent Transition Center.
“None of the accomplishments I have worked on would have been possible without the dream or the team,” he said. “I am elated to work for an organization that empowers their staff to ensure every student in every classroom achieves every day.”
Michael Spagnuolo (far right) with teachers from the KTC Core Program (School News Network)
Reflecting on his award, Spagnuolo dedicates his award to all the exceptional educators in the state of Michigan.
“I consider my career path my calling,” he said. “Receiving this award reinforces the joy I receive from being an educator and having the ability to positively impact the youth.”
‘Launch Michigan’ members vowed to develop an agenda for implementing research-driven strategies for a student-centered system that will extend beyond politics and election cycles to give educators the support necessary to encourage, inspire and improve student performance
Business leaders, school management organizations, teacher and school staff associations and philanthropic groups are joining forces to make public education the cornerstone of Michigan’s continued economic recovery.
Launch Michigan, “a diverse, never-before assembled group of business, education, labor, philanthropic state and community leaders,” announced their desire to set aside differences and create a common agenda to improve and better support Michigan’s education system, in a news conference June 20 at the Impression 5 Science Center in Lansing.
So what, you may ask. What’s so unusual about all groups coming together to solve a problem? Unfortunately, it’s quite unusual.
School leaders could be criticized for having a bunker mentality, hunkering down in the face of criticism. Business leaders sometimes criticize without really trying to find a solution. Policy makers sometimes react to headlines without trying to determine the root cause of a problem. There is no one place or institution to draw disparate parties together, which makes it difficult to come together for a common purpose — or even to identify a common purpose.
Fortunately, we have a new set of leaders who have set the past aside in hopes of forging a different future. Rob Fowler of the Small Business Association of Michigan led the way by joining the School Finance Research Collaborative, asserting it is essential for all to have a common understanding of what the experts say is necessary — financially, at least — to achieve the standards Michigan has set for its students and schools.
The Business Leaders for Michigan took a leadership role by saying education is too important a piece of the essential infrastructure for economic growth to allow the current conditions to continue. Both recognized the states that have significantly improved their educational outcomes found business leaders were the catalyst for change.
So, to “Launch” this initiative, the new partners came to the podium two-by-two, with Business Leaders for Michigan’s Doug Rothwell and Michigan Education Association’s Paula Herbart joining together to proclaim the new partnership “a nonpartisan issue … critical to making Michigan a place that we can all live, work, raise a family and call home.”
Broad and Bipartisan Representation
Members — ranging from the American Federation of Teachers, the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, Kent ISD and all of the major Michigan education organizations — vowed to develop an agenda for implementing research-driven strategies for a student-centered system that will extend beyond politics and election cycles to give educators the support necessary to encourage, inspire and improve student performance.
Since this is nonpartisan, and the Michigan Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers were invited to the party, I suppose it’s safe to paraphrase Democratic political consultant James Carville, best known for his advice to Bill Clinton during his presidential campaign against incumbent George H.W. Bush. “It’s the economy, stupid,” Carville said in 1992 and, were he in Michigan today, he’d likely say something equally pithy about education.
Thanks to Business Leaders for Michigan, the Small Business Association of Michigan and the regional chambers that have signed on to this coalition for recognizing we need all segments of the school community, and the communities they serve, to rebuild our education system.
Teachers, be they affiliated with a bargaining unit or not, are our most important investment in the education system. They are an integral part of any reform, and it’s reassuring our business partners recommended their inclusion in Launch Michigan.
We’ve been divided too long. Superintendents and their associations shouldn’t be negatively judged for trying to work cooperatively with the associations representing their staff.
To bring 100 percent of Michigan’s 1.5 million students to proficiency, we must stop pointing fingers and instead extend our hands to forge relationships and partnerships to better understand, and resolve, the inequities and misplaced priorities that result in underachievement.
It’s difficult to predict exactly what will come of this new alliance. We can hope it resembles the close working relationship developed between business and education in West Michigan, where school superintendents and the captains of industry are working to better understand the skills students need to build successful careers, and to make sure they attain those skills.
