Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Releases School Report Cards; Neillsville's Scores Not Accurate

Thursday, December 1st, 2022 -- 11:00 AM

The Wisconsin Department of Instruction recently released the School Report Cards.

You can see the different numbers for school districts in our area in the image attached with this story. The report card looked at enrollment, open enrollment, disabilities, disadvantaged, english and then gave the district a final score.

A score of 83-100 is a “A” or “Exceptional”; a score of 70-82.9 is a “B” or “Exceeds Expectations”; a score of 58-69.9 is a “C” or “Meets Expectations”; a score of 48-57.9 is a “D” or “Poor”; and a score of 0-47.9 is a “F” or “Fails.”

Looking at the image, you can see that Neillsville has a score of 57.7, which is a “D” or “Poor”. However, as District Administrator John Gaier explained in a recent interview with me, Neillsville’s information isn’t complete.

Mr. Gaier stated, “The information on the School District of Neillsville’s school report card is not accurate. The DPI, who gives the report cards out, does know that, but, because the information has become public, they won’t change that for this year."

"In this year’s report card, it shows the School District of Neillsville, or the different buildings in the School District of Neillsville, have no economically disadvantaged kids. When the system for the state downloaded information from our server, that information was not accurately transferred."

"So, the scores on this year’s report card are not accurate. The reason that happens is there are four areas on the report card that are measured: achievement, growth, target group outcomes, on track to graduation. Each of those groups are weighted at a different amount."

"Because there was no indication of economically disadvantaged kids in our building, those weighted areas were wrong. The good news is that scores would be significantly higher then what is reported."

"I think part of the problem was during the time of COVID, all kids were getting meals for free, so there was a mix up between the two systems and that did impact the scores.”

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