By Ben Rodgers
Editor
DE PERE – The West De Pere School District exceeds expectations, according to its recent district wide report card from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
The district scored a 76.5 out of 100, which is worth four out of five stars.
“We’re pretty proud of the results,” said Amy LaPierre, district curriculum director. “We’ve met or exceeded expectations at all of our schools and it also gives us areas of growth to focus on.”
Across Wisconsin, 83.7 percent of districts met or exceeded expectations, with 96.4 percent of the state’s public schools reaching that mark.
This is the third year that report cards used legislatively-mandated calculations to gauge district performance.
Report card ratings range from five stars, denoting schools and districts that significantly exceed expectations, to one star for those that fail to meet expectations.
Scores are calculated in four priority areas: student achievement, school growth, closing gaps between student groups, and measures of postsecondary readiness, which includes graduation and attendance rates, third-grade English language arts achievement, and eighth-grade mathematics achievement.
Student achievement is broken down to English and math achievement, school growth tracks English and math growth and closing gaps looks at English, math and graduation achievement gaps.
“We just stress this is one piece of data we have for our students,” LaPierre said. “We have lots of data for our students, but this is one important piece we look at and take very seriously.”
The West De Pere School District scored a 74.3 for student achievement, compared to the state average of 63.
It scored a 62.2 for district growth, compared to the state average of 66.
For closing gaps the district notched a 72.2, compared to the state average of 67.9.
Finally, for on-track and postsecondary readiness the district scored 92.1 compared to the state average of 85.
Each area is weighted differently to come to the 76.5 score, that is worth the four-star, exceeds expectations designation.
Specifically, Hemlock Creek Elementary, West De Pere Middle School and West De Pere High School exceeded expectations and Westwood Elementary met expectations.
However, LaPierre said the report is just one assessment. The district uses many including the MAPs assessment, early literacy, running k-5 records, and most importantly, teacher feedback every day.
“If you’re trying to put together a 1,000-piece puzzle, it’s hard to tell what the real picture is if you’re just looking at one piece,” she said. “This is one piece of the puzzle for what we’re trying to do for education.”
In total, 206 districts in Wisconsin achieved the four-star rating.
To view the report cards and a more detailed breakdown of each school, visit dpi.wi.gov/accountability/report-cards.