It’s great to see our work recognized and modeled across the state. Godspeed.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Teacher Carol Kersjes, center top, in a learning activity with children at Ken-O-Sha Early Childhood, one of the Special Education center programs operated by GRPS
After decades of providing special-education services to students throughout Kent County, the Grand Rapids Public Schools Board of Education will soon decide whether to turn those programs over to Kent ISD.
The school board plans to vote Aug. 6 on a recommendation by Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal to transfer operation of the center-based programs that serve nearly 1,400 students from all 20 school districts within Kent ISD. Serving students with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder and severe physical and emotional impairments, the programs are run by GRPS on behalf of all the districts within Kent ISD.
At a work session on Monday, Neal told board members she would like their approval to transfer the 11 center-based programs to Kent ISD by July of 2019. Doing so would benefit both students in GRPS and those from the 19 other districts, she said.
“We have done a wonderful job, in my opinion,” Neal told the board, but added, “I do believe it is time for us to look at another option that will serve in the best interest of our children.”
The move would allow GRPS to represent its own 480 center-program students as part of a greater whole and also broaden oversight to all Kent ISD districts, she said, calling the proposal “a natural progression” of the district’s Transformation Plan.
“It gives everyone a collective voice,” she said. “Whether it’s Grand Rapids or Rockford or East Grand Rapids, we all get one vote.” In a statement sent to GRPS staff and stakeholders, she said the transfer “will ensure greater access, inclusion, and a more direct, vested interest from all twenty districts in center-based special education programming.”
While not predicting how the board will vote, President Wendy Falb said she is receptive to the proposal.
“It makes sense that GRPS focus on their core business, first and foremost … the students of GRPS who live in our district,” Falb said.
Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal, left, discusses her proposal with board members including President Wendy Falb, center, and Secretary Kristian Grant
Follows Program Review, Criticism
The transfer would affect 425 GRPS teachers, therapists and others who staff the center programs. Mary Bouwense, president of the Grand Rapids Education Association, told MLive that staff members’ seniority should be honored and their salary and benefits not be shortchanged if the transition is made.
The proposal follows months of criticism of GRPS special education programs, not just the center programs, by teachers and parents. With board support, Neal has said the vast majority of the criticisms are false, and that valid points have already been or are being addressed.
It also comes amid an independent review of the center programs commissioned by the Kent ISD superintendents in response to the concerns. GRPS conducted its own internal program review last year, which recommended the district review its operation of the center programs. The review found the majority of such programming around the state is provided by intermediate districts, and that GRPS is unique in contracting with Kent ISD and the 19 other local districts.
The recommendation to transfer center programs is not specifically in response to the protests, although those may have “accelerated” an idea that has long been discussed by Neal and others, Falb said. While the board has questions to address, she said she “didn’t hear any strong opposition” at the work session.
“The big question is making sure we’re doing our fiduciary responsibility for the children, whether that’s going to be addressed by the ISD,” Falb said.
She said the proposal makes sense to her, even though it wouldn’t be to the district’s financial advantage. Officials are still calculating the exact costs, but Neal said the district would lose over $1 million in indirect revenue for running the program. Center programs are funded by state and federal dollars, a countywide millage and per-student tuition from districts, said Chief Financial Officer Larry Oberst.
“The deeper engagement across the county makes a lot of sense to me, when everybody’s got kind of an equal buy-in,” Falb said.
Concerns to Retain Teachers
Kent ISD leaders are respecting the GRPS decision-making process, but are prepared to work with the district to ensure a “seamless transition” if the board decides to turn over the program, said Kent ISD Superintendent Ron Caniff.
“Those children are entitled to those services, and their parents have every right to expect those services to be delivered at a high level,” Caniff said. “We’re committed to that if that is the determination.”
Caniff said he has informally discussed the idea with Neal for “quite some time,” prior to the protests, and was not surprised by the proposal. The timing is “advantageous,” he said, in that if GRPS does transfer the program, the review being conducted by consultant Beth Steenwyk would be expanded to help with the transition. Among questions to be answered would be how to handle contractual issues with GRPS teachers and staff in the center programs, he said.
