The West Liberty School District’s new director of teaching and learning, Jen Frye, updated the school board on her progress through her four months with the district at the Oct. 21 meeting.
Frye has been an educator for 25 years, as a teacher, teacher leader and as a math consultant with the Grant Wood AEA. In her new role with the West Liberty School District, she said her goals are to seek opportunities to optimize our resources to maximize students’ educational experience; connect people, ideas, research and resources; identify strengths and opportunities for growth; and promote research-based practices.
“I’m just looking for opportunities to optimize some of the great things that are happening already and try to connect folks. I think I was told it’s been 12 years since you’ve had a curriculum person here in the district. So, what can tend to happen is we might work a little more in isolation without somebody in that district role.
“Part of this is just navigating those opportunities and figuring out how to connect folks that would benefit from talking to each other and looking at curriculum alignment.”
Soon after Frye started with the district, she was able to review a document that showed educational trends going back to 2015. She said she was impressed by the way the district has spent funds to support teachers with high-quality curriculum resources. This school year, she said she will be working with the K-12 Essentials teams (art, music, band and guidance) and the high school English language arts team to review new curriculum that may be implemented.
Frye will also be leading the instructional coaches’ team, which includes Kelsie Garcia, Cindy Gonzales-Lopez and Melia Larson.
“I just wanted to make sure we’re kind of our own little team with the instructional coaches, which has been great. Our focus is working together collaboratively, going for alignment with our curriculum and supporting our staff along the way.”
She has been responsible for organizing the district’s professional development, as well as education technology integration together with district technology director Brian Rance.
She said she and Rance have been working with how to implement a new technology launched by the Iowa Department of Education. Amira is an AI-powered reading tutor that is accessible for K-6 students.
“It’s a really exciting new technology based on 30 years of research. I think it will be a phenomenal program, and so I’m working side-by-side with the coaches and Brian right now to figure out how we can get kiddos rostered into that. It’s a powerful use of AI technology. It’s a closed AI technology, so it’s nothing where we have to worry about safety and things like that, but that’s up and coming.”
Board member Rebecca Vargas asked about the use of AI at the elementary level. She said working at the college level, “we’re talking a lot about controlling AI with papers and writing and exams. I just want to know if you’re starting to look at that at the levels for AI.”
Frye said a topic of conversation at a recent administration meeting was putting together a small technology team that would determine what the district’s goals were in implementing AI.
“I myself have done quite a bit of learning on my own just about what is happening in the world of education in terms of AI, and I think there might be some advantages to starting these conversations early,” said Frye. “If you’re following what’s going on with AI, it’s absolutely exploding. I heard it’s growing faster than Google. I think my thoughts on this are that no doubt the kids that we are working with right now will be in jobs where they will need to use AI as a tool. So, I don’t think it’s necessarily something to shy away from. I think it’s something to embrace, and there can be very powerful ways that it can be used. But we also need to teach them the safety side of that. I don’t know exactly what that will look like here at West Liberty, but I think the gears are turning and the conversations will start being had this year.”
“I think that’s a good approach, personally,” said board president Jacob Burroughs. “I think a lot of times we get nervous on new technology, social media and stuff. People were very hesitant to letting kids have access to it, and then we learned maybe it’s better that we get them in a controlled environment to learn it within. Because they’re going to be using it in the future. I mean, find a marketing director that’s not using Facebook or LinkedIn. It doesn’t exist.”
“There was a stat, I wish I’d written it down, but the stat had something to do with the percentage of jobs that would have AI-related functions,” agreed Frye. “I mean, there’s jobs that don’t even exist yet that some of these kids will be going into. So, I think it would be wise to have more informed conversations with kids before they’re out there.”
Burroughs asked Frye how close she thought West Liberty’s current curriculum was to what state standards are.
Frye said the district has recently made several purchases of new curriculum, which have the new standards built into the teaching methodology. She said she had conversations with the teachers about the new curriculum and where each teacher felt they were in terms of understanding and implementation. In response to those conversations, Frye arranged for a science consultant from the Grant Wood AEA to come and speak with grades 5-12 science teachers and career-technical education to discuss some of their goals and concerns. “I don’t know that we’re so far off the mark, but I think having those vertical conversations are just so powerful.”
The district’s goals for the year include improving attendance, emotional safety, literacy and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS).
“A lot of the work that I’m doing is interwoven throughout our district goals,” said Frye. “I’m super excited to be in this role here at West Liberty, because I think I have a lot that I can contribute. You have a phenomenal staff here that wants to do that work with me. So, I think it’s going to be a very exciting year to achieve our district goals.”
Enrollment remains stable
Superintendent Shaun Kruger and business manager Abby Ortiz presented enrollment data as of Oct. 1. These numbers will help determine the amount of funding the district will receive from the state.
The district is currently down 14 students who live within the district, but up seven students in open enrollment.
“That’s a good sign,” said Ortiz. “People see what’s going on here and want to be a part of it.”
Ortiz said another good sign for the district is that enrollment was up 18 students in PreK-4. “Last year’s class was pretty small, so it’s good to see those numbers jump back up.
“I know we have some pretty big classes that are coming up from the middle school and high school in the next few years, and so we want to see those big numbers coming up through the preschool, or else we’re going to continue to see a little drop in enrollment in the future years.”
Kruger said the numbers can be a little difficult to decipher, based on the way the state calculates funding for each student. He added that the Class of 2024 graduated 92 seniors, and this year’s kindergarten class has 75 students.
Regarding students with private school vouchers, also known as educational savings accounts (ESA), Kruger said the district had taken a little hit, though not as much as some districts in the state. “It’s hard to say how much that really impacts us, because you don’t know if those students would be going to these other private schools regardless or not. But that’s up from three to six. Also, the ratio of how they’re funding that went up, increased, so more students are getting funded that could have already been attending those schools.”
The board learned that 77 students within the district are open enrolled out, and 61 are open enrolled in. Burroughs said he would like to see some more data on where the students that are open enrolling out of the district are choosing to go instead. “So that way we can … infer some stuff. Is it geographical? Because some of them might be students are that close to West Branch that they’d just rather go there.”
“That is probably 80 percent of that,” said Kruger. “I looked at the breakdown of those numbers … but I’d say 25 or so are going to West Branch, 25 or so to Lone Tree. I think a lot of our Lone Tree people are in that Nichols area. And so, I’m guessing a big part of that is proximity, closeness to maybe where parents work or whatever it might be. But yeah, just those two districts are a huge portion.”
“Which tells us it’s not necessarily something we’re doing wrong,” said Burroughs. “Whereas, if it was like, oh they’re all going to (Iowa City) or they’re going to wherever, then it’s like, OK, we’re clearly not offering something essential.”
“And we also have kids coming in from those districts, so it’s kind of interesting when we look at that,” said Kruger.
FBLA fundraiser
The board approved a fundraising request for the Future Business Leaders of America group at the high school. Ortiz explained the group has gotten a grant to purchase a vending machine, which they will use as a fundraiser.
“They kind of have to take charge of figuring out how to order things through our food service director and then they have to collect the money and keep track of all that and get it to the bank. So, it’s kind of a little project for them. We aren’t actually buying the vending machine. We’re getting a grant.”
Burroughs asked Kruger to have the student leaders in the organization make a presentation on the project to the board in a few months to report their progress. “I think it’s a good experience for them, too,” Burroughs said.