PCSD, all schools meet or exceed expectations in state rankings

PCSD, all schools meet or exceed expectations in state rankings

Five of the Pulaski Community School District’s seven schools received a four-star (exceeds expectations) ranking while the two others earned three-star (meets expectations) rankings in the state Department of Public Instruction’s 2021-2022 School and District Report Cards.  The PCSD as a whole was deemed to exceed expectations.

The DPI creates a report card for every publicly funded school and district in the state, which was released today. They are ranked from five stars (significantly exceeds expectations) to one star (fails to meet expectations).  PCSD school results are as follows:

  • Receiving a four-star rating and exceeding expectations was: The Pulaski Community School District, Fairview Elementary School, Glenbrook Elementary School, Hillcrest Elementary School, Lannoye Elementary School, and Pulaski High School.
  • Receiving three-star ratings and meeting expectations were: Sunnyside Elementary School, Pulaski Community Middle School.

Report cards are intended to help schools and districts use performance data to target improvement efforts to ensure students are ready for their next educational step, including the next grade level, graduation, and college or careers.

The report cards measure:

  • Student achievement proficiency in reading and math on state assessments.
  • Student growth measured by year-to-year improvements in achievement.
  • Target group outcomes using information for students with the lowest test scores during the previous testing year (the target group) to compare their current year performance versus the non-target group population.
  • On-track to graduation which shows how successfully students are achieving educational milestones that predict later success (attendance rates, graduation rates, etc.)

Besides the star ratings, schools are assigned a score from 0 to 100 that is not a “percent correct” measurement but a formula that combines the four priority areas.

Those scores are: Hillcrest Elementary: 79.9, Lannoye Elementary: 78.4, Pulaski High School: 76.7, Glenbrook Elementary: 73.4, Fairview Elementary: 71.7, Pulaski Community Middle School: 68.1, Sunnyside Elementary: 66.8

PCSD had an overall score of 73.1 (Exceeds Expectations), which ranked the fourth highest in the Fox River Classic Conference. 

“We are proud that overall the district exceeded expectations and almost all of our schools exceeded expectations or met expectations on the state report card used as accountability measures,” said Jennifer Gracyalny, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning.  “We realize this is only one measure of student achievement and must be triangulated with other state, district and classroom assessments to truly support and drive student learning in our classrooms. Our staff do an amazing job of utilizing evidence of learning and data to meet our student, curriculum and instruction needs.”

The 2021-2022 report cards use data from a variety of sources, including information reported through WISEdash and three years of Forward testing as well as three years of ACT Plus Writing, ACT Aspire and Dynamic Learning Maps testing.  Please note that testing was canceled for all but the ACT Plus Writing assessment in 2019-2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In addition, test participation was impacted in both the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 testing seasons.  As a result, DPI continues to caution the interpretation of scores and ratings due to the influence that the COVID-19 pandemic had on testing conditions during the years of testing included in these report cards.

Report cards can be found on the Department of Public Instruction’s Office of Accountability School and District Report Card webpage, http://dpi.wi.gov/accountability/report-cards.