“I would expect if those staff members chose to come our way that there would be opportunity for that to happen,” Caniff said. “But they may not want to, they may decide to stay in the Grand Rapids system.”
Falb and other board members said they hope most teachers and staff would remain with the program — and be well compensated — so that the level of services would remain as good as or better than it is now. Neal and others praised the quality of the staff, which includes 117 teachers, and said they would work collaboratively with Kent ISD to retain those who want to continue.
“We want our staff to have a job,” said Sharron Pitts, GRPS assistant superintendent of human resources. “And we want the students to have the teachers and staff that they have been exposed to and have worked with for these years. We know that they’re good folks.”
Community members, parents and staff gathered for the dedication of Pine Grove Learning Center in 2009. This is just one of the Special Education center programs operated by Grand Rapids Public Schools on behalf of students across the region.
Committed to Quality
Leaders said they’re confident students would continue to receive high-quality services if Kent ISD takes over the center program.
“I am extremely confident, just because I know the caliber of services that the ISD operates. I know my colleagues from the other 19 districts,” said LaMore, the GRPS special education executive director. “But because we’ve done things for so long, the same way, local districts tend to not get involved in the programming. This is an opportunity for all of us to look differently at how we’re in service to our kids.”
Neal expressed confidence services to students would be as good or better if run by Kent ISD, noting many program requirements are dictated by law.
“The superintendents, the ISD, they care for kids just like we do,” she said afterward. “We’re all trying to do what’s right and what’s best for kids.”
Regardless of what the board decides, Caniff said GRPS has been a national leader in special education and that he is “grateful to them for the high quality of service they’ve provided all these years. There’s been cases where families have moved into Kent County because of these services Grand Rapids has provided. A lot of pride there, a tradition of excellence.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Proposed changes in what your kids learn in their social studies classes are drawing fire from some Kent County parents and teachers, as well as many others around Michigan.
About 80 people turned out at the Kent ISD last week for a hearing hosted by the Michigan Department of Education on proposed changes to the state’s K-12 social studies curriculum standards. They include deleting references to gay rights, climate change, and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion; decreasing references to organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and the removal of the word “democratic” from the phrase “democratic core values.”
No one spoke out in favor of the new standards at the hearing, while some claimed the changes are politically motivated. The standards are the state’s expectations for what students are to learn in each grade, though teachers are free to devise their own lesson plans for teaching them.
“To accept the standards as proposed would validate their politicization. You don’t want to go there,” said Jeff Johnston, a Wyoming resident and father of four. “It is a mistake from which we will not easily recover and we cannot afford to make.”
Educators and university experts have been working on the new standards for more than four years. However, some of the changes now under consideration were instituted by a 21-member focus group that included state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in next month’s primary election. Colbeck was invited to join the group after submitting 13 pages of suggested changes, though no Democratic legislators were, according to Bridge magazine.
“This whole thing reeks of someone running for governor,” said Caitie Oliver of Lowell, a social worker for Grand Rapids Public Schools. “I don’t appreciate the education of my students and my children being held captive by people who are using it as a political maneuver.”
Jeff Johnston, a Wyoming parent, said adopting the proposed social studies standards would be “a mistake”
Interest Prompts More Hearings
The hearing was held June 28, the day before state officials extended the deadline for receiving public comments on the standards. The deadline was to have been June 30, but has now been extended to Sept. 30, with a projected spring 2019 date for the standards to be presented to the state Board of Education. Interim State Superintendent Sheila Alles said the extension reflects “the great level of interest” in the changes, and that more “listen and learn” hearings will be added to the 11 already conducted.
However, an official with the state superintendent’s office says the end date is not set in stone.
“There is no deadline. We’ll keep going until we get it right,” said Linda Forward, a senior executive policy administrator with the superintendent’s office. She noted that the current standards approved in 2007 went through three rewrites before being presented to the state board, and additional changes were approved by the board itself.
Forward and Jim Cameron, a consultant who helped write the new standards, agreed the proposed removal of the word “democratic” from the oft-repeated phrase “core democratic values” has generated the most common objections at hearings around the state. Forward says the writers were trying to strike a balance between the use of the words “democratic” and “republic.” The proposed standards add the words “a constitutional republic” in several places to describe American democracy.
