PLANNING FOR SUCCESS 

BOISE SCHOOL DISTRICT STRATEGIC ACTIONS

Pursuant to Idaho Code 33-320, all Idaho School Districts must publish their continuous improvement plans on the District website. Boise's plan contains five goal areas:

• Quality teaching and learning
• Educational Opportunity
• Hiring, Training, and Retaining the Best Staff
• School Environment and Safety
• Community Relations and Communications

The goal areas really provide a summary of areas of focus. In order to understand how Boise's plan is coming alive in the District, we should look at some of the actions we are starting/continuing. Most can be classified under more than one goal area.

Community Schools

Last year, District personnel traveled to Vancouver, Washington to see that district's Community Schools program. The idea of community schools is to provide coordination of services for students and families in a particular neighborhood. Whether it's help with accessing medical or dental services, filling out required forms, receiving translation help, or other needed services, the Community School Coordinator provides a crucial link for parents and students in need of help.

The Community School model is in its infancy in the Boise District. The first-year locations are all at elementary schools: Morley Nelson, Whittier, Garfield and Hawthorne.

Collaboration Time

The District has worked long and hard to provide collaboration time for teachers in the past several years, in support of the Professional Learning Communities model in place in Boise. Whether through negotiations with the Boise Education Association or through working with principals across the District, the effort to provide such time has been successful, and teachers now have more time to work together for the benefit of students. The latest effort is moving from a six-period teaching day at the high schools to a 5 period day, with the extra prep time partially devoted to providing remediation/extension tailored to student needs.

Facilities Audit

Cincinnati-based DeJong-Richter provides invaluable services to districts across the country, analyzing issues such as capacity, condition, and efficacy of buildings for educating children. Our current partnership (DeJong helped the district do an analysis in 2005) has yielded a trove of data that will lead to approval of a 10-year facilities plan based on the analysis and input from patrons and staff.

DeJong-Richter held two community meetings last month, and will be back on October 17 at 6 p.m. in the Capital High cafeteria to present the proposed 10-year plan to interested patrons.

AVID

The Boise District's AVID program will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in 2016-17, and has provided a legacy of encouraging college dreams for students from the "forgotten middle". There are now almost 1200 students enrolled in the program, and AVID grads are going on to college at a rate of 79%, compared with a District "go on" rate of 61% and a statewide rate under 50%.

College and Career Counseling

The District is coordinating with a non-profit called Step Ahead Idaho to add to our array of college and career counseling services. Step Ahead, which already has a location at the Downtown YMCA, will add a location to expand its services, in coordination with Career Counselors at the five high schools.

Math Interventions - Seminar

Several years ago, we implemented a program known as "Math Seminars", in which teachers have a period devoted to providing "just in time" instruction for students who are in need of a little extra help in their math classes. Students placed in Seminar classes attend their regular math classes, and have another period of math during the day in which they get the extra help.

Career Technical Education Expansion

Beginning in 2017-18, we'll offer the first of three new Career Technical Education classes at the Dennis Center on Victory Road - a program leading to an Electrician apprenticeship. Sophomores will take a class in electrical principles, and then as juniors and seniors will engage in a two-year apprenticeship program which will satisfy the first year of a 5-year apprentice program. The coursework will align with that of the College of Western Idaho.

In the coming years, we will add two other trades to the offering - HVAC and Plumbing. These 3 trades are set to grow by 20-25% in the coming decade, and employers are already finding it very difficult to find good candidates.

Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles

The College Board has a new Computer Science offering known as AP Computer Science Principles. It is much more student-friendly and application driven, and is now offered in every comprehensive high school. Nearly 300 high school students are taking the class this year.

Pre-K

There has been plenty of publicity about the partnership among the City of Boise, Boise Schools, United Way, and other non-profits to create Pre-K programs at Hawthorne and Whitney Elementary Schools. First-year results showed that 83% of Pre-K students scored a "3" (grade-level pre-reading) as they entered kindergarten, compared with 50% of students not involved with the program. This year, we've added another Pre-K session at Whitney to bring the total number of sessions to 4.

