My work experience is strong in customer service. Listening is something I am used to doing, and it will be no different while serving on the board. I have served several years as the board president for a parent-teacher organization. I also keep current with local politics and government. I've dedicated many hours in the last few years attending school board meetings, along with attending or watching other city and county government meetings. I’m also big on serving and giving back to those in the community, particularly through mutual aid. I am already involved and have a vested interest in our schools and community.
The board already uses the DPI report card score as part of its strategic plan. While I believe student proficiency scores are something we need to keep an eye on and improve, I also believe that growth scores need to be highlighted for their importance. We see learning through growth scores. DPI’s report card is just one tool or marker. I’m especially interested in district assessment trends. iReady, which is taken several times a year, is also used as a part of our strategic plan, but currently with a focus on the proficiency scores. Incorporating the growth scores into our newly proposed strategic plan is essential in giving our community a more whole picture of our students’ achievements. In short, we’re already using the information from DPI, but we need to expand beyond this assessment and proficiency scores.
We shouldn't have to have these conversations, but our district has been dealt the impossible and cannot sustain ourselves financially or academically when state legislators refuse to do their constitutional duties of ensuring a public education for all. I ask our community members to contact your state legislators and tell them we need to increase spendable aid and to close the special education funding gap. Enrollment is down, but our district has an increase in students with diverse needs that require additional funding, and that funding hasn't kept up with inflation. I will advocate for all students for funding increases. The board sometimes has to make difficult decisions, even if it’s not what we want. This is when the community has to come together. Contact your state legislators. Volunteer a couple of hours each month in our schools to support our educators. Community connections are going to be even more vital than ever before if we are serious about student achievement.
I am in support of measures that increase transparency. Yes, I would advocate that our school district and municipalities work together to provide taxpayers with information on how their tax dollars are spent. This is the bare minimum in transparency measures.
I am a former teacher, principal, and central office administrator in four Wisconsin public school districts, as well as an academic staff member at UW Oshkosh. I hold teaching degrees from UWO and a doctorate from UW Madison in educational administration and adult education.
I have served on various boards including Oshkosh Public Museum, Paine Art Center and Gardens, Women's Fund of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, Wisconsin Association of School Boards, CESA 6, Oshkosh St. Vincent de Paul Society, and Project SOAR.
I am a member of the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, a lector and communion minister at my Oshkosh church, and a pie baker for the Winnebago County Historical Society Pie on the Porch program. I have volunteered in two different Oshkosh elementary schools to promote literacy and am currently volunteering up to three times weekly in an OASD middle school literacy classroom. I regularly attend various programs in our schools to support students and staff.
The report card is only one data point and is a lagging one. By the time the districts receive their report cards, students who took the statewide tests are on to the next grade level. The information can be valuable in identifying areas of strength and weaknesses in our curriculum and instruction efforts so that improvements can be made in both areas.
To use data appropriately, the Board should be using these data as well as other data points that can be found on the Department of Public Instruction website such as academic growth, attendance, and on-track for graduation. We need to look at a variety of data in order to have a more complete picture of how our students are doing and how we can help them to be more successful. We need to examine these data, our iReady internal assessments to review growth, disciplinary data, student engagement data, and post high school achievements. We need to be telling the qualitative stories of successes of our students. We can always improve.
While I found the cuts to be gut-wrenching, I also know that we have to have a balanced budget and need to adjust our staffing for the roughly 1000 student decline since 2014-2015.
Our focus must be on student achievement and quality education in the OASD. We need to pursue a review of the cuts in terms of what do we need to continue (and perhaps reassign), what do we need to stop doing, and what can we do better and differently to serve our students. We should be pursuing public/private community partnerships, grants, and private donations. One example of a community partnership is the Read More initiative to promote literacy throughout the community. While the driver education program has been maintained in this budget reduction, the Board's Facilities and Finance Committee will be reviewing possible partnerships for our driver education program in order to reduce the the program deficit. We need to look at budget efficiencies that least impact student achievement.
In order to be open and transparent, I strongly support Oshkosh pursuing listing on tax bills how much goes to public education and how much goes to private/voucher schools. This is important for the taxpayers. While vouchers may be "free" to students and their parents, they are not free to taxpayers. Roughly $9 million dollars are going to Oshkosh private/voucher schools this year, a number that grows every year. Private/voucher schools do not have to follow the same rules when it comes to teacher licensure, curriculum, school calendar, and state report cards that apply to public schools. Private/voucher schools receive more money for their high school students and for their high needs students in special education than is true for these same groups of public school students. I support openness and transparency on our tax bills.
I have a BS in secondary education, and a PhD in chemistry. My experience in high school education includes work as a substitute teacher and tutor, in addition, I have a decades worth of experience teaching college level courses. My work history in both white collar and blue collar positions provides me with insight into what is required for graduates pursuing a diversity of occupations.
The DPI report cards are of limited value. One thing that limits the value is that the DPI has changed the “grading” criteria. However, the information upon which they are based i.e. proficiencies, growth and school demographics, are important indicators of performance (the district has this data, without the DPI report cards). The board needs to look at both Forward exam and I-ready test data to assess the effectiveness of teaching and learning. From my perspective (not being on the board but paying attention to its meetings) the board needs to be unrelenting on their oversight to ensure improvement.
The budget cuts are an inevitable result of declining enrollment. The latest budget cuts are better than the administration's first proposal and necessary. Student success and the achievement gap are both failures in teaching and learning. If real bias on the part of teachers or administrators is seen it must be addressed. If not, improving student success should help to alleviate the achievement gap as well. The board's duty is oversight and the board needs to make sure that administration works for efficiencies and that classrooms are safe places where all students get the education that they need. Oshkosh is not alone in both achievement gap and success inadequacies, we need to look to what has been successful elsewhere.
Transparency is important in government in general. If this transparency is enacted it should also include information on the dollars per student that comes from their taxes for both private/voucher students and public schools. As for educational choice for parents, many see that the public schools are not meeting the needs of their children and/or the worldview that is oftentimes present in the schools is opposed to the parent's world view, for these families a private/voucher school is the the logical choice. The public schools need to improve in order to make the choice to stay a more attractive choice.
It may be better to push the state government to fund school choice with state funds instead of the “current “shell game” where costs are buried in a maze of local finance factors—property values, enrollment shifts, and levy decisions—that obscure who is actually responsible” per Will Flanders of will-law.org''
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