Our Kids Say It Best

Yesterday’s phenomenal February weather provided the opportunity for me to hit the bike trail for a 20 mile pedal. For me, biking is a time to release my mind and just muse and reflect. This serves as a reboot for me and allows me to gain perspective.

On this ride, my thoughts went to Milton students. A couple of weeks ago I met with several high school kids. I posed some open ended questions to them and just listened to their responses. These questions have no right or wrong answers. They simply elicit thoughts and responses – not unlike a writing prompt. I was struck by their responses to the extent that I feel compelled to share them with my readers.

To the question, “If you could take out a full-page ad in the New York Times, and you had only three words or three concepts to describe MHS to the world, what would be your three words?” I heard:

Technologically advanced.

High student involvement.

Our foundation.

Our fellowship.

Great experience.

Many opportunities.

Great education.

We attract students from other districts.

To the question, “What is the best part of being a student at Milton High School?” I heard:

Laptops.

Great opportunities.

A sense of community.

I feel safe here.

There are ways for me to better myself like clubs and activities.

Great teacher relationships.

Great teachers.

Teachers – they’re great. They take time to make sure I am learning.

To the question, “Who or what has influenced you the most in regard to your high school experience?” I heard:

My parents. I rather expected to hear this and was relieved that I did.

But I also heard, and this is the kicker -

My teachers & administrators – they are positive role models.

My teachers have made it a place I want to be.

Are you seeing a theme here? GREAT TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS, GREAT TEACHERS, TEACHERS – THEY’RE GREAT. THEY TAKE TIME TO MAKE SURE I AM LEARNING, MY TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS ARE POSITIVE ROLE MODELS, MY TEACHERS HAVE MADE MHS A PLACE I WANT TO BE.

WOW! I am so impressed and grateful for our outstanding staff members. I am proud and you should be also.

So, is it any wonder why the School District of Milton is growing? According to the State DPI third Friday count in January we are up 13 students since September and 53 students from a year ago. We have something that others want.

Opportunity, Achievement, Community – the kids say it best!

Jon Cruzan

President, School District of Milton – Board of Education

Doing Well & Continuing To Improve

The UW Remedial Report publishes statistics regarding the number of Wisconsin High School graduates requiring remedial math courses as freshmen in the State University System.  Some interpret the word remedial as negative or pejorative. A more broad view describes remedial as curative, therapeutic, healing, alterative, restorative, helpful, educative, and bettering. Remedial course work is best defined as a positive response to help ensure overall college success.

Milton’s staff & Board members are concerned about this recent State report.  As a learning institution, we seek to learn from our many successes, and areas where we need to improve. These test results have caused us to look introspectively at what we do in terms of preparing our students. While the numbers referenced in the UW Remedial report aren’t what we’d like them to be, we have already initiated steps to help all our students be “College & Career Ready” through a very deliberate effort to align our curriculum. Our dedicated staff continually work to strengthen instructional practices.  As an aside, our school district has twice in the past three years been recognized by State educational leaders for just those efforts.

A bit more perspective to this issue can be found in the wide variety of ways in which our school district is measured.  In 2014, MHS students led the area with the highest ACT composite scores in the region.  In 2015, the SDM had the highest Badger Forward Exam scores, and in 2016, the State’s DPI Accountability Report card found us to be exceeding expectations, with all four elementary schools receiving the highest rank of “Significantly Exceeding Expectations”.  Simply put, one assessment alone doesn’t define our school district, but instead, a wide variety of them, reviewed holistically, affords us the opportunity to learn more about our teaching and learning, and how we can best prepare our students for post high school endeavors – the very essence of college and career ready.

I have the utmost confidence in our dedicated staff to continue to use this data, as it does with all of our assessments and build upon the many things that we are doing well, while embracing improvement opportunities. The School District of Milton is about excellence and success.  We are on track with that vision.  Our programs and curriculum are rigorous.  Our culture is caring & nurturing.  Our staff members are dedicated, ultimate professionals. We are constantly moving toward improvement.

Opportunity, Achievement, and Community - alive & well & working.

Jon Cruzan

President, School District of Milton – Board of Education

Our Students & Our Future

Welcome to the first post of Kids Matter, a new venture in blogging for me and, thus, an opportunity to share my thoughts and perceptions on the School District of Milton from my lens as President of the School Board.   

Over the past several weeks I have created and taken advantage of opportunities to speak directly with Milton students.  As a School Board member, I believe this is the primary group I have been elected to serve.  Sure, most of them don‘t vote, and most of them don’t pay taxes yet.  However, students are the individuals most significantly impacted by the decisions we make every other Monday night at our School Board meetings.  Our students represent our future.

During this stretch of time I’ve had the privilege to engage students on all ends of our educational spectrum.  Whether speaking with MHS kids who chose to attend and/or speak at our Board listening session in December, or reading to our youngest of students in Mrs. Well’s Pre-K class at Milton West, I am compelled to consider not only their future and the future of our community but also how both are very much related.

As I listened to their comments and answered their questions I became very reflective.  Our family has been blessed to live in this community for fifty years.  We’ve seen a lot of change and a lot of progress across those years. Some of that change was welcomed and some met with understandable resistance.  However, those in leadership positions had the courage to try to make things better for us, and for our community.  It is for those reasons that I, and fellow community leaders, choose to serve others in positions of leadership. I like to call it paying the civic rent I owe to Milton. We are trying to make things a little bit better for this generation and the next, just as others did before us.

While visiting our schools and listening to our students I am reminded of this calling and this duty. Our facilities discussion is one that has now gone on for more than a decade.  Our students and our community will forever be impacted by the decisions we make or don’t make and the actions we take or don’t take.  While the debates are often understandably intense and clouded with the intensity of adult conversations discussing concepts like need and want, affordability and taxes, and phrases like “good enough”, I believe we must never lose sight of what these discussions are truly about – a collective effort to try to make things better in our schools for our students and our community.

The coming months will provide opportunities for you to engage me personally and our entire Board of Education as we continue this important discussion.  It is my sincere hope that, as a community, we can come together to re-focus on that shared vision, and do what is best for our students and our future.

Opportunity, Achievement, Community  - created by our drive for excellence.

-Jon Cruzan

President, School District of Milton - Board of Education