These programs and a number of others are keeping the Boise District at the forefront of educational innovation in the state of Idaho. It's an exciting time in public education!

THIS AND THAT FOR OCTOBER

Here are a few interesting articles from the past few weeks:

Job Prospects for College Grads

In "Fear of a College-Educated Barista", Derek Thompson writes about the job prospects of college graduates and cites research about the prospects of STEM-educated graduates versus those in the liberal arts. Though he indicates that grads' prospects are better than those without a degree, he also says:

"This happy news comes with an important asterisk. A large chasm has opened between the fates of young liberal-arts majors and their peers in STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) fields. The former are struggling to find work that pays, at least before their late twenties. The latter are mostly finding lucrative work after they graduate."

and:

"Indeed, the gap between humanities and STEM students is striking. Underemployment afflicts more than 50 percent of majors in the performing arts, anthropology, art history, history, communications, political science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and international affairs."

Are Polling Margins of Error Accurate?

David Rothschild and Sharad Goel report in The Upshot on research done by Andrew Gelman and Houshmand Shirani-Mehr on election polling. The researchers examined the results of over 4000 polls in state-level presidential, Senate, and Gubernatorial races from 1998 to 2014. They found that the margin of error in the polls was twice what was reported with the polling results; instead of a margin of error of 3%, the actual error margin was 6-7%. 

This increase from the stated error margin is due to several factors, according to the authors:

• "voter screens" - often, pollster will try to correct error by asking about the likelihood of voting, but this will often increase the error margin rather than decreasing it.
• non-response error - often, voters supporting the trailing candidate will understate the likelihood of voting in the election, affecting the accuracy of the poll.
• analysis error - pollsters may analyze data very differently, leading to different conclusions drawn from the same database.
• survey working and interviewer bias - though these are viewed as less important in election polling, they may make for large differences in issue-based polling.

As the authors write: "...in reality, we find that the polling average can easily be two points off from the final vote share. For any given race, the polls are consistently too high for one of the candidates and too low for the other."

The Need to Revive Vocational Training

In Forbes, Nicholas Wyman writes about the desperate need to bring back vocational training in schools.

The author argues that, though 2/3 of high schools go on to college, only 40% eventually graduate, many carrying large debt loads. And, even then, those in particular majors are under-employed (see above post).

Wyman writes: "The U.S. economy has changed. The manufacturing sector is growing and modernizing, creating a wealth of challenging, well-paying, highly skilled jobs for those with the skills to do them. The demise of vocational education at the high school level has bred a skills shortage in manufacturing today, and with it a wealth of career opportunities for both under-employed college grads and high school students looking for direct pathways to interesting, lucrative careers."

If you are patient enough to get through all of the ads associated with the Forbes site, this is an interesting read.

KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT CONTINUES DOWNWARD TREND

Across the state, Idaho districts continue to see decreasing kindergarten enrollment, as the echo of the recession results in smaller classes. Though it appears that the downward trend in birth rates may be coming to an end, it's worth watching enrollment trends as smaller classes move through school systems in the next few years.

The Finance Division of the Idaho Department of Education has published an historical review of enrollment in districts and schools across the state, which is very helpful in analyzing trends.

Here's what's happened to Idaho kindergarten enrollment since 2007:

Idaho's kindergarten enrollment has declined by 6% in the past two years, and is now at its lowest point in the last nine years.  These data include Charter School kindergarten enrollment, which us up about 100 students since 2014-15.

Idaho's live birth rates tend to predict kindergarten enrollment five years later. As you can see, if the data remain predictive, we'll likely see at least one more year of lower statewide kindergarten enrollment.

Here are kindergarten enrollment data for five of Idaho's large districts:

As you can see, each of the five large districts had lower kindergarten enrollment in 2015-16 than in 2010-11. Cumulatively, kindergarten enrollment is over 800 lower in these districts than it was just two years ago.

