By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
VASSAR — The state has labeled Vassar High School a “priority school” — in the bottom five percent of the state’s annual Top-to-Bottom School Rankings — and school district leaders may hire middle-school principal Jason Kiss to turn the situation around.
“It’s going to take everybody — from the teachers, to our staff, to our secretaries, everybody in our buildings — to dig our way out of it,” Kiss told an audience of about 100 people packing the high school media center Monday night.
The Board of Education called a special meeting Sept. 3 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss administrative contracts, and Superintendent Tom Palmer told the crowd he’ll recommend the board hire Kiss to succeed Paul Wojno, who has retired as Vassar High principal, according to Palmer.
About 380 students attend the high school, which became a priority school this summer due to declining scores on academic tests during a four-year period, according to Palmer.
In 2011 and 2012, Vassar High “had two of the highest-scoring classes that we’ve seen in years,” Palmer said. That caused what Palmer called an upward “spike” in test scores, though those scores fell in 2013 and this year, according to the superintendent.
“This past year, this testing class … dropped us completely,” Palmer said. The state looks at test scores from each year’s junior class when determining a school’s four-year performance trend, he said.
Three years ago, Vassar High was labeled a “reward school” by the state, Palmer said. A reward school is one that makes adequate yearly progress academically, and also is identified in one of several other ways, such as making the greatest gains in achievement or outperforming the school’s predicted ranking and/or similar schools.
The state this year also labeled Vassar’s Central Elementary School as a “focus school” — one of the 10 percent of schools on the state’s Top-to-Bottom list with the largest achievement gaps between its top 30 percent of students and bottom 30 percent, based on test scores.
Due to Vassar High’s new status as a priority school, district leaders must adopt one of four reform plans outlined by the state. The school board hasn’t chosen its plan yet, but must submit a plan to the state by Oct. 6, Palmer said.
One reform plan — the “turnaround” plan — requires the release of no more than 50 percent of school staff. The “transformation” plan, if adopted by the board, doesn’t require layoffs but Kiss said state officials indicated “No one has ever made it out of (the) transformation plan without at least 35 percent staff turnover.”
Board member Randy Middlin asserted that such a turnover rate was measured across a four-year time frame, though Palmer added “There hasn’t been a four-year process completed on this; it started three years ago.”
“There are people that are going to be upset through this. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, unfortunately,” Palmer said.
Palmer said Kiss is serving as interim high-school principal. Palmer said Wojno submitted his letter of resignation as high-school principal at the board’s July 11 meeting.
“Mr. Wojno will not be coming back to the district,” Palmer said. “Whether or not we use him somewhere down the road, for some help with some issues, that will be determined at a later time.”
Palmer proposed that Kiss lead a committee that would strive to turn around Vassar High’s academic performance.
“Let Mr. Kiss do his job, pull us through this fiasco that we’re in, and I think you’re going to find a huge difference next year when you get your scores,” Palmer told the board. “It’ll happen that quick, if we’re able to move that quick.”
Palmer said he wants to hire Elaine Makas, an instruction and curriculum consultant, to work three days per week, and that he also wants to hire back Bob Nowotny, a retired Vassar teacher.
“The moves that we’re going to make — that I’m going to make, and recommend to you at the next board meeting — are going to free up a little over $300,000,” Palmer said. He added the board could use that money “to put some people back in place that I feel we need to be successful here.”
Former Vassar High teacher and administrator Vince Leveille told the audience that Vassar students took the Michigan Merit Exam, or MME, the day after they took the ACT test. The state uses the MME test scores to judge schools’ academic performance.
School staff “puts all the incentive on the ACT,” Leveille said, adding juniors “had zero incentive to do well on this (MME) test.”
Vassar High’s low ranking on Michigan’s Top-to-Bottom list “does not mean you have bad teachers, does not mean you have dumb kids — it’s how we incentivize the test,” Leveille said.
Vassar district resident Dave Rupprecht said “There has been a decline in education here — regardless of what you say, Mr. Palmer, it wasn’t just last year’s test scores.”
“It’s the responsibility of the board, the administration and every teacher in this school to be responsible and accountable,” Rupprecht added. “Nobody’s here blaming anybody, but we want you to be accountable. You’re spending our money. We’re your employers. We’re the taxpayers here. We expect our kids to at least be at the average.”