Results of the Cambridge Education study of Warsaw and area schools show that while Warsaw Community Schools is doing a good job, there’s room for improvement. Cambridge Vice President Tim Boyce and OrthoWorx Executive Director Brad Bishop presented the findings to the Warsaw School Board Monday night. A public session about the findings will be held at the Grace College Orthopedic Capital Center at 5 p.m. today. Prior to the school board meeting Monday, Boyce and Bishop shared the findings in an interview. To gather the information for the study, Boyce said a public meeting was held in November. A questionnaire was handed out to all who attended. Most answering the questionnaire were satisfied with the school corporation, but said it could be better. Cambridge analyzed statistical data from the Indiana Department of Education website, which compared the city’s schools with the state, using Adequate Yearly Progress. Looking at the most recent AYP information available, they found three elementaries, both middle schools and the high school didn’t make AYP. On-site reviews were made of the elementary, middle and high schools, as well as the Warsaw Area Career Center and the Alternative Learning Center. Looking at those, Boyce said, they found good and bad. The main academic concerns were the achievement gaps, which are reflected in the AYP results, Boyce said. One of Cambridge’s top recommendations is for the school system to “work with urgency to close achievement gaps between the different student subgroups.” Subgroups may include special education, free and/or reduced lunch or English language learners. “About 18 percent of the population are not consistently being well served,” Boyce said. “It isn’t any big deal,” he said, “but we certainly feel the corporation could do a bit more.” Looking at the district, Boyce said, Cambridge’s main concern was that there wasn’t a strategic plan in place. Recently, WCS Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz has spurred on strategic planning for the corporation. Boyce said that was a very welcomed move. “The strategic planning process is a mechanism to focus on what the community wants (the school corporation) to focus on,” Bishop said. The specific recommendation from the study states that WCS “should develop a clear vision and mission statements, along with strategies for achieving those goals”. A second recommendation is that “individual schools within the system should develop individual vision and mission statements, along with strategies for achieving those goals.” While the study was conducted in part looking at AYP results, test results weren’t the only things Cambridge looked at for its analysis. Washington Elementary School may not have the greatest test scores, Boyce said, but the school is doing an all-around good job. Its curriculum is very broad and enriching. Schools today now spend more time on English and math so other areas, like science and social studies, get squeezed. Prospective employees for area businesses like the orthopedic companies are looking for opportunities for their children like dance, theater, science, etc. Boyce said they were delighted with the Project Lead The Way classes available at the high school. The classes even have orthopedic companies coming in to see how the research in those classes are going. “We’re encouraging the system to develop that further,” Boyce said, as it not only benefits the students and school but the city as well. “We want the curriculum to be brought back to where it was before everyone got reactive to test scores,” Boyce said. He said they found little science and social studies going on in schools except for in the grades that were tested in those areas. Students should get more of them and at earlier ages. “This is imminently doable,” Boyce said. Another recommendation is that “the elementary schools should seek ways of expanding the depth, breadth and quality of their curriculums.” English skills could be incorporated into the areas of science, math and social studies. Boyce said subject areas can be blended. “We encourage them to look at things afresh,” he said. The middle schools’ and high school’s curriculum is not as bad, he said. It’s the lower grades that need work. One recommendation is that the school system “should consider establishing ‘theme’ schools at the elementary and middle schools levels to focus on areas such as science and technology, performing arts, world languages and culture, environmental education, sports and leisure, global education and politics, world civilizations and literature and communications.” Two recommendations are that the system “should ensure that all students in every grade level” have at least two hours of science per week and two hours of social studies per week, and that the system should appoint a “science and technology champion” and a “social studies champion” to coordinate best practices among all schools. The system also should “explore the introduction of a world language in grades kindergarten through grade six,” and Boyce suggested that language be Spanish. That would support social integration as well as language understanding, he said. While the elementary school principals are good managers, Boyce said, another recommendation from the study is that the “principals be trained to more effectively monitor the quality of learning and teaching in classrooms and to provide constructive feedback that would help them to improve their professional practice.” The study also looked at three schools in the Warsaw area but not in the Warsaw School System. Those schools included Lakeland Christian Academy, Sacred Heart and Warsaw Christian School. Each of those three schools were judged to be “established,” a standard better than that found in many of the Warsaw Community School Corp. schools. WCS also was compared to western Fort Wayne schools and the Round Rock Texas school district. Round Rock was selected because of its proximity to a cluster of medical device and orthopedic companies in the Austin, Texas, area, according to Bishop. While the results weren’t disastrous, according to Boyce, WCS didn’t do as well as Round Rock. Information to compare WCS to Round Rock was taken from Great Schools, which can be found online at www.greatschools.org This morning, Hintz said in a telephone call, that he was deeply grateful for the review OrthoWorx gave to the school corporation. Hintz said WCS will use the information as it plans for the future. The information comes in at the right time as the school corporation begins its strategic planning. “It just can’t be taken for granted. I want to thank Brad Bishop and the OrthoWorx board for initiating the study. We will take the results very seriously,” said Hintz. A summary of the study’s analysis and conclusions can be accessed online at www.orthoworxindiana.com/cambridgestudy
