Most Northwoods schools 'meet expectations' on first school report cards since pandemic

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released school report cards last week for the first time since the pandemic began.

Ninety-five percent of Wisconsin schools met, exceeded or far exceeded expectations.

That means the schools met targets in four priority areas: student achievement, growth, target group outcomes, and the number of students on track to graduate.

In the Northwoods, Arbor Vitae—Woodruff Elementary and North Lakeland Elementary had the highest ratings.

Both schools significantly exceeded expectations.

“Last year with COVID, we really focused on just being in person and really focusing on the basics,” Brent Jelinski, the district administrator at North Lakeland Elementary, said.

Because the school report card rating is based partly on the test scores of individual students, Jelinksi noted that the ratings at small schools can fluctuate more dramatically from year to year than they do at larger schools.

“As excited as we are about the high score, we’re just as excited about what our school provides that doesn’t go into the school report card," he said. "So we have six days of outdoor education, we do a lot things that don't go into the school report card that we like to celebrate just as much."

Not every school in the area received a high rating.

Antigo, Mercer, Ashland and Bayfield schools received two of five stars. That means they met few expectations.

DPI school report cards were suspended last year due to the pandemic.

Since then, some of the measures to calculate a school’s rating have changed, which makes it hard to compare to pre-pandemic ratings.