From the Desk of Dr. Mark Rollefson Superintendent of the Yorkville Joint #2 School District

June 19, 2023 | Issue #26

"The ship does not make port in time without everyone." - Unknown

Hello Yorkville Partners,

In my humble opinion, there are too many government entities who set goals but struggle with follow through, communication, and accountability. This June publication is intended to serve as that accountable communication.

As we conclude the 2022-2023 school year, I am excited to share with you the goals that were accomplished. In fact, these goals were shared with you in August 2022 when I/we promised to inform you later of our progress.

Setting goals is the easy part. Sticking to a plan and accomplishing those goals is the heavy lifting. Promising the public to report on the progress is where it becomes accountable.

A school-community action team wrote a new 7-year strategic plan that effectively started July 1, 2022. Each year of the 7 years we write a new set of action steps (we call them milestones). As a refresher, or for those like me that really get into organizational systematic thinking and goals, here is a link to the newsletter publication from August 2022.

The chart below shows Pillars and Strategic Objectives established by the aforementioned Strategic Planning Team. While reading the accomplishments below, this chart should serve as a guide. 

PILLAR ONE

For the first year (2022-2023) we have four action steps (we call them milestones). Each of these milestones were accomplished. The chart below provides the milestones with brief explanations to follow.

It may appear that Bill Ticha (Principal) and Katie Nicholls (Director of Curriculum and Instruction) are the only two pulling the weight. This is far from the truth. They are the two primarily accountable for ensuring these milestones are met. The entire staff have various roles and responsibilities in helping this happen.

#1 Yorkville School will improve student growth, close achievement gaps, and place at "Exceeds" or "Significantly Exceeds" for all Wisconsin Public Schools, through ELA and Math achievement, as measured by the 2021-2022 WI State Report Card. In November 2022, the State of WI DPI published the results of all public schools. Yorkville School exceeded expectations, placing our student achievement in the top 11% of the State of WI.

#2 High quality Tier 2 and Tier 3 academic and social-emotional interventions will be implemented by September 1, 2023. All over America it is reported that students (and adults for that matter) are struggling with social and emotional concerns. Arguably, some of this may still be residual from the COVID pandemic. Additionally, there was clearly loss of learning during all of those virtual instruction days. Yorkville School is no exception to these concerns. Identifying and implementing interventions “that will work” is no small task. This has been accomplished and implementation has already started ahead of our goal deadline.

#3 A student extracurricular interest survey will be written and administered to students by October 15, 2022. The Strategic Planning Committee identified athletics and music as strengths of Yorkville School, but other extracurricular activities are very limited. This survey was administered to 5th-7th grade students this past fall.

#4 A committee will be created by October 20, 2022 to study the results of the student interest survey. The committee will share their findings and recommendations for implementation of an enhanced extracurricular program to the administrative team by April 1, 2023. This committee was established and a process was put into place for extracurricular proposals. A non-inclusive list of student interests includes: government, intramurals, robotics/STEM, finance, reading, agriculture, student council, dance, and more. We intend to start small and grow with some new extracurricular opportunities to start October 2023.

PILLAR TWO

For the first year (2022-2023) we have four action steps (we call them milestones). All but one of these milestones were accomplished. The chart below provides the milestones with brief explanations to follow.

It may appear that Bill Ticha (principal), Jeff Genovese (Director of Business Management), and Mark Rollefson (Superintendent) are the only three pulling the weight. This is far from the truth. They are the three held accountable for ensuring these milestones are met. Teaching staff, custodians, office staff, and others all have a role to play in this. The ship does not make port in time without everyone.

#1 A 5-7 year budget rotation for each of the categories of curriculum, maintenance (building/grounds), technology, and professional development will be written and proposed to the Board of Education no later than September 1, 2022. We know that student Chromebooks, IT issues, curriculum development, professional development, and minor maintenance projects are going to exist every year. It did not appear there was a plan to systematically prioritize and budget accordingly. This plan is now developed and being followed.

#2 A district data dashboard will be created by August 1, 2022 to establish an engagement baseline regarding the District on-line newsletter, Principal’s Weekly New News, Facebook, Twitter, and website. As the Nike slogan says, “Just Do It”. We know that today websites, social media, and electronic newsletters are necessary in nearly all organizations. The problem with “Just Do It”, is it assumes it is working. We completely renovated our very antiquated website AND created a dashboard to determine effectiveness. We are able to track likes, shares, opens, and a variety of other data checks to continue or change as the readership and usership needs change. We like where we are at right now, but this can change quickly.

#3 Handbooks including (a) Crisis, (b) Employee, and (c) Student. (Employee includes certified staff, support staff (12 month and school year), substitutes, coaches, and administration). The handbooks for these groups will be updated and approved by the Board of Education by April 2023. Our Crisis Handbook was extremely outdated and not very user friendly. In today’s world, this was unacceptable. A new Crisis Handbook has been written, approved by the Board of Education, approved by the WI Department of Justice, and regularly communicated to staff. A link to a past newsletter article about Student Safety, is linked here. Our Employee Handbook and Student Handbooks have undergone complete “do overs” bringing us up-to-date with best practices, state statute, and systems of communications for all users. All three of these handbooks will undergo systematic review annually, including board action.

