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Date: 12/27/2022
WILLIAMSBURG – Superintendent Diana Bonneville began her presentation about the district’s planned improvements for the coming year and said, “If you want to find out the quick, down and dirty about what our schools are about, it’s the district improvement plan, where we stand and what our vision is.”
According to the district improvement plan (DIP) for the Anne T. Dunphy Elementary School, the bad news is the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the lives of students in significant ways. The good news is the students still continue to outperform statewide averages for academic performance.
Enrollment is down 20 students from 2019, with 11 fewer than in 2021, a 13.6 percent drop. Bonneville suggested the opening more school choice slots and monitoring the student numbers.
Bonneville said, “Those trends correlate with the special populations.”
Special education students make up 13.8 percent of the student body, a few points below the state averages. The numbers also show a 3.8 percent drop between 2021 and 2022, a welcome marker of improvement. The low income category of students, however, shows a larger increase.
While the numbers of children from income-challenged families falls in the middle of the range across the state, in the Dunphy school the numbers increased from 2021 by 6.9 percent, to 35.5 percent. The increase in the last two years was almost 13 percent, a cause for concern.
“It’s interesting to look at the numbers of low income [students], how that has risen,” Bonneville said. “A lot of that can be attributed to COVID[-19], the high unemployment rates in this area.”
Education spending, per pupil, has shown substantial increases in the last two years. The per pupil expenditures increased from $17,987 to $23,334. While the average increase in per pupil charges statewide rose $1,999 between 2019 and 2021, those costs at the Dunphy school increased by $5,347. That increase may be attributable to the pandemic through the loss of assistance from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
“It’s a pretty big increase,” Bonneville said. “We are $4,778 more per student than the state average…It shows how committed the community is to supporting our schools.”
The continued fiscal support is reflected in the impressive MCAS scores achieved by students at the Dunphy school. The scores at Dunphy are higher than the state average in every category of testing. Local students outperformed state averages by at least 6 percent, with grade 4 students showing an impressive 34 point higher score in England Language Arts and a whopping 46 percent higher score on the math testing.
“Anne T. Dunphy School fourth graders were second in the state for MCAS math, which is incredible…That’s really impressive,” Bonneville said.
Dunphy students also showed 17 to 19 point higher achievements than state average scores in grade 3 and grade 5 math testing as well.
The first strategic goal for the district will focus on creating a positive school culture. That will address student needs for well-being, equitable access, safety and cohesion with the district. Bonneville informed the School Committee the objectives are the same for the school and the district and address “the whole child.”
Steps to address the spectrum of needs include surveying students on school culture, improving teachers’ abilities to deal with students with social and emotional challenges, more fully support families facing difficulties, and in spring of 2023, the creation of a crisis team of at least five staff, including Principal Stacey Jenkins.
“All the schools have a different crisis plan, so we can be prepared…in case something bad should happen,” Bonneville said.
Objectives for improving curriculum and assessment include, this winter and coming spring, developing a template for a curriculum map, one of several means to improve performance measurement and better understanding of expectations for parents. A districtwide implementation of Fastbridge benchmarking is a further bettering of performance analysis internal to the school.
The last strategic objective outlined by Bonneville focuses on instruction. In fiscal year 2023 that will primarily involved the attendance by central office staff of the Research for Better Teaching course. Lead administrators will also attend the Principals’ Academy for instructional coaching. That should free principals to focus on instruction rather than building maintenance and other ancillary duties.
“It’s called a balanced analysis model, and we’re not taught that when we take education courses, so it’s kind of a new concept that we’re all just learning about…That will be next year,” Bonneville said.
Bonneville completed her presentation of the DIP by mentioning the district’s home schooling policy, which is undergoing revision. The committee reviewed that policy as the next task on the agenda.