Massena Central School District makes plans to address targeted district designation

Bob Beckstead, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
·4 min read

Jul. 17—MASSENA — Massena Central School Board of Education members have re-approved the state-required District Comprehensive Improvement Plan, which addresses actions they're taking after being identified as a targeted district by the state Education Department in 2019.

The district was identified because a high school subgroup of students — those with disabilities — did not meet the criteria for state assessments, graduation rates and chronic absenteeism.

The state Education Department looks at multiple factors and scores districts from 1 to 4 in several categories, with 1 being the lowest. Massena scored one in those three areas and, although it was for the performance of one high school subgroup, it placed the entire district as a targeted district.

"This goes back to December 2019 when the state Education Department notified us that we had a group of students with disabilities that didn't meet the criteria in New York state assessments, graduation rates and chronic absenteeism, and that we had the accountability of targeted district," Superintendent Patrick H. Brady said.

He said that, since then, district leadership formed a committee and came up with a plan to raise the achievement level of that subgroup of students, "but at the same time, all of our students."

Among the initiatives is analyzing of student data.

"With a math coach and a literacy coach, a district-wide team of teachers will research K through 12 writing processes that includes strategies that can be used in all content areas," Mr. Brady said.

He said they were also looking to increase parent engagement through home visits and increase mental health support to improve a student's connection to school and attendance.

Using i-Ready data, the plan says that 80% of students in grades nine through 12 will show a year's growth in English language arts and math between September and May. i-Ready is an online assessment and instruction tool that helps teachers provide all students a path to proficiency and growth in reading and mathematics.

Special education students will also show growth based on benchmarks, Mr. Brady said.

"We're also looking to continue and expand on our home visits. Attendance is key. It's important. This year part of our district goals was to improve attendance. We saw with the pandemic chronic absenteeism took a large hit. This year was a transition year to bring our numbers back down again. This year, 2022-23, we'll continue to work on increasing attendance, and that includes a great deal of engagement with parents," he said.

They also plan to increase student-centered learning and improve the school environment so that students feel connected to school.

"It also includes social emotional learning, the work that we're doing with our social workers. We added two social workers this year. We're looking to add another one for next year. All of that ties together the academic achievement and the social emotional learning piece. And there's a lot of home visits. There's home visits by our administrators. There's home visits by our social workers. There's home visits by teachers to get students connected to school and to improve attendance, and that work will continue this year with our DCIP plan," Mr. Brady said.

He said they're not sure when the district will come off the state Education Department's list because of Regents test cancellations during the pandemic.

"We were targeted as a target district for 2021 because there wasn't the Regents data, for example, three through eight ELA and math scores. We didn't have that data that would necessarily get a district to show the state that we were improving to move off the target list. We've just over the last couple of years and including going into '22-23 stayed on this list. We won't know until sometime later in the fall whether we will remain as a targeted district or not or some other accountability status," Mr. Brady said.

"But, we will have this plan in place for continued improvement and we do receive funding. Nobody wants to be on an accountability list, but there is $50,000 that comes with it from the state to do some of the strategies that I've just listed," he said.