Salem Grade School Superintendent Dr. Leslie Foppe says it is exciting to see the continued improvement of student test scores coming out of the COVID-19 shutdown.
She shared the results of the IAR statewide testing program for all third through eighth graders in English and math and the ISA testing in science for 5th and 8th graders at Thursday night’s school board meeting.
“Our students are still achieving especially ELA [english language arts] across the board we are above the state average. Math about half are above and half are below. And those are things we will focus on and see the strengths and weaknesses on the information we get from the state that shows where the kids are with standards. And then we will try to address that with curriculum and different teacher modalities.”
The district will use its half-day teacher workshop on Friday to do a deep dive into the testing results to find areas that need improvement.
Foppe says overall there has been a bounce back following the time not in the classroom during the COVID pandemic.
“This year much better. Last year I noticed it more just with schedule and routine having to be here all day. And then kids who maybe did not attend a child care or early childhood or Pre-K and then boom you are in all-day kindergarten. It’s hard on them and a hard adjustment. So we are just seeing it’s taking a little longer to adjust but that’s very normal and very expected.”
Foppe feels as the students continue their education career the gap will continue to close.
The board approved its budget for the current school year. It shows expenses of $ 12.4 million and revenue of $ 11.9 million for a $513,000 forecasted deficit. However, the district is still forecasting a $7.6-million surplus at the end of the year. Foppe says the district did have to revive some revenue estimates downward from the tentative budget as a result of additional expenses for health insurance, teachers movement on the salary scale, and receiving more than $200,000 less than last year from the corporate property tax replacement.
Incoming first graders all received new Chrome books at the beginning of the year, while other students were reassigned to the Chrome books they turned in at the end of the last school year.
The board acted on a number of personnel issues. Carter Consolino, Kendra Koch, and Jacob Brandenburg were hired as paraprofessionals, and Colton Shelton as a high school helper for the custodians. The board employed Stephanie Clark as the Math Counts sponsor and Elizabeth Smith as the Student Council sponsor. Letters of resignation were approved from Cara Meyer-Allison as Student Council Sponsor, Jessica Niepoetter as paraprofessional, Leslie Tate as cook, and Josh Towal as custodian.
