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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2020)
8A | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2020 | SIUSLAW NEWS LEARNING from page 1A with disabilities graduating and a lower rate. If the system is serving everyone equally, then all numbers would be the same across the board. So if you’re really going to im- prove education in Oregon, putting money toward the 80 percent really doesn’t do any good. You have to bring the bottom scores up. It’s not that those kids don’t have the capacity, it’s that their needs haven’t been adequately ad- dressed. That’s what this is about.” For the underserved pop- ulations, “economically dis- advantaged” makes up the majority of Siuslaw students, which Elementary Principal Mike Harklerode put at any- where from 65 to 71 percent district wide. This cohort tracks above state averages, with an on-track graduation rate of 78.9 percent, com- pared to the states rate of 71.9 percent. As for ethnic minority pop- ulations, Grzeskowiak point- ed out that this cohort also does well, comparatively. “When you’re a non-native English speaker, some think that they’re going to struggle and not graduate,” he said. “The opposite is actually true. Our bilingual students grad- uate at a higher rate than our average population. If they stick with it for the first part, they do better in the long run. English students who im- merse themselves in a foreign language, their graduation rate pops up too.” In fact, English learners at Siuslaw pass at a rate of 66.7 percent, better than the state rate of 53.6 percent. Hispanic/ Latino bests the state as well, with 82.5 percent compared to 73.7 percent. The same holds true for testing, with Hispanic/Lati- no students passing the state math test in 11th grade at 35.1 percent, compared to the state’s 19.3 percent. As for the “underserved race or ethnic- ity” category, Siuslaw comes in at a whopping 40 percent compared to the state average of 18.9 percent. If there’s one difficult spot, it’s students with disabilities. Siuslaw only has a 6.3 percent three-year passing rate, but the state sits at an equally low 6.7 percent. Much of this has to do with the testing itself, Utz ex- plained. “You may have a student with a disability that does not test well,” she said. “They have to test in a smaller learning environment. But if you were to give that kid a hands-on way to show their knowledge, they can do it. So when you’re looking at some of the scores in here, it’s always difficult to factor our different learning style. The test is one learning style. So, is it more important for us to teach to the test, or a more hands on, application approach?” “Teaching to the test” has been a difficult balancing act for all schools throughout the country, especially Oregon. “You’re not supposed to be preparing for the statewide assessment test, and Oregon is the only state in the union that uses its testing as a re- quirement for graduation,” Grzeskowiak said. “Ten other states take the same test we do, but we’re the only ones that use that as a benchmark for graduation. If it’s supposed to be a marker of growth and de- velopment, use it as that. But don’t make it more than that.” Even if the teachers want- ed to teach to the test, they couldn’t — the questions are closely guarded by the state. But if schools don’t do well on state testing, there can be consequences. Even though schools can’t lose funding be- cause of low scores (funding is based on enrollment), they can lose control. “There are schools that are consistently underper- forming,” Harklerode said. “In those cases, the state will come in with greater degrees of influence over what cur- riculum is used and what the teaching requirements are going to be. Schools can lose a lot of local autonomy when they’re consistently under- performing. That’s a place to avoid. It’s not fun to be a teacher or a student in those schools.” Utz added, “It’s not as com- munity responsive. We are way different than Eugene or Portland. How we raise our kids is different.” Then there’s the time it takes to actually take the tests, which is time consuming. “A mental itch that I’ve always wanted to scratch is that fifth grade falls apart at the end of the year, you can set your clocks to it,” Har- klerode said. “It’s largely be- cause they’re ready for middle school, they’re ready for more autonomy. They’re done with this class, this group of kids, this teacher all day, every day. I’ve looked at switching teachers, but it’s tough with testing smack dab at the end of the year. It’s such a big chuck on time, and you don’t want to upset the apple cart right when we’re asking them to sit down with their best ef- forts. That’s a structure of the school year that plays against us.” Ten percent of a student’s time in a school year is devot- ed just to taking required test- ing, most of which takes place in May. That means students are dedicating 15 of out of 17 school days in May to taking tests, just as their thoughts turn to summer vacation. How does Siuslaw raise its state testing scores for under- served populations like stu- dents with disabilities? A definitive answer is un- known, though CTE options can help. Right now, kids can earn a math credit through woodshop, “And then at the entry level science at high school, we’re going into pat- tern physical science. It’s all application math,” Grzesko- wiak said. Harklerode believed that could be a key to bringing up test scores. “Kids being able to earn cross pollinated credits, where you can get a math credit in a construction class, or you can get a reading credit in anoth- er class,” he said. “It’s going to be that kind of creativity, and frankly that’s what I think this money is for, which is those kind of creative solutions where not everything is so singularly tracked.” But one of the problems with getting kids to take these classes is overcoming the stig- ma surrounding them. De- spite the numbers showing that high school classes like woodshop actually help col- lege students graduate, there’s a sense that it’s not important for college. “We have to do away with the myth that college is the gateway to everything,” Grz- eskowiak said. That’s not to say that the district discounts college all together. In 2018, the College Credit Now classes earned almost 1,200 college credit hours for high school stu- dents. “If every credit is about $250, do the math,” Siuslaw High School Principal Ker- ri Tatum said. “That’s a huge step up. I keep going back to people I have personal ex- perience with. My daughter is graduating in three years from Oregon State, with a pre-optometry degree, be- cause of the classes we have at Siuslaw High School. She got 90 credits from Siuslaw that counted toward her degree. She started as a sophomore at OSU.” But even preparing kids for college is difficult, consid- ering the ever-changing job outlook of the world. “Every job we expected to have when we were in school is out the door now,” Utz said. “How can you predict what skills a kid is going to need in math if you don’t know the jobs that there will be? Every day, you hear some new en- trepreneurial job.” Grzeskowiak agreed, say- ing, “We’re trying to prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet.” There’s also cultural differ- ences when it comes to col- lege, particularly for under- served populations. “We’re training kids to go off to college, but that’s the antithesis of some cultures,” Grzeskowiak said. “They’re training kids to come back in and support their communi- ty. ‘Why am I being trained in a system that’s telling me to leave?’ We’re preparing kids to go out, but not necessarily to come back.” For many of those students, absenteeism can be persistent, which is one of the greatest difficulties facing the district. Over the past three years, a large percentage of district students have suffered from chronic absenteeism, missing 10 percent or more of the to- tal number of school days in a year. Only 70.5 percent of Siu- slaw students attended school 90 percent of the days or more, compared to the state average of 76.4. The low- er numbers were across the board — economically dis- advantaged and underserved race or ethnicity. For children K-6, students miss school because of their parents. “Parents think, ‘Well there’s no test today, so it’s not an important day,’” Grzeskowiak said. “That kid’s going to have to get caught up some time, and if you’re expecting the teacher to catch them up, the other 25 kids are going to have to be put on hold. There’s a bit of a selfishness factor to it, be- cause you being gone is now impeding everyone else. It’s a weird dynamic. Is it import- ant? Yeah, we’re building on the curriculum. But is there a test? No, so we’re going to take them home.” For the older kids, it’s gen- erally a student issue. There are those who tell their par- ents they’re going to school but end up at Miller Park all day. See STUDENTS page 9A A weekly roundup of shopping, savings and doings around town. 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