“We are a democracy, because we make decisions via democratic process,” Forward said. “We are a constitutional republic, because we are a republic and we were designed by a constitution. All three of those words have real meaning, and getting them in the right place with the right meaning is critical in the process.”
Colbeck was quoted by Bridge magazine as saying the phrase “core democratic values (is) not politically neutral. I’m not proposing core republican values, either.”
Deleting History?
Madelyn Cox, who teaches world history and U.S. history at the West Michigan Aviation Academy in Grand Rapids, spoke out against proposed changes to high school standards that would eliminate references to individual minority groups, including people of color and those who are LGBTQ.
“A lot of these groups are already marginalized in textbooks,” Cox said, noting that she often has to do her own research to address the lack of information in textbooks on these groups. “I think if we continue to write these groups out of our textbooks and our standards, we’re going to write them out of history. I don’t think we can let that happen.”
The new standards also added in language, backed by Sen. Colbeck, on “how the expansion of rights for some groups can be viewed as an infringement of rights and freedoms of others.”
Cameron, the MDOE consultant and a former social studies teacher in Saline, issued a word of caution about the proposed standards, saying just because something is not included does not mean an individual teacher cannot teach the subject matter.
“How you teach, what you teach is a classroom decision, an instructional decision,” Cameron said. “Those are left up to local schools, local districts to decide which examples to include or not to include.”
‘Launch Michigan’ members vowed to develop an agenda for implementing research-driven strategies for a student-centered system that will extend beyond politics and election cycles to give educators the support necessary to encourage, inspire and improve student performance (Photo provided by School News Network)
Business leaders, school management organizations, teacher and school staff associations and philanthropic groups are joining forces to make public education the cornerstone of Michigan’s continued economic recovery.
Launch Michigan, “a diverse, never-before assembled group of business, education, labor, philanthropic state and community leaders,” announced their desire to set aside differences and create a common agenda to improve and better support Michigan’s education system, in a news conference June 20 at the Impression 5 Science Center in Lansing.
So what, you may ask. What’s so unusual about all groups coming together to solve a problem? Unfortunately, it’s quite unusual.
School leaders could be criticized for having a bunker mentality, hunkering down in the face of criticism. Business leaders sometimes criticize without really trying to find a solution. Policy makers sometimes react to headlines without trying to determine the root cause of a problem. There is no one place or institution to draw disparate parties together, which makes it difficult to come together for a common purpose — or even to identify a common purpose.
Fortunately, we have a new set of leaders who have set the past aside in hopes of forging a different future. Rob Fowler of the Small Business Association of Michigan led the way by joining the School Finance Research Collaborative, asserting it is essential for all to have a common understanding of what the experts say is necessary — financially, at least — to achieve the standards Michigan has set for its students and schools.
The Business Leaders for Michigan took a leadership role by saying education is too important a piece of the essential infrastructure for economic growth to allow the current conditions to continue. Both recognized the states that have significantly improved their educational outcomes found business leaders were the catalyst for change.
So, to “Launch” this initiative, the new partners came to the podium two-by-two, with Business Leaders for Michigan’s Doug Rothwell and Michigan Education Association’s Paula Herbart joining together to proclaim the new partnership “a nonpartisan issue … critical to making Michigan a place that we can all live, work, raise a family and call home.”
Broad and Bipartisan Representation
Members — ranging from the American Federation of Teachers, the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, Kent ISD and all of the major Michigan education organizations — vowed to develop an agenda for implementing research-driven strategies for a student-centered system that will extend beyond politics and election cycles to give educators the support necessary to encourage, inspire and improve student performance.
Since this is nonpartisan, and the Michigan Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers were invited to the party, I suppose it’s safe to paraphrase Democratic political consultant James Carville, best known for his advice to Bill Clinton during his presidential campaign against incumbent George H.W. Bush. “It’s the economy, stupid,” Carville said in 1992 and, were he in Michigan today, he’d likely say something equally pithy about education.
