Tower Rock Elementary uses grant to start SOAR afterschool program

Tower Rock Elementary hosted the Sauk Prairie School Board meeting on Monday, September 23, 2019. In the past, when the school board held their meetings at schools and the community center within the district, the staff usually presented a data report. This year, Superintendent Wright told the schools that they could mix it up and highlight something special about the school. Kelly Petrowski, principal of Tower Rock Elementary presented on the SOAR afterschool program that was started this year after the school received a $500,000, “21st Century Community Learning Center Grant.” This grant was started by the Federal Government as a way to “keep the lights on at school,” said Petrowski. “Whether it be before school or after school, the program needs to meet the needs of the students and the community that it serves,” she continued. The money comes from Federal Government to the state and Wisconsin received $15.39 million, $15.1 million goes directly to schools to run these programs and the remaining goes toward administration costs. Tower Rock will receive $100,000 a year for the next five years. “The idea is to provide robust, academically enriching, physically active programs for students outside of the school day,” continued Petrowski. “When people looked at this rural building they looked at it as a community center, to be a place where outside of the school day, families who live rurally could come and gather and do activities together.” When it comes to Tower Rock, Petrowski feels the grant, “is a really good fit.” For the last two years staff at Tower Rock have been learning about social and emotional learning and student and staff wellness. “With this program we have grown access to our school and the family that we have created within Tower Rock for longer than the school day,” continued Petrowski. Because of this program the school was able to shift some staff members from only being day shift staff to being part day staff and part after school staff. Three of the assistants with the program are high school students. The program started on September 3, 2019 and is accessible to about 60 students. The program will be running 176 days out of the school year. “We know that families rely on it for after care,” said Petrowski. “We have to also run it at least ten hours a week and we have to provide two options for transportation.” The two options for Tower Rock are bus or pick up. The student to teacher ratio is important for this program and it is required 15:1 ratio for students to teacher. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) sets out four goals for the program, these include: challenge youth to develop as learners, support the development of other skills for student success, provide a stable and supportive environment to meet needs of target population and engage families in support of student learning. Petrowski and her team then wrote four local goals around the DPI goals which included, reading and math, increase and variety of physical activity, develop relationships with peers and staff and parent nights that they will carry out throughout the year. “The hope is that families will have an increased feeling of connectedness with the school,” said Petrowski. A sample schedule for the program includes kids starting with a snack and a check in with their team. Next, students have academic enrichment time where they dive into what they are interested that also integrates math and reading skills. Then students have exploration time where they rotate through physical activity exploration and have outdoor play. Lastly, students participate in different clubs like, yoga, STEM, basketball, cooking and gardening. These clubs will rotate throughout the year and students can sign up based on their interests. Petrowski shared a couple of quotes from kids who have been participating in the club. A fourth grader said, “I can’t wait until tomorrow, Ms. Liz already told us what we will be doing, can it be tomorrow yet?” Another student said, “My favorite part of the day is coming to my club.” Graduation Pathway 3 – Competency Model After an introduction by Chad Harnisch, principal of Sauk Prairie High School, Kim Penza, alternative education/GEDO teacher for the high school presented on the Graduation Pathway 3 – Competency Model. “In my first months in the district, it became clear we had a pending crisis which was related to some things about how we calculated credits and how we have students earn them,” said Harnisch. “In 2013, we had 31 students who if they would have passed every class their senior year, they still would not have graduated high school.” At that time Harnisch came to the board to implement Graduation Pathway 2, which allowed him the ability to waive some credits, not required credits by the state but elective credits. With Pathway 3, it was already in the board policy at that point but it was called non-credit based diplomas. “Typically, this happens with a GED test or Individualized Education Program (IEP) credits,” said Harnisch. “But, a year ago we made the decision to bring Kim on board and with her counseling background she brings a different lens to the work with alternative students and she has pursued a competency based approach which fits within our board policies.” Penza explained that with this program students still work towards the fifteen credits of state required credits and it gives them the opportunity to work on the other things that students may need to be successful after high school. “As I moved into this role I found that a lot of students were having a hard time with GEDO test,” said Penza. “Either their skills were so far behind that it would take longer than they were willing to be in high school to get ready to take the test or they had so much test anxiety that the GEDO test was just not meant for them. She continued, “So, I came up with a way a different way that we could consistently give students the skills they need under Pathway 3 to graduate and be flexible enough to meet each student’s needs.” Penza found a competency based approach to education and it includes assessing students’ knowledge and skills and making sure they have the right skills and not necessarily the credits to graduate. To figure how to asses these skills Penza visited other alternative education programs in the area including Janesville and Fort Atkinson. “The Fort Atkinson program seemed like a good fit to bring to Sauk Prairie and make it our own, to have another way for students to graduate,” said Penza. The competencies are still linked to the state standards so they are still assessing the same things that other students are getting assessed in but it’s a different way to assess those students. “This allows students to work at their own pace instead of taking tests every week,” said Penza. “Students can walk away knowing the skills they need to be successful after high school both academically and socially.” Academically, the program works on all of the things they need to get to the fifteen credits that the state requires. The competencies also allow them to give credit for things that students already did in high school. “So instead of starting over and putting them into a new program that might put them behind, I could look at the skills and credits that they’ve already learned in high school, give them credit for it and build off of it, while also giving them additional work to build up the skills they don’t have” she continued. The school purchased the competencies program from Fort Atkinson high school which came in the form of a large book. Penza decided that she also wanted to work closely with the departments in the school because they knew the skills that they were trying to teach students. She is also continually working to make the program better. Penza fills out a sheet for each student that comes into the program which is broken down into each of the different academic categories and they are then given a number to see if they meet that skill which they work directly with Penza on. This means they may have already met the skill through a class they took in high school which they wouldn’t need to repeat. This form includes both academic and life skills. Students then go through lessons in a different format that use the skills they need to achieve and create a PowerPoint around those lessons. In these lessons, students sometimes need to use one skill or multiple skills to complete the assignment. Penza works very closely with the students on these projects to make sure the students learn the skill and can move on from that skill. “Competencies are a great way for us to provide structure for students to graduate using the Pathway 3,” said Penza. For students that graduate form the high school, 80% of students graduate on Pathway 1, 15% graduate on Pathway 2 and 5% graduate on Pathway 3.