Yesterday in our Manitowoc Public School District deep dive report, we learned that the district is not doing as well as Superintendent Jim Feil would like.
Feil revealed that the district’s Report Card grade of just below 60 is much lower than it should be.
He told us that the best way to fix that issue is by starting at the lower grade levels, which should make things better for the students as they grow.
“You learn to read through grade 3, and then you read to learn after that,” he explained. “After that, you are equipped to study curriculum, including math. You really do have to be able to read and comprehend.”
He mentioned reading specifically because that is one of the big problem areas in schools today.
“You would see this across the state and across the country. We have low reading scores, and they need to be significantly higher,” Feil explained.
But how bad is it?
Feil said in regard to students reading at grade level, “When I ask people what would you expect, they say 95%. 100%. We are at 25%.”
Feil made it explicitly clear that it’s not a teacher issue saying “I can match our teachers to any teachers. It’s what we equip them with.”
So, the State is looking over their reading curriculum which Feil said can’t happen fast enough.
“I wish we could have done it three, four years ago…because that’s when some did,” he said. “We actually took on math and changed our math curriculum through the elementary schools, and we are already now producing some significant results.”
Feil, with the Board of Education’s approval, is working on beginning to implement the new curriculum, which is already in place at other schools throughout the country, at both an Elementary and a Middle School in Manitowoc.
Feil said he believes with this program, known as Success for All, “the whole school model is going to move faster.”
Tomorrow we will take a look at student behavior, and the results of the staff exit surveys.