HANCOCK COUNTY — More students are enrolling in career and technical education programs throughout the county’s four public school districts.
Annual school performance reports released last month reflect that trend among their multitudes of other data on enrollment, performance, disciplinary actions and additional benchmarks for the 2019-20 academic year.
But with a freeze on letter grades the state assigns schools following a problematic new standardized test and the COVID-19 pandemic, education officials feel it will be some time before the reports give an accurate portrayal of how schools are performing. Still, the performance reports, which can be found online, present a trove of information. This story is based on a examination of some of the numbers.
A different path
At Greenfield-Central schools, 1,159 students were enrolled in career and technical programs last school year, up from 870 the year before.
The district’s junior high went from 0 to 190, which Superintendent Harold Olin attributed to a careers class eighth-graders take about college and technical programs G-C offers.
At the high school, about 100 more students enrolled in career and technical programs. Principal Jason Cary told the Daily Reporter in an email that the school has made a concerted effort to grow such programming, recalling the aviation and HVAC offerings that have been added in recent years. The school also promotes programs at Walker Career Center in Indianapolis.
“I think that the shift to Graduation Pathways has put more of a premium on these kinds of classes,” Cary added, referring to the change the state made to graduation requirements a few years ago, which includes a work-based learning option.
The Southern Hancock school district had 721 students enrolled in career and technical programs in 2019-20, up from 640 in 2018-20.
Wes Anderson, spokesman for Southern Hancock, also credited the rise to Graduation Pathways.
Southern Hancock has not only expanded its career and technical education offerings, Anderson said, but the state has also expanded what qualifies as career and technical education.
He added the trend also represents a growing understanding of current workforce needs.
“Our workforce needs people to work in the trades, work in some of those more hands-on, technical positions,” he said. “We know our workforce needs that; our government is telling us that.”
Eastern Hancock schools saw its number of students enrolled in career and technical education grow from 267 to 324 in 2019-20.
Adam Barton, principal of Eastern Hancock’s junior high and high schools, said the district offers some vocational classes and has students who attend New Castle Career Center.
He agreed schools are reacting to the workforce’s changing needs.
“Everyone’s pushed four-year colleges for years, but I think we know that there are other options for other students and we’d like to make sure that they leave here with some options,” Barton said.
Due to Graduation Pathways, Eastern Hancock is developing series of classes in areas of study like business, agriculture and food sciences. Introductory classes are getting started, Barton said, and the goal is to be able to offer multiple years of them in order to qualify as a Graduation Pathway.
Mt. Vernon’s career and technical programs grew to 814 students from 769 in the latest year of reporting.
Jack Parker, Mt. Vernon superintendent, told the Daily Reporter in an email that the district is constantly working to enhance and grow such programs. A program that allows students to earn a certified nursing assistant certification was recently added at the high school.
Certifications and dual-credit opportunities help prepare students for life after high school regardless of whether they attend college, receive additional training or go directly to the workforce, he said.
“Currently, the four schools in Hancock County send our students outside of our county to five different vocational schools,” Parker said. “As many students would prefer to not have to travel outside of our county for these types of courses, we are constantly increasing and partnering with other schools in the county to provide these opportunities for Hancock County students within our own buildings.”
Disciplinary trends
Suspension figures improved in one of the county’s middle schools for the 2019-20 school year, and worsened at one of its high schools.
The number of students suspended at Mt. Vernon Middle School had been in the hundreds from the 2016-17 school year through 2018-19, before dropping to 64 for 2019-20.
Parker said that decrease is likely partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing last year’s third quarter to be entirely virtual. He expects continued improvement after the middle school spent a significant amount of time last year revising its discipline plan.
“This plan was implemented at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year and has already demonstrated success in our faculty and staff working more efficiently together to support students who are struggling behaviorally,” Parker said.
A life coach was also hired for the middle school at the start of the year to interact directly with students and their families for support and to serve as a liaison among parents, students and staff.
Greenfield-Central High School recorded 23 suspensions in 2016-17. That figure has grown over the years, and totaled 60 in 2019-20. Cary said he thinks a contributing factor to that increase is a rising popularity in vaping among teenagers.
Difficult data
A-F accountability grades the state assigns to schools for the 2019-20 academic year remain the same as the year before due to schools remaining under a “hold harmless” agreement. Part of what determines those grades is the ILEARN exam, which most students failed when it was first administered in spring 2019. The state passed a law to allow schools to avoid dropping a letter grade for two years.
Scores from the ILEARN along with other standardized tests like the ISTEP+ and IREAD are not available for the 2019-20 school year, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced their cancellations last spring.
Those issues lead education officials to believe it will be a while before the annual reports give an accurate portrayal of how schools are performing.
The school those factors have impacted the most for Greenfield-Central is its junior high, Olin said, the district’s only “C” school for the past four years.
“Not giving us an opportunity to get out of that C grade has hurt us most at that site,” he said.
Anderson said Southern Hancock is still acclimating to the new ILEARN exam, and the pandemic hasn’t made that any easier.
“I think it’s probably going to be 2023, 24 before we really get a firm grip on this — two or three years worth of good, hard data for every kid in our system who has gone through this,” he said.
Barton, of Eastern Hancock, agreed.
“I think it’s going to take a couple years before things calm down and we figure out what our numbers actually mean again,” he said.
Parker said the information in the annual performance reports is only part of the data Mt. Vernon uses to make adjustments and adapt to needs of students and the community.
“While standardized assessment scores can help us to make adjustments in our curriculum, with the changes in the last few years to our standards, test delivery, and the skipping of the spring 2020 test, we don’t rely on that data to help us understand how our students are progressing with their learning,” he said. “Our formative assessments as well as our common end-of-unit tests can provide additional data that can be more valid and reliable.”
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Annual school performance reports for public school corporations and schools in Hancock County, along with public schools across the state, can be read in their entirety at inview.doe.in.gov.
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Number of students in career and technical programs
Greenfield-Central
2018-2019: 870
2019-2020: 1,159
Southern Hancock
2018-2019: 640
2019-2020: 721
Eastern Hancock
2018-2019: 267
2019-2020: 324
Mt. Vernon
2018-2019: 769
2019-2020: 814
Source: Indiana Department of Education
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