District and School DPI Report Cards

 A few weeks ago I started to print and review the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Report Cards, which can be found here:

https://apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/home

You can download and review them for entire school districts as well as at the school level for all public elementary, middle and high schools. If you choose to "Download Files for All School Years", you will be prompted to download a compressed zip file that contains report cards dating back to 2011.

As someone that loves to digest data and do trend analysis, this will be interesting. I feel that not having reviewed these prior will lend a fresh perspective and undoubtedly result in my asking plenty of questions.

For example, at Bay Port I see our English Language Arts scores have gone from 47.4% at Basic or Below Basic to 55.6%. That is below Proficient. For Mathematics, it has gone from 43.8% to 60.8% - below Proficient.

Again, I have no preconceived notions or plausible reasoning that would explain these drops in proficiency. I'm reviewing the data as it is presented in the publicly available reports cards. The pandemic and subsequent policies undoubtedly put a strain on our teachers and children.

Your feedback is more than welcome on this topic, as I'll bring any concerns you may have along with me to the board should I get elected.

Parental Choice v. Mandates, Follow-up.

We've got about a week until the February 15th Primary here in Howard-Suamico, where six of the nine candidates will be selected by YOU - the voters!

Now, the reason I'm going to cover this topic one last time is because it drives home the fact that parents have done an outstanding job this school year as it relates to keeping your kids healthy and in school. It also underscores the fact that absent a compelling reason, parents are the ones that determine what is best for their child.

Today, February 7th, the HSSD dashboard shows we have seven (7) students out with positive tests, in a district of nearly 6,000 students.

Howard-Suamico Dashboard

Since early January, all leading indicators were pointing towards a downward trend in cases. The following graph is a computation called Rt: "the average number of people who will become infected by a person infected at time t. If it’s above 1.0, C19 cases will increase in the near future. If it’s below 1.0, C19 cases will decrease in the near future."

Rt for Brown County

Rt has proven to be a solid leading indicator once again. But I don't rely on predictive analysis in isolation, so then I'd do analysis on DHS data. I had to keep in mind that the data out of S. Africa and the U.K. indicated that the variant was quite contagious, but was not resulting in the same levels of severe illness as prior variants. At the same time, testing was being promoted at all levels of government and healthcare. I knew it would be problematic when I saw the district had instituted a 3% school-level threshold invoking masking for two weeks, which was breeched by both Lineville and Howard Elementary. One of the core reasons was because DHS includes "probable cases", which would include at-home rapid tests, for example. Those tests are known to be inaccurate.

DHS Data, By District for ages 0-19

You may wonder, what do the values on the graph mean? Well, those are the y-axis values, which is why I removed that axis on each of the nine graphs. The February 3rd value of 3.66 for "Positive Tests 0-19" on the Howard-Suamico graph is calculated as follows:

Raw DHS Data

Those are raw positive case counts for 14 days. POS_0_9_1D is the daily positive cases for ages 0-9, for example. If you take the average, you'll get 7.07 and 4.50 for children ages 0-9 and 10-19, respectively. In order to compare districts of varying sizes, we need a common denominator. For school districts it makes sense to use "per 10,000", whereas DHS uses "per 100,000" for county calculations. Howard-Suamico has 31,658 residents, so what we will get is a 10,000 resident cross-section of the district with equal distribution of ages.

(7.07 x 10,000) / 31,658 = 2.23 cases per 10,000 children 0-9 years old

(4.50 x 10,000) / 31,658 = 1.42 cases per 10,000 children 10-19 years old

Now, if you add 2.23 + 1.42, low and behold you'll have 3.65 (rounding puts it at 3.66). Worth noting, I obtain the residential population of each district from the DHS vaccination data file. So those are all per DHS as well.

So there you have it. I don't touch a digit of data from DHS. What I did was compare adjacent school districts to see whether policies were effective or not. If you look at the graphs, you will see that regardless of policy, masks required or masks optional, all of the trends were the same.

My Responses to the Green Bay Press-Gazette Questionnaire

In case you don't subscribe to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, these are the answers I submitted to their questionnaire.

Occupation: Database Administrator

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Mathematics, Minor in Computer Science (UW-Stout)

• Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems (University of Phoenix)

Questions

1. Why are you running for school board? (~50 words)

I’m running for school board because I want the best for our children. Over the past year I’ve worked closely with other parents in the district, and I realize I have a special set of skills that would benefit the Howard-Suamico School District.