Thanks to Business Leaders for Michigan, the Small Business Association of Michigan and the regional chambers that have signed on to this coalition for recognizing we need all segments of the school community, and the communities they serve, to rebuild our education system.
Teachers, be they affiliated with a bargaining unit or not, are our most important investment in the education system. They are an integral part of any reform, and it’s reassuring our business partners recommended their inclusion in Launch Michigan.
We’ve been divided too long. Superintendents and their associations shouldn’t be negatively judged for trying to work cooperatively with the associations representing their staff.
To bring 100 percent of Michigan’s 1.5 million students to proficiency, we must stop pointing fingers and instead extend our hands to forge relationships and partnerships to better understand, and resolve, the inequities and misplaced priorities that result in underachievement.
It’s difficult to predict exactly what will come of this new alliance. We can hope it resembles the close working relationship developed between business and education in West Michigan, where school superintendents and the captains of industry are working to better understand the skills students need to build successful careers, and to make sure they attain those skills.
It’s great to see our work recognized and modeled across the state. Godspeed.
Want to know how to prevent accidents in the winter on major highways? Getting refugees without transportation to the Refugee Education Center in Kentwood? How to water your garden from rain water in a more efficient way than you are now?
A solution to a winter driving accident is explained by Santiago Galaviz, left, and Omar Lopez (Photos courtesy of School News Network)
Area students can help. Students from local schools designed their solutions to these problems typically handled by adults, and showed off their work at the first Design Thinking Showcase presented recently by the Kent ISD Career Readiness Team.
Design thinking is about imagination, throwing out wild ideas, not being afraid of failure and a process for reaching solutions, says Eric Kelliher, Kent ISD Career Readiness consultant. It’s where career education involves not just businesses but the community, and it’s being taught to teachers and students in multiple grades all over the Grand Rapids area.
At the Steelcase Town Hall, students set up their projects at tables and told visitors how they worked. Those exhibiting had won contests in which teams from their schools came up with ideas for solving a problem.
The winners were invited to the showcase, where teachers, assistants and more than 50 students showed their work to about 100 parents and business people. Each student was awarded a $100 gift certificate.
Making winter roads safer sounds like what state of Michigan engineers would solve, but an East Kentwood High School team didn’t let that intimidate them. They were students of physics teacher Laura Sloma, and had been studying the physics (like “Why didn’t the cars just stop?”) behind a 193-car pile-up in 2015 near Galesburg. Next they split into teams to create solutions to the problem, and were judged by three Michigan Department of Transportation engineers.
The winning solution involved posts and lights placed a few miles apart on the highway. A red light would show up five miles before the pile-up; a flashing red light would show up three miles before; and a solid red light would be at the two-mile mark. The four-member team’s model showed miniature cars and light poles, plus a video of the 2015 crash.
One of the team’s first ideas was to outfit cars like army tanks.
“You throw out every idea possible, even crazy ideas,” said team member Enrique Lopez, a junior. They moved on to the lights and poles idea, which would be much simpler and cost less. Research behind the final solution involved talking to an accident reconstructionist and people who had at least 10 years of driving experience on winter roads.
Just like in the real world, the work wasn’t easy. “You have to come up with things quickly,” said Lopez, admitting it was stressful.
“It really helped to be applying physics to something that had real-life application,” said Sloma, the physics teacher. “The design thinking process you can apply not only to problems like this, but other problems they’ll find in their careers. It was awesome thing to watch.”
Scarlett Lee reacts to winning a $100 gift certificate
A Shoe, a Dog and Keeping the World Cleaner
Zachary Reep rescued a Doc Marten shoe from being thrown away and his partner Sophia Senz picked up a tacky, chipped, ceramic dog planter at a thrift store. They planted herbs in these and other recycled items to show how “stuff” doesn’t have to be dumped in landfills.
“We can try to make a statement and say this stuff can be repurposed and doesn’t have to serve just one purpose it was made for,” said Zachary, a junior at Kent Innovation High School.
“It holds liquid,” Zachary said of the dog. “Why not? Plus, nobody’s going to want that dog.”
The students even made tea out of the herbs they planted.
