GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Addressing the teacher shortage and below average test scores at one middle school are two issues the Green Bay Area Public School District is dealing with this year.
Dale Russell is in her first year of teaching seventh and eighth grade social studies at Franklin Middle School. She’s also one of six teachers in the Green Bay Area Public School District who is receiving their teaching license and master’s degree thanks to the a Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development grant program.
According to Russell, “I was thinking, how am I going to fund my masters. I had little notes, taking notes how am I going to UW-Oshkosh? Am I going online? And this came up and it has been a life changer for me.”
Russell gets to teach and earn a salary while also going to school. Her employment is one way the state is chipping away at the teacher shortage.
“Any way that we can get wonderful people, who care about kids, in the classroom in front of kids – I mean it’s a win win not just for them but for us as a state,” said State Superintendent Jill Underly.
Underly visited Green Bay’s Franklin Middle School to learn about the impact of the teacher grant program and to observe a math class at the middle school.
According to the 2021-2022 Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction statistics, Franklin Middle School’s math achievement is only at 22.5%. The state average is 53.6%.
“We’re not where we need to be when it comes to student scores, but I try not to focus so much on the scores when I think about they lived through a pandemic. I think as adults, and you think about our own workforce, you think about all the impacts we had coming out of the pandemic, I don’t think it’s really any surprise,” said Underly.
Franklin, an International Baccalaureate school, just implemented a new math curriculum to help improve student achievement. The curriculum is designed to help all students learn, whatever their math skills.
Principal Greg Lundin said, “Each unit starts out with a investigation and those investigations bring in just a lot of questioning from the students. And that’s one of the things, we’re an IB school here at Franklin Middle School, so any questioning that you can start developing in kids is going to right away get them involved and engaged in the curriculum.”
While the program partially launched last year, it is fully up and running this school year and according to the principal, it is making a difference. Lundin added, “There have been gains already, so I only see that going up. And as we get better at the craft and learn the resource better, as we see how it fits more with our IB world we’re only going to get better at doing that.”
