After reviewing graduation data, Daviess County Public Schools officials are developing plans to help make sure their students are on track for success — breaking their focus areas down to working with fifth-year seniors, current seniors, and students in grades 9-11 with credit deficiency.
Jana Beth Francis, DCPS assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, said during Thursday’s Board of Education meeting that each of the three areas are being attacked with slightly different approaches.
One of the steps being taken for fifth-year seniors is the redesign of the Heritage Park High School night program.
“We are looking at our procedures system by system and making sure there are safeguards to connect with students and make sure those students are making progress on their credit recovery efforts, making sure they’re in the right classes and they get the support they need,” Francis said.
Officials are also finding that some fifth-year seniors want to move to a GED option, “which is going to help them in life and that’s definitely what we want them to do is to make sure they have the credentials they need to go on,” Francis said.
When looking at current DCPS seniors, officials are paying close attention to failure rates. They will be monitoring the grades recently turned in for the end of the first nine weeks and having conversations with the high schools about those grades.
While some focus is on seniors, Francis said the bigger problem was finding out how students get to the point of being credit deficient to begin with.
The district leadership team came up with dozens of reasons and narrowed that list down to focus on specific actions that need to be taken.
Francis said the first is identifying the cause of failure and what educators are doing to support students. That leads into developing a response to failure, such as creating strong summer school programs.
She said the district is also continuing to improve how they deal with mental health issues, including students struggling with anxiety. DCPS is also planning to create a system to better help students transition from middle to high school.
Also among their main areas of focus are providing a “more personal touch” to advising students, as well as reviewing course offerings and making sure the pathway is really tailored to meet the needs of the students.
Francis also discussed another project by district officials, as they are working on “accelerate learning for all.” Over the next six weeks, district officials will meet with elementary and middle schools for reviews regarding the ESSER funds previously allocated to each school.
“We’re going to sit down with each school leadership team and we’re checking for their metrics of success, what adjustments have they made or need to make to the plan, are they making connections to existing programs, and then probably the big one is to start talking about scale and sustainability,” Francis said.
District officials met this week with Daviess County high for a review.
“Principal Matt Mason made a great point, and I think this is a testament to them thinking about scale and sustainability,” Francis said. “He was talking about how their interventionists are able to push into classrooms. The teachers and the interventionist are both working in that same room, and it allows them to learn and work together and hopefully see some better strategies that might be integrated when we no longer have ESSER funding.”
District officials will also be doing school visits where they will observe five classrooms at each school. The information they gather will feed into the district improvement plan.
In other business, the board approved the creation of a Student Success Advocate. The position is dedicated to helping identify students in danger of not graduating on time, then working closely with those children and their parents to make sure needs are met and progress can be made.
They also approved the purchase of eight buses to replace the eight that will be removed from the current fleet. Each bus costs roughly $100,000, but they remain in service for 14 years and are typically driven for more than 300,000 miles.
The board also approved raising the price of cafeteria meals for adults. DCPS Director of Finance Sara Harley said the increase is recommended by the state based on a recent review.
For adults, breakfast will increase by 15 cents to $2.65 and lunch will increase by 55 cents to $4.05. The changes will go into effect Nov. 1. All DCPS students are receiving meals for free this year and are unaffected.
