Following up on statistics that showed significant problems, Waynesville’s assistant superintendent for curriculum reported that the district’s students have improved their reading proficiency in recent years.
Mike Prater reported at the June 16 Waynesville R-VI School Board meeting that as recently as 2005, only 63.7 percent of Waynesville students from kindergarten to tenth-grade tested at or above their grade level for reading proficiency. That’s far below the district’s goal of 90 percent.
“If you recall I sat here in open session just three years ago at this time and said to you, ‘That is unacceptable,’” Prater said. “One of the mantras we have here in the district central office is ‘Look at the brutal truth, look at the brutal facts,’ and the facts were three years ago we weren’t doing a really good job of teaching reading.”
Those reading levels led to aggressive steps by Waynesville district staff members to solve the problem, Prater said — steps that appear to be working, according to statistics since 2005.
“We took it upon ourselves to have an initiative and began to implement various reading strategies along with professional development with the hiring of additional staff,” Prater said. “You can see that over a period of three years we have risen gradually to the point that as of this year in May of 2008, 78.9 percent of our students are reading at or above grade level.”
Districtwide reading proficiency levels rose to 71.6 percent in 2006, 76.7 percent in 2007, and 78.9 percent this year, Prater said.
Reading proficiency levels are more complicated when evaluated by individual grade level, Prater said. The highest proficiency level in the district — and the only one that meets the 90 percent target — is in kindergarten, where 2008 statistics show that 94 percent of students meet or exceed grade-level expectations. The second-highest rate is for first-graders with 84 percent.
Prater said he “couldn't be more pleased” with the kindergarten reading levels and was also fairly happy with the first grade numbers. While second graders showed considerable improvement from 56 in 2005 to 82 percent this year, third through fifth graders were “a bit of a disappointment” and showed a “fairly significant decrease” in recent years, he said.
“It does cause us to look at what we are doing at the third grade level,” Prater said. “How do we continue good instructional practices, how do we continue making reading fun for students in the third- and fourth-grade level and continue to move forward?”
All of the elementary grade levels showed improvement over 2005 statistics, however. Third-graders rose from 52 percent meeting grade-level expectations to 59 percent in 2006 and 76 percent in 2007, but dropped to 72 percent this year. Fourth-graders rose from 55 percent in 2005 to 63 percent in 2006 and 75 percent in 2007, but dropped to 71 percent this year. Fifth-graders dropped from 64 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2006, rose substantially to 76 percent in 2007, and had a slight decline to 75 percent this year.
Students at most but not all grades of middle and senior high school showed improvement as well, Prater said. Sixth-graders rose from 67 percent meeting grade-level expectations in 2005 to 68 percent in 2006, 76 percent in 2007, and 77 percent this year. Seventh-graders rose from 75 percent in 2005 to 76 percent in 2006, 79 percent in 2007 and 83 percent in 2008.
Statistics for high school freshmen and sophomores are available only for the last two years; freshmen showed progress from 72 percent last year to 73 percent this year, and sophomores improved from 72 percent last year to 76 percent this year.
Progress at the eighth-grade level has been spotty. The percentage of eighth-graders meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations in reading dropped from 77 percent in 2005 to 74 percent in 2006, rose to 82 percent in 2007, and dropped back to 79 percent this year.
Waynesville faces difficult challenges as students move from grade to grade, Prater acknowledged, and the district’s statistics may reflect a lack of academic progress by students who hadn’t actually been attending Waynesville in prior years.
“In our district, we have such a high turnover rate,” Prater said. “How many of those seventh-graders were actually with us in the fourth grade? The challenge that we face in this district, I think more than any other, is addressing the needs of students that transition into our buildings, assessing them quickly, and (finding) appropriate interventions for them.”
Prater said he was glad the building principals were knowledgeable enough about their students to know which individual students, by name, needed additional help and what their circumstances were. Progress was especially good at East Elementary, Partridge Elementary and Thayer Elementary, Prater said.
Efforts by the Waynesville R-VI School District to address reading problems are extensive, Prater said, and include READ 180 for Waynesville Middle School students who are at least two grades behind in reading. At the high school level, the Jamestown Reading program serves students who have individualized education plans.
Both programs are effective, Prater said.
The READ 180 middle school program has 60 available slots; Prater said 24 of its 31 seventh-grade participants scored on or above grade level at the end of the year, and 27 of 31 increased by at least one grade level. Twenty of those students increased more than one grade level in their reading proficiency, he said. For eighth-graders, 5 of 15 students scored on or above grade level, 10 of 15 increased at least one grade level and 7 of those increased more than one grade level.
Of the 27 Waynesville High School participants in the Jamestown Reading program, 22 gained at least one grade level, 16 gained more than one, and eight gained more than two grade levels, he said.
In other business at the June 16 meeting:
• Board members received a report on the school guidance program plans, including plans to identify and offer additional guidance services to children of deployed military personnel.
• Prater reported on plans to send teachers to professional development seminars to address a variety of issues, including ways to improve the teaching of reading in Waynesville. As with other Missouri school districts, Waynesville is required to spend 1 percent of its state aid funding for professional development purposes.
• Jon Oetinger, Waynesville’s assistant superintendent for business and finance, reported that Waynesville buses logged 442,656 regular miles during the 2007-08 school year and summer school miles were projected to be more than 39,000.
• Board members approved a 15-cent per meal breakfast and lunch price increase, reflecting a 20 percent increase in costs to the district of which only 10 percent was passed on to students. The district subsidized the program at a cost of more than $939,000 in the current school year and will spend more next year.
“We talked about the district supporting the program,” said Superintendent Judene Blackburn. “The public might like to know that you are supporting it to the tune of almost $1 million.”
• Board members approved an adult education program in massage therapy that will provide a 600-hour program leading to state certification as a licensed massage therapist, with a tuition of $4,500 to $5,500. That's in addition to an existing program in cosmetology and is intended to be self-sustaining without causing a cost to the district.
Responding to board questions, staff members said the Waynesville program would admit a maximum of 10 students and be held only as an evening class. The closest similar massage therapy program is in Rolla and offers only day classes.
• Oetinger reported that district expenses for the 2008-09 school year are expected to increase, mostly due to increased employee salaries and facility upgrades. The district expects to receive $60 million next year, which includes a $2 million state and local increase in revenue, although there will be a significant decrease in federal impact aid funding because fewer students live on Fort Leonard Wood.
• Board members approved the 2008-09 Comprehensive School Improvement Plan, noting that many of the goals in the previous CSIP plan had been accomplished, including such items as developing a plan to improve reading scores and hiring a volunteer coordinator.