It will be interesting to see the effect of these smaller classes on Idaho's overall enrollment in future years. We know that the 2015-16 first grade class is 3% smaller than that of 2014-15, though K-12 enrollment was 1% larger (about 3400 students) in 2015-16 than in 2014-15.

THIS AND THAT FOR SEPTEMBER

Boise Students Comprise 50% of Idaho's National Merit Semi-Finalists

Forty-seven (47) Boise District juniors qualified as 2017 National Merit Semi-Finalists, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. That's half of the qualifiers in the State of Idaho. Boise has about 9% of the students in the state.

The West Ada District had the second highest number of Semi-Finalists, with 11. 

From the NMSQ press release:

"About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors."

New York Times Magazine Features Boise Refugee Students

Los Angeles-based professional photographer Angie Smith, who has deep ties to Boise (both her mom and dad live here) has published a photo-essay collection in the New York Times Magazine that features refugee students from the Boise and West Ada Districts. It's a truly remarkable piece.

Picture from the Stronger Shines the Light Inside website

The Stronger Shines the Light Inside website provides some background on Angie and writer Hanne Steen, and several stories of refugees in Boise. Her work is featured in downtown Boise for the month of September, at 3 locations:

• City Hall, 150 Capitol Blvd.
• 10th and Bannock
• The Grove Plaza, 826 W, Main St.

First Tee Program Comes to Hillcrest

The First Tee of Idaho is a non-profit program dedicated to promoting positive values and character traits among young people through the game of golf. In conjunction with the Albertson Boise Open, First Tee brought several web.com professional golfers to Hillcrest School on Monday, September 12.

The golfers worked with Hillcrest 4th graders on various principles, volunteering their time with our students. The kids had a blast learning from the pros!

The First Tee of Idaho has donated over $10,000 of equipment to Boise Schools over the past couple of years. Thanks First Tee!

BOISE PRE-K ROCKS!

The Boise District's partnership with the City of Boise, United Way, and other non-profits and donors in the community has resulted in many beneficial programs, including the addition of Pre-K programs at two schools, Hawthorne and Whitney.

In 2015-16, Hawthorne had morning and afternoon sessions of preschool, and Whitney had a morning session. With the administration of the fall Idaho Reading Indicator to kindergartners at the two schools, it's clear that the Pre-K programs were a smashing success.

Hawthorne and Whitney both have high percentages of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. We know that poverty is linked closely to lack of preparedness for school. In 2015,  just over half (52%) of entering kindergartners at the two schools scored a "3" on the IRI, indicating that they were ready to read.

We were excited to see the impact that having preschool instruction at the two schools would have on the preparedness of the children involved in the program. Here are the results:

83% of the entering kindergartners who completed Pre-K at Hawthorne and Whitney scored a "3" on the Fall kindergarten IRI, compared with half of those who had not had Pre-K. That's 20% higher than the Boise District as a whole in 2015, and 30% higher than the 2015 percentage for the state of Idaho.

Four students moved out of district or out of state over the summer. Nine are enrolled at other elementary schools in the Boise District (the scores for these in-district students are included in the Pre-K category in the above chart).

We know that the numbers are small for this first year. 15 of the students in last year's Pre-K program were too young to start kindergarten this year, and so will get another year of Pre-K k at Whitney or Hawthorne. And Whitney has added a Pre-K session for 2016-17.

It's exciting to see such outstanding early results from the Boise Pre-K program. Of course, a ton of credit goes to our two outstanding Pre-K teachers, Grace Ruddy at Hawthorne and Shelia Dengler-Shaw at Whitney, and their support staffers. Thanks to our community partners and to the city of Boise and the United Way, as well.

We will continue to follow this group of kindergartners, and successive groups of Pre-K students, to assess their short and long term progress. What a great start!

IDAHOANS VIEW PUBLIC SCHOOLS FAVORABLY

A new poll from Dan Jones and Associates, published this week in Idaho Politics Weekly, shows that 2/3 of Idahoans view public schools favorably or very favorably. The percentage with those views is higher than that for private schools, charter schools, online schooling, or home schooling.

