Wico. County Public Schools hosts 2nd-annual State of the Schools
WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. -First introduced back in 2017, “Imagine 2022” is Wicomico County Public Schools’ five-year initiative for overall improvement.
On Monday, a part of that initiative became the central focus at the State of the Schools.
That initiative, “Achieve 3.0”- includes three areas.
One, to ensure that students are reading on grade level by third grade.
Two, to ensure that students graduate college and are career ready; three, to ensure a high performing workforce.
To reach that third grade reading level, Hanlin tells us success starts at the earliest stage of learning.
So they’re looking to increase kindergarten readiness from 33% of students to 38%.
To increase graduation rates from 82 to 87% entering 9th grade and graduating four years later, one of several ways they hope to do that is through the use of career-based technical programs.
Dr. Hanlin said, those programs are “Instructional programming that is engaging for students that students have an interest in pursuing so that they see relevance to what they’re learning.”
We learned that the three-year average turnover rate for teachers right now is 20%, meaning that after they’re hired, teachers are leaving the system within three years.
In order to reduce that percentage to 15% by 2022, to “ensure a high performing workforce” Hanlin says, “It has a lot to do with providing them the support that they need looking at our recruiting efforts and our retention efforts and the continuous need for communication especially with our beginning teachers to make sure they we are addressing their needs the best way that we can.”
Right now 12 out of 18 schools in Wicomico county received four stars on their school report card with the other six receiving three.
We’re told it has a lot to do with chronic absences.
To prevent those absences, Hanlin says, “We’re taking a look at how we can get the importance message out to our community about the importance of children being in school.”
