GBAPS board looks at annual academic progress report

GREEN BAY – During its Dec. 9 work session, the Green Bay Area Public Schools (GBAPS) Board of Education received an overview of the district’s annual academic progress report.

“This is the fourth year that we’ve put together an annual progress report that covers primarily the academic portion of the work that we do as a district towards meeting the district goal as set forth by the Board of Education. We also include in the annual progress report information about technology, safety and security, professional learning that's developed,” explained GBAPS Interim Superintendent Vicki Bayer.

“The professional learning plan is developed based on what we're seeing in this annual progress report. So it's all linked to that and school success plans. So this team in front of you and their peers who weren't able to join us tonight spend all year looking through this data and tracking it to determine where do we see areas that are in need of improvement, and what can we do collectively as district office team to support our schools again, the entire goal is focused on student success within our district.”

The report reflects the outcomes of the 2023-24 school, which Bayer said was delayed because the Wisconsin Department of Instruction (DPI) doesn’t release final numbers until mid-November.

“Which is why we wait until December to review it with you,” she added.

“The overall goal of this work that we put into the annual progress report is continued transparency with the public and with the board of education, our parents and our students. We don't hold anything back. You will see the good and the bad in that report, and that's purposeful because we know that we can't solve the problems that are impacting our students' ability to be successful if we do it in isolation.”

The report showed that the class of 2023 increased the ACT composite score for the first time in three years — 16.9 to 17.2 — closing the gap with the state-wide average.

“We are seeing progress in both ELA and math. There was board-adopted curriculum changes last year, and we are seeing that progress. And David Johns and his team will be providing updates to the board very soon on that.”

Bayer also stated that preliminary numbers showed that the district’s graduation rate increased, but need to be verified by DPI.

The preliminary numbers showed an increase from 84.7% to 87.6% for the four-year cohort.

“The number of students taking college credits is increasing, and the number of students that graduate with zero college credits is decreasing. So, we're headed in the right direction in that one as well,” Bayer added.

“You've heard this one before, but industry certification has increased by 28% and as of now this is an unduplicated number. It doesn't reflect students that have earned multiple certificates.”

The report also showed that volunteers in the school district logged 30,627 hours during the 2023-24 school year.

“This is a great indicator of how much this community is dedicated to the success of our district,” Bayer said.

Outcomes for those with disabilities

Bayer also added that the district was “no longer identified as being disproportionate for any of the disability areas.”

The district is also seeing an increase in the number of students with disabilities attending higher education.

Director of Special Education Jackie Bauer spoke to how the post-high school outcomes for students with disabilities are determined.

“When students leave, we keep information on them, and we check to see what they're doing after school. So we ask if they're if they're employed, if they're attending a post-secondary, if they're in the military, and we gather all that information,” Bauer explained. “We do that with one representative from each high school that reaches out to all of our students to gain that information and you can see that we've had a pretty high success rate. We've been doing this in Green Bay for a long time.

“We've been seeing an increase in our students being successful in educational courses, post-secondary options.”

Ethnic diversity support in the district

“326 students in grades one through 12 born outside of the United States enrolled for the first time in U.S. schools in our district,” Bayer said,

 “For 2023-24 it was 326. For the year prior to that, it was 196,” added GBAPS Associate Director of Multilingual Learners Toni Lucia.

Bayer said that 24.5% of district students are multilingual learners, defined as students coming to the district and speaking a language in addition to English or students who already live in the U.S who speak another language at home.

These students receive bilingual services or English as a Second Language services and get additional support for their language development.

Staff said that during the 2023-24 school year, the district saw students enrolling speaking 35 different languages, including English, and that number is even higher this year.