#4 All open enrollment available seats, as determined by the Board of Education in January 2022, will be filled with students within 15% of the total cap. This will be completed by October 1, 2022. An over zealous Superintendent (me) likely set this goal too high at 15%. Although we continue to be a destination school district with far more open enrollment applicants than we can structurally handle, we didn't quite make the mark with 15%. We ended up at 19%. Open enrollment and its positive budgetary influence will continue to be studied annually.

PILLAR THREE

For the first year (2022-2023) we have three action steps (we call them milestones). Two of these three milestones were accomplished with the third nearly met. The chart below provides the 3 milestones with brief explanations to follow.

It may appear that Katie Nicholls (Director of Curriculum and Instruction), Jeff Genovese (Director of Business Management), and Mark Rollefson (Superintendent) are the only three pulling the weight. This is far from the truth. They are the three held accountable for ensuring these milestones are met. Teaching staff, custodians, office staff, and others all have a role to play in this. The ship does not make port in time without everyone.

#1 The Yorkville School website will be updated to meet industry standards by August 1, 2022. Done. We worked with CESA 6 and we did a complete overhaul of our previously antiquated website. It looks great, it is user friendly, it has pertinent and current information, and we have received a lot of positive feedback.

#2 A district on-line newsletter will have over 2,500 recipients by November 1, 2022. Again, an over zealous Superintendent (me) likely set this goal too high at 2,500. Considering that the Village of Yorkville has just over 3,000 people including children, this may have been too high. However, we do have 2,200 people receiving the electronic newsletter (e.g. this very newsletter you are reading). Feedback has been very favorable regarding the communication.

#3 A spreadsheet complete with data regarding the number of community related guest speakers, field trips, facility use, and other pertinent partnerships will be established and used throughout the school year. The data collection will begin August 1, 2022 and be maintained through June 1, 2023. This will serve as a baseline and a communication tool. A fair amount of feedback was provided regarding the need to allow the public to use the facility (Yorkville School Building and Grounds) more often. It made us realize that we do not share with the public how often it does get used or advertise how to reserve space. Taxpayers dollars should provide access. We started a simple tracking system. In the months of January and February (for example) the building was used every day/evening other than January 1st by groups, not including Yorkville School sponsored events. A link to a past newsletter article provides greater detail here.

PILLAR FOUR

For the first year (2022-2023) we have three action steps (we call them milestones). Two of these three milestones were accomplished and one was changed. The chart below provides the 3 milestones with brief explanations to follow.

It may appear that Bill Ticha (principal), Jeff Genovese (Director of Business Management), Katie Nicholls (Director of Curriculum and Instruction) and Mark Rollefson (Superintendent) are the only four pulling the weight. This is far from the truth. They are the four held accountable for ensuring these milestones are met. Teaching staff, custodians, office staff, and others all have a role to play in this. The ship does not make port in time without everyone.

#1 Data will be collected including a survey written and shared with a large number of 4K-8 districts in SE Wisconsin regarding salary, benefits, prep periods, sick leave, personal days, post retirement benefits, and other pertinent categories. The survey will be administered by July 15, 2022. The results will be shared with the staff and the Board of Education by September 2022. This study was completed and shared with the Board of Education and the staff. Comparing 46 school districts in CESA 2, and comparing K-8 districts in SE Wisconsin, the Yorkville certified staff (teachers) ranked in the bottom 33% in compensation and bottom 38% when comparing all benefits.

#2 Using as much data as necessary a certified staff compensation and benefits plan will be written, approved by the Board of Education, and shared with applicable staff by March 1, 2023 to be implemented July 1, 2023. A tremendous amount of study, reflection, and budgeting allowed us to propose a new career ladder teacher compensation (salary) structure to the Board of Education. This was approved, now placing our teachers in the top 25% with the aforementioned comparables. Frankly, this would not have happened without the support of our public taxpayers in passing an April 2023 Operations Referendum. We Thank You. We continue to promise to do the work!

#3 A comprehensive plan and timeline incorporating staff development and training using the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model will be written and shared with staff by August 31, 2023. This is the only milestone in which we decided to adjust our approach. After much discussion and research we decided that the PLC model is not the model we want to incorporate as a continuous improvement model. Instead, rather, we will train staff within the Universal Design for Learning model with a focus on developing multiple means to represent learning while increasing means of engagement. 

IN CONCLUSION

We promised you we would set action steps (milestones). We promised you we would follow through. We promised you we would be held accountable AND communicate our progress.

This newsletter serves as that annual purpose! A new set of milestones for 2023-2024 has already been written and shared with the Board of Education. Stay tuned for a July newsletter as we embrace the next set of milestones.

We thank you, the parents, grandparents, staff, community members, taxpayers, and business partners for supporting our school……your school.

We are privileged to work here with such amazing students and community.

I am hopeful this newsletter was informative. Feedback is welcomed. My email address is mark.rollefson@yorkville.k12.wi.us. I appreciate hearing from you.