2. What makes you the better candidate in this race? (~50 words)

There aren’t a lot of people with degrees in mathematics, computer science and over 25 years of data analysis experience so I would bring a unique skillset to the school board. I’m a firm believer in continuous improvement and I will bring a very positive attitude to the board.

3. What are residents telling you are their most important issues, and how would you address them? (~100 words)

Parents want to turn the page on the pandemic and focus on their child getting a quality education. To do that, we must first stabilize our healthcare response plans, which includes empowering the parents to determine what’s best for their child. Many of the school mandated policies have resulted in learning loss. To address it we must review the DPI Report Cards and other quantitative learning metrics from which a plan can be generated, presented, and agreed upon in a joint effort among administrators, teachers, members of the school board, and equally important: the parents.

4. Do you agree with the decisions your school district has made about COVID mitigation strategies, such as mask requirements or quarantine guidelines? (~100 words)

Policies and mandates should be reserved for situations where uniform responses are the only way to mitigate an immediate unknown risk. Once the data started to accumulate indicating that the risk of severe illness was near zero for children, those policies should have ended. Especially as our at-risk and elderly population were able to mitigate their health risks with the vaccine if they chose to do so. As it relates to January of ’22, I do not support policies that supersede the parental choice of when to keep their child home from school or require them to wear a mask.

5. What would you do differently in addressing COVID-related issues during the school year? (~100 words)

At the school district level, we had a lot of information to digest. We receive guidance and recommendations from global, national, state, county, city, and local healthcare professionals. Yet as we sit today, adjacent school districts are employing completely different policies and protocols, none of which have significantly altered the way viruses or variants behave. It is time to rely more on the local data to mitigate our health risks and I have a unique skillset that can assist in this area. I’ll put my skills to work on creating a sound foundation on which to make future data-driven decisions.

Brown County Case Analysis, January 24th, 2022

Today was a busy day, but I wanted to download fresh WI DHS data to see where things stood.

First, Rt (Figure 1), which is a calculation that projects near-term infection rates. It is a metric developed by folks from Harvard, Yale and Stanford Medical, funded by HHS/CDC. "If it’s above 1.0, COVID-19 cases will increase in the near future. If it’s below 1.0, COVID-19 cases will decrease in the near future." It is the only data source I refer to for future projections, realizing that it may correct or adjust daily.

Today I looked at the State of Wisconsin and Rt for the state is at 0.69 and Brown County is at the lowest level I've ever seen it at 0.50. It had started trending down in early January, but I like to see a trend mature to over 14-days of age before giving it too much weight.

Figure 1

Second, DHS case data, which is trending down across Brown County (Figure 2). I noted last week that testing volume started to taper off, which is always a second indicator that cases would soon follow. That trend has held true. Masking, or lack thereof, does not influence these trends, rather testing volume does. Masking likely reduces the impulse to test continuously, but testing volume is the core driver behind the positive cases.

Look closely at Figure 2 that shows the relationship between testing volume (the top dark blue line) and positive cases (the bottom light blue line). This is because the cycle thresholds the labs process tests at are far too sensitive (between 37 and 40), returning over 50% more positive results as compared to a cycle threshold of 30, for example, like the NBA has switched to using.

There is a misconception by some that putting the masks on at Lineville and Howard Elementary influenced the positive tests. That is a false interpretation of the data. If you look at the other districts, you'll see that they all followed the same trajectories. Figure 3 further breaks down the positive cases by ages 0-9 and 10-19. Green Bay (Red: K-12 mask mandate) is faring no better than any other district (Yellow: K-6 masking, Green: mask optional).

In summary, with the decline in Rt and overall testing volume, cases have now started to trend down. Lets hope these trends continue.

Figure 2

Figure 3

(the sum of these equal the total in Figure 2, ages 0-19)

Parental Choice v. Mandates

January of 2022.By now if you and/or your family haven't caught one virus or another, you're pretty lucky. Between the freezing temperatures, the negative wind chills and the variant that is making its way through the Midwest, everyone has been exposed to something by now. If you fell ill yourself, I wish you nothing less than a speedy recovery! Fortunately, the variant has been likened to the common cold and the available data supports that narrative.I'm going to go fetch the elephant and sit it down right in the middle of the room, because there are mixed feelings on the topic of the school's role in mitigating the risks of the virus. Currently, there are two conditions that automatically trigger masking: 3% positivity rate in a school or five (5) linked cases in a classroom/school. Absent one of those triggers, parents choose whether or not their child wears a mask and/or to keep their child home.On the other end of the spectrum, there are some candidates and parents that feel mandating masks and/or quarantines should be dictated more aggressively via policy. So rather than just masking their own child, they prefer all children be mandated to wear a mask or quarantine due to close contact. I do not support policies that supersede your parental choice for masking and quarantines.I'm not going to be vague with respect to this topic. The first three bullet points of my "Ready to Get to Work" directly pertain to this topic:

