East Troy schools meet or exceed expectations
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Schools came with at or exceeding expectations when the Department of Public Instruction released its third annual school report cards recently.
The East Troy Community Schools scored 74.4 on its district report card, which put it in the “exceeds expectations” range.
“We’re pleased, but we’re always looking to improve,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Amy Foszpanczyk said. “We feel very happy with our scores but our question is: What’s next? How do we continue that growth?
“Of course, we would love for our scores to go up consistently every year, but it’s really the year-to-year growth we’re looking at.”
According to the DPI, scores between zero and 52.9 failed to meet expectations, while 53 to 62.9 met few expectations. Scores between 63 and 72.9 met expectations, while 73 to 82.9 exceeded expectations. Scores of 83 or above significantly exceeded expectations.
Individually, the East Troy Schools all exceeded expectations with the exceptions of the Middle School, which met expectations, and Doubek Elementary School, which doesn’t generate the needed data for the report cards because it’s a K-2 school.
“They don’t have test scores for the cards because the WKCEs are given in the third through eighth grades,” Foszpanczyk said. “So they don’t have the kind of data the other buildings have, we utilize the data we do have but it’s not statewide date.”
Prairie View came in at 74.5 and the High School was at the top end of the exceeds expectations rage at 79.9.
Foszpanczyk said they educators and administrators in the district use the report cards as a way to measure year-to-year growth as opposed to comparing the scores with other schools in the area.
“It’s sometimes difficult because you’re comparing different groups of schools,” she said “We really like to use them for our own growth, we like to use them to keep ourselves in check.”
She gave the Middle School as an example. The only East Troy school to come in with a “meets expectations” score at 70.8, Foszpanczyk said the school had held steady from previous year, when it had the exact same score.
“We’re focusing on where the differences are,” she said. “There were some differences on student achievement and growth over the last two years, but we’re continuing to focus on the growth. We’re looking at the kiddos who might not be meeting those expectations, and we’re also looking at the kids who are high benchmark achievers but not growing.”
Staying competitive
One of the challenges facing the East Troy School District is the fact that it’s surrounded by several WIAA Division 1 schools that because of their size can sometimes offer more to their students. Districts like Waterford, Mukwonago and Muskego-Norway appeal to many East Troy students, especially athletes looking to compete at the Division 1 level, and the district loses twice as many kids out of the district in Open Enrollment than it gets in.
This disparity continues to cause budgetary problems for the smaller East Troy district, making it harder and harder for the schools to expand programing to what it needed to be to stay competitive in the education market.
“We want to stay in that pack,” Foszpanczyk said. “We’re very different in that we’re so much smaller, but we’re looking to maintain that competitiveness and stay with them, that is important to us.”
The surrounding communities
Of the surrounding communities, Muskego and Waterford Union high schools were at the top of the pack with a significantly exceeding expectations grades of 83.9 and 83.3 respectively. Mukwonago High at 79.7 and Elkhorn High at 82.5 both exceeded expectations.
The grade and middle schools for Muskego, Waterford, Mukwonago and Elkhorn almost all landed in the exceeds expectations or significantly exceeds expectations ranges. The only exceptions to that were Elkhorn Middle School (69.5) and Muskego-Norway’s Tess Corners Elementary School (68.1) which both met expectations.
Palmyra-Eagle schools were at the bottom with the high school coming in at a 69.3 meets expectations grade. Palmyra-Eagles grade and middle schools also ranked in the meets expectations range.
The state
As a whole, the majority of Wisconsin either met expectations or exceeded them.
The highest single score came from Swallow Elementary School in Hartland – a K-8 school with more than 600 students.
On the opposite end of the scale, while Milwaukee Public Schools again were the only schools to fail to meet expectations (51.1 score), the lowest score outside of that came from Bayfield, which scored 55.9.
Bayfield, located on Lake Superior, had 72.9 percent of its students listed as economically disadvantaged. Milwaukee Public Schools had 82.7 percent of its students listed as such.
To see the report cards and full details on specific schools, visit apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards.
Staff Writer Jennifer Eisenbart contributed to this report.