The percentage of Idahoans choosing a rating of "5" (very favorable) or "4" for Public Schools was 66%. For Private Schools, the percentage was 63%; for Charter Schools, 55%; Online Programs, 41%, and Home Schooling, 38%.

Even when looking at the average ratings for the different options, Public school came out on top in the Jones survey:

The random survey was conducted with 601 respondents, and has a margin of error of +/- 4%.

The Jones survey results would appear to directly conflict with the results of a survey conducted by the Albertson Foundation in 2015, which indicated that "public schools fall short".

THIS AND THAT FOR AUGUST

Here are a few interesting articles from across the web for the month of August.

Seattle School Board requests alternative assessment option

As reported in the Seattle Education blog, the Seattle School District Board of Directors adopted a resolution requesting the authority to pursue an assessment alternative to the Smarter Balanced Assessment. 

The Board vote was 5-1 in favor of the resolution, which says, in part, "This resolution calls upon the state to take all actions necessary to allow Seattle Public Schools to move forward with the use of an alternative assessment."

The Seattle Education blog is written by Sue Peters, A Seattle School Board member, and Dora Taylor, President of Parents Across America.

The blog also references research done by San Jose State University Professor Dr. Roxana Mariachi, and links to an article she wrote about the California SBAC implementation. Dr. Marichi is more than critical of the SBAC; her research indicates that it is an invalid test. The article is a fascinating read.

Public School Paradox

In The Atlantic.com, Alia Wong writes an interesting feature entitled "A Public School Paradox : Why do so Many Presidents Send their Kids to Private School?". which examines the pattern of U.S. Presidents sending their children to elite private schools while in office. 

From the article: "When President Jimmy Carter assumed office in 1977, he did something remarkable: He enrolled his 9-year-old daughter, Amy, in a predominantly black Washington, D.C., public school...Amy became the first child of a sitting U.S. president to attend a public school since 1906. She still is."

Community Schools Initiative in New York City

From the National Education Policy Center in the School of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder, a research review of the Community Schools Initiative in New York City.

The Boise District will embark on its own Community Schools Initiative this fall, in partnership with the United Way of Ada County and other community partners. The Boise initiative is modeled on the Family Community Resource Center Project in the Vancouver, Washington School District.

American Schools - More Unequal Than We Thought

The outstanding New York Times research section The Upshot featured another article by Michigan State professor Dr. Susan Dynarski, indicating that the typical measure of poverty used in education, free and reduced lunch, does little to reflect the "persistently disadvantaged", and that their performance on achievement measures is far lower than what is predicted by free/reduced lunch calculations.

Dynarski writes: "...It appears that years spent eligible for subsidized school meals serves as a good proxy for disadvantage. When we look back on the early childhood of persistently disadvantaged eighth graders, we see that by kindergarten they were already far poorer than their classmates."

(Not) the Answer to Teacher Shortages

Pennsylvania English teacher Peter Greene writes an insightful blog called Curmudgucation, which is one of our favorites. In his most recent post, Greene writes about the Utah State Board's decision to allow anyone with a degree to teach in the state.

From the post: "The board says it's not so bad because local districts can still set whatever job requirements they want. But let's think about this. Which districts will be able to recruit actual teachers by offering better conditions for employment, and which districts will be left even further behind in a talent bidding war? Which districts do you suppose will end up filling classrooms with unqualified faux teachers? Yes, this is a plan that will further shaft students and families of poorer communities."


Well it's not just Districts that are poorer, but also those that are less well-funded and thus have less capacity to hire the best. The net effect is that while Boise may have about the state average in terms of free/reduced lunch students, and perhaps more students who are persistently disadvantaged, Boise patrons are willing to fund education at a higher rate than most in the state, and the District has a supportive culture for its teachers. So, where will the most qualified and best prepared teachers eventually land?