• Empower Parents: I feel parents should make choices for their children. Why? Let's say your child is just getting over infection and they now have natural immunity. Should they have to return on Tuesday the 18th with a mask on? That is a question best answered by the parents of those children. According to the HSSD Dashboard, this includes a good number of students that tested positive this past week, the vast majority of which will be recovered by the 18th.
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• Stabilize Health Response Plans: As parents, we don't like the anxiety of walking on egg shells wondering if or when the protocols are going to change. Folks are watching the dashboard, doing their own calculations, emailing the board with personal opinions or expertise, etc. While the policies have stabilized and become more defined of late, there is more work to do. I feel there must be compelling data to supersede the discretion of you, the parent.
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• Identify & Address Learning Loss: Viruses are not to blame for learning loss, responses to viruses are. Whether it was virtual learning, quarantines or masking, they have all contributed to setting many of our children back. We need to do everything we can to shift the momentum towards catching up from the past two years, before it is too late.

That's where I stand. If you are as passionate about this topic as I am, please join and support me. Our children are not the ones causing burdens on the healthcare system. They are resilient and by now, high-risk individuals have had the opportunity to further mitigate their personal health risks. Let's let our children learn. We cannot afford additional learning loss.

Campaigns are time consuming and do come with out-of-pocket expenses, so any and all donations are greatly appreciated! Even $5 can help reach a few more mailboxes to spread my message.

Thank you!

Donate

Ready to Get to Work!

I've put considerable time and thought into my messaging, and I've narrowed my list of action items down to seven. There are no lack of opportunities for continuous improvement but certain ones rose to the top due to the challenges we've faced the past couple years. I plan on unpacking each of these in the coming days and weeks!

Can you host a sign?

The primary is on February 15th!

If you are interested in putting a sign out, drop me a note and I'll put it on my list. I'll even deliver them so no need to worry about that.

Email: mcguire4hssd@pm.me

Facebook: facebook.com/mcguire4hssd

Spread the word!

 Good afternoon!

This morning we were informed that we will have a crowded field of nine (9) candidates running for the three (3) HSSD Board seats. It is encouraging to see so many people getting engaged in our community.

What that means to me is that on 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟭𝟱𝘁𝗵 we will be having a primary. I'll need your help to spread the word!

Here are the ways you can help:

✻ 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀: if you are willing to host a sign in your yard, those can be placed 30 days in advance of the election, so January 17th. Please send me a message or email me at mcguire4hssd@pm.me

✻ 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀: If you have friends, family or contacts in the district, please introduce them to me by sharing my page! facebook.com/mcguire4hssd

✻ If you have $5 or $10 that you can donate to my campaign, every bit helps donorbox.org/mcguire4hssd

I appreciate your support! If you have any questions, feel free to message or email me.

Allen

Mitigating Learning Loss

Happy Monday everyone! For those that went to the Packer game last night, I hope you thawed out by now!

Learning Loss. We've seen some attempts to quantify it. It is one of the single most important items on my radar for 2022, especially if I join the School Board. But in order to address it, we have to be certain we identify the root causes so we do not continue to repeat them.

So what were the root causes of learning loss? The answer is not a virus. The answer is our response to the virus which was made up of three core components: virtual learning, close contact quarantines and masking.

How did we mitigate the root causes of learning loss? We worked tirelessly:

October 14th, 2021: With the support of data-driven analysis, parents can choose whether their child would quarantine after a close contact. This has kept our healthy children in the classroom, rather than sent home for 10 days.

January 3rd, 2022: With the support of data-driven analysis which triggered a survey, parents can choose whether their child will wear a mask in school. This will allow our young children the ability to communicate better with their peers and teachers, based on individual parental choice.

If I join the school board in 2022, I will continue to advocate for parental choice. My recommendations will always come with supporting risk/reward data for all parents to review and discuss.

With a solid foundation for learning established, I look forward to achieving new goals in 2022 and beyond!

Happy New Year!