“Rather than put the trash in the parks, we figured out how to put the parks in the trash,” said Zachary, who liked how the project connected to real life. “We wanted to show people they played a part in the environment. Everybody’s involved in it, and everyone can make a change.”
His favorite part of design thinking was the brainstorming and throwing out wild possibilities: “It was fun to find out what worked and didn’t work.”
One idea that didn’t make it to the drawing board was a portable garden on wheels. “It was unrealistic and had nothing to do with trash,” Zachary explained.
Thinking Behind the Showcase
The design thinking teacher training and contest were funded by grants from United Way and other businesses.
Zyair Sims tells how the Crestwood community would be able to get to the Refugee Education Center as Dante Hamilton looks on.
“This program met and exceeded our expectations,” said Kelliher, the career readiness consultant. “The teachers did a phenomenal job of embracing this program. It helped students see the connection between education and the real world with problem-solving and critical thinking.” He expects the event to be held again next year.
Crestwood Middle School took on the challenge of finding rides for refugees to the Refugee Education Center in Kentwood. “There are a high number of refugees at school,” said student Zyair Sims, standing by a model of the Creston area. Kentwood Public Schools has about 1,800 refugees and ELL students, who speak more than 60 languages and represent 90 countries.
The students’ first idea was to transport people to the center using Uber, but the cost was too high. Language arts teacher Lakesha Keuchler, coach of the seventh-grade team, says she saw the group’s “a-ha” moment when it decided to figure out how to bring the center to the people instead of the people to the center. Students asked community spots like the library, grocery stores and businesses to provide meeting places for users of the center, and those organizations agreed to do it.
Watering the Garden
Sand Lake Elementary fifth-graders from Tri-County Area Schools built a system last year to use rainwater from the roof of the administration building to water the school’s garden. This year, with design thinking, they took on how to get that water to the garden more efficiently than by watering it with a hose.
One of their goals was to create a system that didn’t use electricity. Students designed a system of PVC pipes with holes to run above the garden. Water collected from the roof went into 50-gallon barrels and was pumped into the garden.
The scope of building the assignment surprised student Mason Walkwitz. “I thought it was going to be a tiny school project,” he said. “We just started in class, then had competition at school, and now we’re at Steelcase.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Turns out, comedian and director Woody Allen was pretty much right when he said 80 percent of success is showing up. In school, as in life, absence is a dead end.
Kent ISD and its member superintendents in 2016 adopted a common definition of truancy as 10 unexcused absences, and chronic absenteeism as missing more than 10 percent of scheduled school time. For an entire school year, that would be 18 days or more absent, whether excused or unexcused. This has been in effect since the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.
While truancy is well known and understood, chronic absenteeism is less familiar, as most absences are excused by parents and, until recently, were rarely challenged by educators. That began to change approximately a decade ago through the work of education researcher Hedy Chang, who is now the executive director of Attendance Works, a national nonprofit seeking to help schools and communities combat chronic absenteeism.
Chang’s research led to the publication in 2008 of “Present, Engaged and Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades.” This report found chronically absent students — those who miss 10 percent or more of school — do worse academically. It also revealed that one in 10 kindergarten and first-grade students nationwide miss nearly a month of school each year. In some cities, the rate is as high as one in four elementary students.
Across Kent ISD, approximately 13 percent of students are chronically absent. Like the national studies, the prevalence of chronic absenteeism varies widely from school building to building and district to district but, in virtually every instance, it is greater in buildings and communities serving the economically disadvantaged.
The effects of chronic absenteeism are profound. Kent ISD researcher Sunil Joy found these students are much less likely to become proficient in math or reading. Just one in four are likely to be proficient in math at eighth grade. Worse, low-income students who are chronically absent have just a 10 percent chance of being proficient. Even more startling is the effect on African-American students, with just 3 percent likely to be proficient if they are chronically absent.
Although proficiency levels are somewhat higher for early literacy among chronically absent children, the numbers are just as stark — and the consequences may be more damaging. Just 40 percent of children with this level of absenteeism in their kindergarten through second-grade experience can be expected to show proficiency on third-grade reading tests. Those numbers fall to just 20 percent for low-income students and 10 percent for African Americans. The probable proficiency rate for Hispanic students is slightly above the African-American rate but below the overall low-income proficiency levels for chronically absent students.
