Accountability Report Card Update

I have been in contact with the Department of Public Instruction's Office of Educational Accountability (OEA) and have been informed that a "glitch" in their system has caused them to upload the report card for the High School with inaccurate information even though it is currently under review.  I was told by individuals from the OEA that the report for the high school would be listed as "not rated" as I previously posted.  Please see the relevant e-mail below:

Dear District Administrator:

This is to inform you that we have received your inquiry related to possible errors in the data underlying the report card for one or more schools in your district. We are in the process of resolving your inquiry and in the meantime, the rating for the school(s) in question will be “not rated.” We will work with you to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and generate new report cards if we are able to confirm and correct data errors.

If you have any questions or comments please contact Laura Pinsonneault.

Debbie Gaffney Dilley

Office of Educational Accountability

Department of Public Instruction

In addition, I have received the following correspondence from Laura Pinsonneault, the direct of the OEA indicating that the DPI is working on replacing the existing report card with one that reads "not rated" as previously mentioned:

Dear Craig,

Thank you for writing.  As I expressed earlier, we have identified the technical issue that resulted in report cards with rating categories being posted to the web, instead of the ‘under review’ report cards.  It takes about 15 minutes for the new versions to re-load and we are working on that right now.  Again, I do appreciate you drawing this to our attention and apologize for any confusion this may have caused.  As Phil said, we should have the situation resolved shortly.

Regards,

Laura

Laura S. Pinsonneault

Director, Office of Educational Accountability

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

Unfortunately, based on my last conversation with the OEA, it looks as though the "technical issue" will not be resolved until as late as 5:00 pm this evening.

I will provide updates as they become available.

School Accountability Report Cards Public Release

You may have heard that the State Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has publically released the new school accountability report cards today Monday, October 22^nd; these school report cards are available through the DPI website at:  http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/oea/acct/accountability.html

The primary purpose of this post is to provide you with some information about the new school report cards which can be found at: http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/oea/parents.html as well as to inform you that the report card for our high school is under review and will not be released until our appeal is finalized; the appeal and subsequent review are due to a miscalculation regarding absenteeism.  I am uncertain as to when the high school report card will be made available however DPI has informed me that we have until November 9^th to submit the data for our appeal; our data was submitted to DPI on Thursday, October 18^th.  In reviewing the school report cards you will notice that both our elementary and middle schools are classified as “meets expectations” which is certainly good news while still providing us with data and information on how to continue to improve.  I am fairly certain that when the high school report card is released, it will also be classified as “meets expectations”.

I encourage all parents to go to this site to find the report cards for our schools as well as other information relevant to what is and has been occurring at the State level recently.  You also have the ability to pull up the school report cards for any other school/ district in the State.

Please contact me at any time with questions.

Sincerely,

Craig G. Broeren

District Administrator

715-455-1683 ext. 119

broeren@prairiefarm.k12.wi.us

Board of Education Sets Levy for 2012-2013

On the evening of Monday, October 15th, the Prairie Farm Board of Education officially set the levy for the 12-13 school year.  As was reported in a previous post, our equalized property values dropped roughly $5.7 million and our State aid (which was certified and sent to districts on 10/15) decreased roughly $92,000.00.  Both of these factors caused the local levy to be higher than predicted but still lower than in the 11-12 school year.  Our mill rate for 11-12 was a 12.9 due to a overall levy of $1,262,265.00; for 12-13 our mill rate dropped to 12.0 (up from the predicted 11.4- 11.8) due to an overall levy of $1,107,774.00.

The 12-13 overall levy is made up of:
1) $960,844.00 for the General Fund
2) $126,930.00 for the Debt Service Fund (building bonds)
3) $20,000.00 for the Community Service Fund (community education)

Please contact me at any time with questions.

Craig Broeren
715-455-1683 ext. 119
broeren@prairiefarm.k12.wi.us

Fall (No Pun Intended) Equalized Property Values

The Department of Public Instruction has just informed School Districts that the Department of Revenue (DOR) has released the fall equalized property values*.  The equalized property values are one piece of the Wisconsin school finance puzzle which effects the local levy and corresponding mill rate; in general the lower the equalized property value the higher the levy to raise a similar amount of taxes as the previous year (assuming the previous year had higher equalized property values)- the opposite is also true.  Unfortunately, Prairie Farm did not receive good news for 12-13.  Our equalized property values decreased from $97,905,240.00 in 11-12 to $92,162,287.00 for 12-13; clearly a loss of roughly $5.7 million in equalized property values will have an impact on the local levy.  How much this will effect the levy remains to be determined because the final piece of the school finance puzzle, our State aid amount, will not be released until October 15th, 2012.

*- I have been asked on numerous occasions by folks who wonder why in some cases they were told by an assessor that their property value has increased while the school and possibly other sectors of government claim property values have dropped.  The answer lies in the term "equalized".  The State utilizes "equalized property values" which are determined based on some fairly complex calculations and take more into account than just the assessed property values of the district.

Please check back for more information as it becomes available.

Next Generation Assessment Sample Questions

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has just released some sample questions for Math and English- Language Arts (ELA) at:

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) plans to have the WKCE replaced and the new Smarter Balanced Assessment in place by the 2014-2015 school year.

2012 Speak Up Survey

Prairie Farm Schools will participate in the National Speak Up Survey for 2012.  

Speak Up, a national online research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow®, gives individuals the opportunity to share their viewpoints about key educational issues. Each year, findings are summarized and shared with national and state policy makers. Participating schools and districts can access their data online, free-of-charge

All schools have been pre-registered and do not need to go through the registration process. We encourage all students, teachers, and parents to participate in this survey to provide valuable data.

If you would like access to your school level admin password so that you can access data for your school beginning in February, please contact Craig Broeren at: broeren@prairiefarm.k12.wi.us

Why participate?

Receive free, online access to your survey results in Feb 2013. You can view results by school or district with national comparisons.

Obtain valuable data with national benchmarks, use the data to design or update programs, secure funding, support grant proposals, engage your business community in new initiatives, and learn what’s important to your students, parents, teachers & administrators.  Use this data towards the evaluation of technology programs and grant evaluation data.

Become part of the national movement to include the views of students, educators and parents in the national, state and local dialogue about key education issues.

Take the Survey!

Directions for accessing the survey are listed below.  The survey can be taken from any computer at any time starting October 3^rd through December 14, 2012.
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Students, Educators & Parents Speak Up!
Open October 3^rd – December 14^th, 2012

Get the pulse of your stakeholders about the use of technology for learning through Speak Up, a National Research Project.  The online survey is open to students, educators (including future educators) and parents; it’s quick and easy to get involved.

1. Go  to this link: http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2012
2. Click on the appropriate survey.
3. Follow the given instructions to access the survey and enter the school name to find your school.
4. Students will choose the grade level and enter the Secret Word below.
5. Administrators/Teachers/Media Specialists will choose the appropriate survey and enter the Secret Word below.
6. Parents will not need the Secret Word to access the survey.
   Complete the survey.

Your survey Secret Word is:  panthers
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Love and Logic Presentation for Parents

Love and Logic co-founder, national speaker, and author, Foster Cline coming to Wisconsin!

Join Dr. Foster Cline for a FREE 2 hour laugh and learn "stand-on-the-chair" presentation that will leave you with "go home and use 'em" Love & Logic tools and techniques for the most common challenges facing parents, grandparents and anybody who cares about kids! Visit dcpfy.org for more information. 

Where: Menomonie HIgh School Auditorium

When: Wednesday November 7, 2012 from 6-8