MARSHALL - The Marshall School Board reviewed the results of the MCAII achievement tests taken by students in various grades, and listened to the annual report from Taher Food Service at the regular meeting Monday.
In the only vote of the meeting, the board approved personnel items.
Teacher Holly Knudson presented the results of the achievement tests, which were broken down to show how different groups did in the testing. Groups included special education, free and reduced lunches, English language learners and different racial groups.
"You'll see things that are exciting and some that are disappointing," she said.
In the exciting column was the eighth-grade math results: "Well above the state in all of the math scores; some are pretty substantial," Knudson said. "This to me is a celebration."
In the disappointing column were the 11th-grade math scores, which were unsatisfactory, not showing improvement. The special education group was the only one to show well, getting good scores in two of the three categories.
District-wide, Marshall did well in science, Knudson said.
"The district has gone up, been above the state and widened the gap in fifth, eighth and 10th grade," she said. The fifth-graders need some help in history and nature of science, but were good in earth sciences. The eighth grade, especially the free and reduced lunch group, did well. The sophomores did well, except the special education group in life science and the hispanic group in history and nature of science.
District-wide, Marshall kids did well in reading proficiency, except for Asian and African American students, whose performances went down.
In math, Asian students showed a drop for the first time in four years, Knudson said, adding the hispanics showed a "big drop" and there was a "slight drop" for the free and reduced group.
Overall, Marshall students are doing better generally than most students across the state, Knudson said, getting better percentages than across the state.
Additionally, Marshall has a 97 percent graduation rate, compared to a 92 percent state-wide.
Superintendent Klint Willert pointed out one student could be included in multiple categories, such as a race group, ELL, and free and reduced lunches.
"We'll break it down to individual students who are not making proficiency," Willert said, "and look at common interests among those students."
The district plans to look at those individual results next week, he said.
The amount of time students have to learn can influence the results, said Willert, alluding to the earlier start to school this year and adding, "hopefully, we have maximized instructional time."
"By 2014, the federal government says we have to have 100 percent proficiency. The stakes go up every year," Willert said. "We need to work to align the system to meet the standards."
He stressed how important parental involvement is to student achievement.
The board members had a lengthy discussion on how they could measure the progress of one group of students in a school year.
"I'd be more inclined to set it up from fall to spring," said board chairman Jeff Chapman. "If our kids are improving, it's a success."
"Do we know why it went down in math?" asked board member Tim Swenson.
"I'm not even going to speculate," Willert said. "That's what we'll dive into next week.
"When you look at data as much as we do, sometimes it yields more questions than answers," Willert said. "For the most part, more of our arrows are going in the right direction."
Mark Brodersen and Lori Fruin from Taher said meal participation went up. It was pointed out that Taher is starting its 25th year with the Marshall district.
"We're very honored to work with Taher," said Chapman.
"We want to continue our partnership," Brodersen said.
There's a trend to "deviate from the a la carte menu and concentrate on the re-imbursable meals," Brodersen reported, adding the emphasis in the future will be on the meals, instead of a la carte, which is considered to be expensive and offering too much "junk food." He did promise they would not raise prices for the a la carte menu.
One of the programs they will be working to expand is Farm to School, which focuses on using locally grown produce.
"Meals will be a lot more scratch-based cooking," Brodersen added.
He told the board the dishwasher at Marshall Middle School will need to be replaced, because it's "so old, we can't get parts for it anymore."
Brodersen also wants a digital menu board for the high school.
"It's a nice system because we can announce all kinds of things," he said.
"The thumbprint technology has worked really well in the middle school and high school," he said. "We want to roll that to the elementary."