Our districts are working hard to get at this problem. The nearly 50 school buildings within the Kent School Services Networkhave a laser focus on addressing the barriers to attendance for students. The social workers and clinicians of KSSN work to identify and attack domestic issues ranging from mental health to inadequate clothing. This work has been underway for a decade and is cited as a national example by the Attendance Works organization as a success story. So, too, is the “Strive for Less than 5” attendance campaign created by the Grand Rapids Public Schools, which is now being studied for implementation across all 20 districts in Kent ISD.
The value of the Strive For Less Than 5 campaign is its uniform message to all children, families and community partners. Attendance is important, and parents and their children should strive for fewer than five absences a year.
So, with a nod to Woody, let’s all make an effort to Be There. Be in attendance. Showing up is a big part of life, and success. But let’s make it 90 percent instead of 80.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Punxsutawyney Phil isn’t the only one who will emerge with great expectations on Groundhog Day.*
On February 2nd, area high school students will participate in Groundhog Shadow Day 2016 (#GSD16), an event that allows young people to follow (aka ‘shadow’) professional mentors at a number of local workplaces.
Sponsored by Kent Intermediate School District (Kent ISD) Career Readiness, students will get an overview of their selected company’s industry, the day-to-day operations of specific departments, positions available and requirements for successful employment, such as level of education, career pathways and the like.
“The event gives students the opportunity to ‘pull back the curtain’ on the world of work and to experience ‘a day in the life’ at a job that interests them,” said Amy Pierce, Kent ISD Career Exploration Coordinator – Engineering, Advanced Manufacturing, and Construction, who spearheads the event. “Last year 143 students participated; this year we are poised to have 269 students at 45 companies mentoring under 136 community members.”
In 2015, 87.5% of participating students said that the event increased their understanding of career options. Some found that they are already on the right track to pursue the career field that they shadowed. Many made connections that they believe will prove beneficial later on.
“My career aspirations were further strengthened, and I am more confident about how I will go about pursuing these goals,” said one student.
“I learned that my career field is very team based, which I
like,” said another.
A third student replied, “I really like how ‘real’ it was. It wasn’t like the TV shows that center around a profession; this was a real-life experience.”
This year, students will explore such fields as Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; Architecture and Construction; Arts, A/V Technology and Communications; Marketing; Finance; Health Sciences; Engineering; Business Management and Administration and many more.
“The aim is to help students make educated decisions as they contemplate their post-secondary career and academic choices,” said Pierce.
There will be opportunities to interact with a variety of professionals with different levels of responsibility, education and experience, and students may engage in a hands-on activity or demonstration that reflects the skills needed in that sector. Also on the docket is a preview of current or recent projects so that the students can understand some of the potential work demands required.
Participating organizations and businesses include John Ball Zoo, Spectrum Health, Erhardt Construction, FOX 17, City of Grand Rapids; Grand Rapids Opportunities for Women (GROW), Resurrection Life Church, Priority Health, Grandville Public Schools, Grand Rapids Urban League, West Michigan Flight Academy, Amway, Steelcase and others.
*You know the drill: Each year on February 2, Phil emerges from his temporary home on Gobbler’s Knob, located in a rural area about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the town of Punxsutawyney (do not ask me how to pronounce that). According to tradition, if Phil sees his shadow and returns to his hole, he has predicted six more weeks of winter-like weather. (What is not clear is what happens if Phil does not return to his hole.) However, if Phil does not see his shadow, he has predicted an “early spring.” The date of Phil’s prognostication is known as Groundhog Day in the United States and Canada, and has been celebrated since 1887. Source.
It’s win-win, kids. Hidden in the fabric of the lore is the fact that the first day of spring is March 20, which is nearly eight weeks from February 2. So, people complaining about Phil seeing his shadow should just chill. If he sees his shadow, spring is still early by nearly two weeks. If he doesn’t see his shadow, we’ll have an early spring, although just how early is not specified. Even Phil has his limits.
