School forms advisory panel

With the goals of improving student achievement and fostering better communication with the community in mind, the Custer School District Board of Education is forming a working group made up of parents, teachers and other school staff as well as community members at large to work on goal setting for the district.
At a special meeting prior to the regular monthly meeting on Monday, the school board formed a committee of eight community members, including both district parents and non-parents, to work alongside certified teachers, paraprofessionals and custodial staff to help set goals for the district for the next several years.
Superintendent Mark Naugle said the idea for the advisory committee came out of the board’s recent retreat. He said the board wanted to get input from parents and other community members “on what they think the district should be focusing on.”
“We just want to engage with our folks and get a few more eyes on our goals,” he said, “and hear their opinions on what we should be focusing on.”
Naugle said the board had set a goal of improving communication with the community and thought one way to do that would be to get more people involved in the planning process.
Noting that prior to his coming back to Custer as superintendent several years ago, the district had gone through a lengthy strategic planning process which sought community input, Naugle said it was time to get more input.
“We really haven’t done that since,” he said, “so this was a way to get some community involvement without going through the entire process which can take up to a year.”
Board members had contacted individuals ahead of time to obtain commitments to serve on the committee and the names were chosen at random during the meeting.
“I don’t know how we would have picked,” said Naugle in explaining the random selection process. “Any of them would have been great!”
Among the names chosen to serve on the team were county librarian Doris Ann Mertz, Amanda Carlin, Nina Nielsen, Arlene Kallis, Emily Dirkes, Dean Suelflow, Caralee Weber and Buzz or Crystal Wiles. Two certified staff from each of the district’s three buildings will also be added as well as one paraprofessional from each building and two custodial staff members.
The first meeting of the group was set for Monday, Jan. 22 in Custer.
Naugle said a universal goal of every school district is improving student achievement. He said he is hoping this team will come up with new initiatives to help reach that goal. He said innovations such as adding honors classes can help meet the needs of students whether they want to go on to college and become professionals or pursue a trade through attending a technical school.
The second part of Monday’s meeting was devoted to reviewing scores from the two instruments the district uses each year to gauge student achievement and progress—the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) test and the Smarter Balance test.
Naugle said the NWEA is done two or three times a year depending on the grade level and is intended to measure student growth throughout the school year. The scores are then compared with students in the same grades throughout the nation.
“In general, our kids are doing very well and showing appropriate growth,” said Naugle of the most recent test results. “They’re within a standard deviation, plus or minus, of the average score in the nation, so they’re where they need to be.”
The Smarter Balance test is done statewide each spring (Custer usually gives the test in April) and compares students in Custer with others across South Dakota.
Over the last three or four years, Naugle said Custer and Hermosa students have done “really well” in English language arts portion of the test but, “math scores, specifically in our high school, have been lower than we would like.”
“We’re not doing as well as we would like in high school math,” said Naugle, “but we’re working on it.”
Naugle said math coaches have been added in the past couple of years to help students who are struggling with math concepts and this year new math curricula is being used district-wide.  
“We’re trying to make sure we’re challenging the kids who can go faster,” said Naugle, “and that we’re helping the kids who are having some struggles.”
Meanwhile, Naugle said math scores in the elementary schools and junior high have been trending upward in recent years.
Naugle said his main goal for the testing is that teachers use the data to identify problem areas and adjust to meet the needs of students.