TY FOR TCAPS

Prior to interviews with the Traverse City Educators Association and Michigan Educators Association, school board candidates were asked to submit responses to several questions.

One question was,

“What do you see as the three most important issues facing Traverse City Area Public Schools?”

Here’s my answer.

One: Declining Enrollment

We’re down 75 kids this year (projected – student count day is October 2) from last year (8656 total students at TCAPS in 2023/24) – and 1112 kids since 2017/18.

We’ve had at least six consecutive years (since 2019/20) of declining enrollment.

Two: Student Achievement Equity

Example 1:

22/23 NWEA English Language Arts (ELA) > 60% proficient (from recent Board Of Education study session on elementary student achievement):

• Blair Elementary (BL): 39%
• Traverse Heights (TH): 34%

Example 2:

22/23 MSTEP ELA proficiency (from same report):

• BL 35%
• TH 22%

Example 3:

2023/24 MSTEP: 42% of Traverse City 3rd graders are not proficient in reading (from an August 28, 2024 Bridge Magazine story)

From this story:

“There remain large gaps between test scores of students who are economically disadvantaged and those who are not, according to the new results. This year, third grade students from economically disadvantaged families scored 30.2 percentage points lower in reading than their peers and 32.7 points lower in third grade math, on average.”

Demographics:

23/24 student count data (from mischooldata.org):

36% of all TCAPS students (8656) are economically disadvantaged

• BL 69% (205) are economically disadvantaged
• TH 78% (276) are economically disadvantaged

3% of all TCAPS students are English learners

• BL 12% are English learners
• TH 11% are English learners

14% of all TCAPS students have a disability

• BL 28% have a disability
• TH 27% have a disability

Three: Recruiting/Retaining Staff

As of 6 pm on September 12th, there were 75 open positions on tcaps.net (I don’t know if this is considered a lot or a little but for the second week of school – it seems like a lot).

• 40% of staff say their wages are fair and reasonable
• 74% of staff say they have opportunities to grow professionally
• 72% of staff say they have opportunities to innovate
• 70% of staff say they are recognized for good work
• 64% of staff say working collaboratively is valued and their voice is heard within the district

(from strategic plan data)

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I’ll post my ideas to help address these issues in my next post.