T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Marshalltown Community School District Director Shauna Smith and Marshalltown Learning Academy Principal Eric Goslinga tell the board about at-risk students and the pending loss of at-risk funding during the regular board meeting on Monday night.

Funding for at-risk students will come to an end on June 30. The Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education was informed of the pending loss during a drop-out prevention plan presentation for at-risk students during the regular Monday meeting.

Director of Instruction Shauna Smith said she is proud of the at-risk program already in place and was confident in going before the board to say a continuation is needed.

“We are thankful to be in a position where we can continue the services and not feel pressure with those funds no longer being available for us,” she said.

At-risk students have a greater chance of dropping out of school. What makes a student considered at-risk is low attendance rate, poor grades and low achievement and a disconnection with the school. At the secondary level, low acquisition is also a risk factor.

“Approximately 40 percent of our students fall under this criteria here in Marshalltown,” Smith said.

She said students who previously dropped out and have returned are considered to be at-risk.

Smith told the board the identification of the students is dependent on each student’s need. Districts should use caution in identifying groups of students when there is a larger concentration of high-risk students.

Marshalltown Learning Academy Principal Eric Goslinga said the district has an early warning system in place for at-risk students.

“It’s a really good tool and useful tool for us to query students across all grade levels based on at-risk criteria . . . Some of these kids can fly under the radar sometimes,” he said. “If you’re not necessarily hitting the absence list, or you’re not having a lot of school behaviors, but you’re just kind of bouncing along academically and not doing well, sometimes those kids don’t get the immediate attention other kids did.”

Goslinga said there is data entry from school principals, counselors and resource specialists related to school disconnection.

“We’re looking for things like trauma, involvement with juvenile court, students who might be parenting, homeless students is a different category, but they automatically qualify, but that is an increasingly larger percentage of our at-risk kids,” he said. “This is mostly hard data, but there is that subjective piece, which is that disconnect to school which is input by school personnel.”

For the 2025 fiscal year, Smith said the district has a $1.6 million budget for at-risk students.

The majority of the money is spent on staff in every building, such as school resource specialists, juvenile court liaisons and math and literacy interventionists. The funds are also spent on outside contracts with Big Brothers Big Sisters, local mental health providers and MICA.

The district’s at-risk program does impact the graduation rate, which has fallen from 90 percent in the 2019-20 school year. The 2021-22 rate was 81 percent. The number of students dropping out also increased, from 65 to 98.

“We have been anticipating . . . COVID-related dollars coming to end,” Smith said. “We have really done everything we can to protect ourselves against having to maybe end positions and services.”

Board member Leah Stanley asked about the increasing rate of homeless students. Goslinga told her there are slightly more than 100, out of the 5,300 student population, who are considered homeless.

“It’s been trending up since . . . probably the tornado year, but since we’ve had the tornado, it continues to stay,” he said. “It elevated significantly that year . . . but continues to go up.”

Board member Zach Wahl asked how many at-risk students return after dropping out. Goslinga said at the secondary level, they try to engage kids to come back and make recommendations such as the virtual program or peer programs.

“Kids are just at all different places in their lives at different times,” he said. “I just took a phone call this afternoon from a 19-year-old who dropped out two years ago, dropped out as a junior at MHS and is now seeing the need to come back and try to finish. Those things are common. A lot of kids do come back to us. We try not to burn bridges with them and keep them engaged as much as we can. One of the struggles we have is once a student turns 21, in the year they turn 21, that’s when we can’t Constitutionally serve them anymore with K-12 dollars.”

In other business, board members:

Approved an agreement with Invision Architecture of Waterloo to work on the Miller Middle School addition and renovation project. Superintendent Theron Schutte said there was an extensive bid solicitation process for the project. The district had eight firms under consideration and brought in three for formal interviews. The estimated cost range of the project is $30 million to $50 million. A bond referendum is expected to go to the voters in November of 2024.

Heard a presentation from Woodbury Elementary Principal Anel Garza and Instructional Coach Mary Brown regarding how the building established new building and classroom rules. Woodbury staff use a responsive classroom approach for setting classroom rules and expectations. The new school-wide expectations include students making appropriate choices with their bodies in their spaces; being kind and good to everyone; learning from mistakes and; checking in with their emotions.

Approved a draft of the 2024-25 school calendar. Schutte said the year will start after Labor Day on Sept. 3 due to significant construction projects, such as the Career and Technical Education (CTE) wing, at Marshalltown High School. The later start date will help ensure the space is usable to students and staff. The last day is June 5. There will be 176 student days and 11 professional development days.

Awarded an $8.4 million contract to Larson Construction of Independence for the Marshalltown High School Career and Technical Education (CTE) project. Schutte said the district received three bids last week. The lowest bid was close to $1 million less than expected.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.