The Wrangell School Board met early Monday evening, Sept. 23, to hold a work session on the results of the recent PEAKS tests. The Performance Evaluation for Alaska's Schools is an annual test that, according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, is designed to measure a student's understanding of the English language and mathematics. Students are given the PEAKS test from the third to ninth grade. The tests were administered this spring, and according to Superintendent Debbe Lancaster students can expect to receive individual results in the mail within the next few weeks.
According to the test results, which can be found online at http://www.education.alaska.gov, over 68,000 students were assessed this year. Of these students, 35.72 percent were deemed proficient or above in math and 39.2 percent were deemed proficient or above in English Language Arts. Last year's PEAKS test saw roughly equivalent participation, but found that 36.68 percent of students were proficient or above in math and 42.37 percent were proficient or above in English.
The Wrangell School District, however, was found to be above average compared to the statewide results. The 2019 results report that 148 Wrangell students took the PEAKS test, a participation rate of almost 99 percent. Of these students, from the third to ninth grade, 56.16 percent were proficient or above in math and 49.32 percent were proficient or above in English Language arts. Last year's assessment showed that Wrangell students were 53.06 percent proficient or above in math and 52.38 percent proficient or above in English. So, as Lancaster pointed out, ground was gained in some areas but lost in others. The school district is still above average compared to statewide results.
Diane O'Brien, a Wrangell resident who spoke after the work session, voiced concern that students had lost proficiency in English this year.
"Speaking of grades, we are failing if you just look at our PEAKS grades for the past three years," she said. "There's one grade, one year, that got to 50 percent. Other than that we're in the 30s and 40s. To me, this seems critical and chronic lack of results for our students."
As this was only a work session, no formal action was taken in regards to the test results. However, Lancaster and other board members stated that they needed to find new and better ways to support teachers and to assist those students who fell below the "proficient" threshold.
After the work session, the board called their regular meeting to order. While there were multiple items on the agenda, one topic that got a bit of discussion was not listed. During the "persons to be heard" portion of the meeting, members of the community stepped up to voice concern about a proposed change to the high school's grading scale.
Secondary School Principal David Macri said that the grading scale the school had been using meant students could maintain a 4.0 GPA with grades from 90-100 percent. He raised the idea of changing it back in spring, he said, and it went through several committee meetings from March to May, and over the summer the board agreed to make it so a 4.0 required grades of 98-100 percent, or an A+ starting in the 2019-2020 school year.
"To make a long story short, the public's concerned about it so we're opening the conversation back up," Macri said. "I'm not going to say we are going to change it, but we're open to suggestions."
Macri said that Lancaster requested that a special task force be organized to further review this proposal and to gather more public input, after the public heard of this proposal and it was proven to be a controversial change.
Bruce Smith wrote the district a letter voicing opposition to this change, asking why they set it to 98 percent and not 97, pointing out that the new grade scale gave students a D+ at 67 percent, C+ at 77 percent, and B+ at 87 percent.
"You list that for an A, 93-97 percent, the student will only receive 3.85 GPA," the letter reads. "My review of most other school websites show that the student will receive a 4.0 GPA for both A and A+ and a 3.7 GPA for
an A-."
Ryan Howe, representing the teacher's association, spoke at the meeting to say that the teacher's association had "broad disapproval" of the new grade scale. The way to promote rigor among students was not to tighten up the grading scale, he said, but to change the classroom culture. However, he said that since he recently learned about the task force the district was organizing to review this topic, he is looking forward to seeing how they could work to remedy the situation.
Another voice against the new grade scale came from ninth grader Haven Jack. Changing this grade scale could have a lot of unforeseen repercussions, she said. It could hurt students' abilities to travel for sports because their grades no longer meet GPA requirements, and could potentially lock students like herself out of future opportunities. Jack is a good student, she said, and she studies hard, but she rarely makes grades in the 98-100 range. This has not bothered her, though, because she knew she could still make a 4.0 as long as she maintained an A grade. This new grade scale could be potentially devastating to her and other students, she said.
"I have found Wrangell High School to be a comfortable environment where I am challenged and well taught, but I was told the goal of the entire staff is to prepare students for the world and give them the means to achieve their dreams," she said. "Instituting this impossible grade scale would be a contradiction to the school and it is not going to give our students the chance to be as successful when we are competing against other Alaskan schools for scholarships and college admissions."
The task force to review the grading scale will be meeting soon and taking public input, Macri said, adding that he was one of the first to volunteer to sit on it, but he did not know a specific time yet.
Other items covered in the school board meeting include voting down a contract with Nancy Guthrie as the district's special education consultant, as she had withdrawn her interest. The board also approved of a contract with Meridian Systems for a control system upgrade, approval of various grant applications, and discussion of a proposal by Annya Ritchie to add a "Celebrating School Successes" category to future agendas.
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