The Hutchinson School Board took an in-depth look at the district’s math programming.
As the district moves into its second year of fully embracing college and career ready standards, the board and staff are looking carefully at the supports provided to district teachers both internally and externally. A year ago, the board went on record in full support of college and career ready standards, which is known nationally as common core state standards.
With respect to math, the board approved dropping current state math assessments as a key indicator as well as dropping an indicator on the percent of Hutch High students who take additional math classes beyond advanced algebra.
The board did approve adding three key indicators for the district that staff already collects – AIMS Web, NWEA Measures of Academic Progress and the percent of high school students meeting the ACT college readiness benchmarks.
Additionally, they approved a request to help the district reach out for additional math support. State budget cuts have reduced the resources the Kansas State Department of Education has for working with local school districts. Historically, the district would be able to use KSDE resources for support, but those resources are not there.
The district will fill in the state resources gap by contracting with an outside consultant to look at what the district currently is doing for its K-12 math programming, how that is aligned with college and career readiness, what the district is doing well and how the district can continue to improve its math instruction.