The Wrangell School Board reviewed the school district's "report card to the public" in their recent meeting on Monday, April 15. The report card, released by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, collected and presented data on the performance of school districts across the state for the 2017-2018 school year. The report card examined items such as attendance and graduation rates, academic progress, teacher quality, and many other factors.
According to the report card. Evergreen Elementary has an attendance rate of 93.09 percent. Stikine Middle School and Wrangell High School have attendance rates of 95.37 percent and 95.14 percent, respectively. Wrangell High School has a graduation rate of 90 percent, according to the report card. The high school also reportedly had no dropouts, while the middle school has a dropout rate of less than 5 percent.
During the 2017-2018 school year, according to the report card, 62.5 percent of students at Evergreen Elementary showed growth in the category of English Language Arts, while 77.5 percent of students showed an increase in mathematics skills. The middle school showed growth rates in English and math to the rates of 67.44 percent and 53.49 percent. At the high school level, 57.14 percent of students demonstrated growth in English, while only 35.71 percent of students showed any growth in mathematics.
"While we're doing well, comparatively speaking to most of the districts in the state, we still have room for growth," Superintendent Debbe Lancaster said. "It's something that the building administrators, and the teaching staff, and I are working on to identify the best strategies to move forward for closing achievement gaps, increasing graduation rates, and working with teachers to make sure kids are reading on grade level by the end of the third grade."
The report card to the public can be found online at http://www.education.alaska.gov/reportcardtothepublic.
Another topic brought up in the meeting was a potential plan to renovate entryways to the elementary and secondary schools. According to Maintenance Director Josh Blatchley, in his capital improvements and maintenance report to the school board, the district is wanting to replace the exterior doors' locks with a key code system. From Blatchley's estimates, this would cost about $36,000 at Evergreen Elementary, and another $30,000 at the high school. This comes out to roughly $6,000 per exterior door.
Board member Dave Wilson expressed surprise at the cost, asking if the estimated cost was accurate. It seemed exorbitant, in his words. Blatchley said that the $6,000 a door estimate was for double doors. For a single door the cost would only be about $3,000.
"The hardware, which is the crash bar, the key and the latch on the outside, and the card reader for the door is roughly $3,000," Blatchley said. "So if you get a double door system, two doors that both open up, that would be $5000 to $6,000 for the door. Not the door, the hardware to open it ... Even a new one of these without the electronic lock is $1,500."
No action was taken to approve or deny these expenditures in the meeting. The school board also discussed the feasibility of paving the elementary school parking lot, and the road that runs between the school and the Wrangell Medical Center. No formal action was taken on this item, either. Other items covered by the school board include the acceptance of a $1,000 grant from Alaska Public Entity Insurance for safety equipment and training and adoption of a resolution stating the district's opposition to reductions in educational funding.
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