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