At their rescheduled monthly board meeting Monday, the Dolores RE-4A discussed MTSS initiatives, attendance, student data and coach salaries.
The board failed to meet a quorum on Oct. 14. Board President Maegan Crowley was not present Monday, and Casey McClellan ran the meeting in her place.
The biannual multitiered system of supports report was high on the agenda. The district’s focus area is on attendance, according to MTSS coordinator Katherine Freeman.
It was Freeman’s final report to the district, because she has accepted the position of regional coordinator with the Colorado Department of Education.
The district has completed a District Capacity Assessment, which is a “rubric for implementation.” The assessment is used for an action plan.
“We look at our action plan every meeting and update it,” Freeman said. “Some of the things we’re working on currently are supporting our school level team and how they use data.”
They have created a five-step protocol to determine their action steps.
Freeman said all four schools are utilizing their MTSS leadership teams.
“We decided to combine those because we’re such a tiny district, a lot of people wear a lot of hats. We didn’t want to add an additional team,” Freeman said. “Pretty much all of our schools showed growth.”
Freeman also spoke of the district’s attendance and plans for improvement in that area.
“So, our district focus is attendance,” Freeman said. “This was our initial precise problem statement that we came up with in spring of 2023, basically identifying that chronic absenteeism, missing 10% of more of school, is a significant problem in our district, and it has an impact on student success.”
According to Freeman, the elementary school is at 27% chronic absenteeism, down 16% from the last school year. The middle school was also down 16%, for a 32% chronic absentee rate, and high school had 47%, which is 15% less than the year before.
“So, the data is still not great, but we did make some significant improvements, and we surpassed our goal,” Freeman said. “We are hoping to reduce that more this year.”
The next report involved data and student achievement.
The district had been working to see growth in mathematics at the elementary level, and though they didn’t make as much growth as was projected, it was described as “pretty good growth.”
“It’s not a huge gap,” the report said.
Some of the trouble areas noted are sixth to eighth grade, but this year, eighth grade exceeded the predicted growth. They “hit the mark” for ninth grade and were just one point of growth below what was predicted for 10th.
In English language arts and reading, second grade was below expectations, third grade exceeded, fourth grade exceeded and sixth grade exceeded. In the middle school, sixth grade was a little bit below, but seventh and eighth grades both exceeded.
Ninth exceeded, 10th is “right there” and 11th exceeded as well.
It was noted that it had been “a while” since they had received science data, and middle school exceeded, as well as ninth grade.
According to the 2023 data, the middle school did not match the 2022 mark, ninth grade came in below the 2022 data, and 11th grade and the elementary posted their highest scores in four years.
The next item was coaching pay and a proposed salary schedule for the 2024-25 school year. The new coach salary schedule was approved later in action items.
The superintendent job description was also discussed. The board praised Superintendent Alesa Reed for her work, saying they were “pleased.”
Board secretary Clay Tallmadge said he saw no need to launch a superintendent search because Reed was doing well and the district was doing well under her leadership. The rest of the board agreed.
The board also approved the substitute teacher pay as written and the hiring of Emily Tavra as preschool substitute, Karelia Ver Ecke as preschool substitute, Adrianna Harris as elementary permanent substitute, Kenneth Allison as transportation substitute, Carmen (David) Fernandez as grounds maintenance and Margaret Kane as 504 coordinator.
The next Dolores school board meeting is Nov. 11 at 6 p.m.
