The Atlantic School Board was bursting with pride Tuesday night.

The first thing on the agenda was to discuss Justin Williams as the new freshman baseball coach. Because the baseball team has 34 players plus the 11 eighth-graders, the board said that the numbers are there to have a freshman coach. They approved Williams to be the freshman baseball coach unanimously.

In the Atlantic High School library on Tuesday April 27 the board was presented with the Iowa Assessment scores. Schuler principal James Northwick gave a presentation over the district’s scores. The board was proud to see all the improvement in our schools.

They were extra proud to see the high school’s scores. The high school jumped 6 percent in math. The board’s goal for this score was to have 90 percent of all students at or above proficient.  Although AHS had only 83 percent, the board said it was a very good start to an amazing improvement. The sophomores jumped 11 points in math.

Lately in our district the board has been working to improve the reading program. When reading scores go up 3 percent, it is equal to improvement in nine students. Over the late couple years the middle school reading teachers have noticed that sixth grade is a hard year for kids in scores. They have come to a conclusion that it’s because of all the changes students are going through during this time, between body changes and the school changes.

Reading teacher Kendra Henningsen made some valid points that the students she has been sending to the high school and exiting from her reading classes have been having outstanding scores. She is proud to say that the program is working as 22 out of the 24 students excelled their goals, and that students are learning things better and getting back to their own reading level.

It was also brought the the board’s attention that students at the high school that are taking college classes have had the highest scores out of all the other schools taking classes at Iowa Western. Also brought up was how people from out of the district have asked how we get our scores to be so high.

Another discussion at the meeting was about the ELL (English Language Learners) program. The ELL program is the program that helps kids that don’t speak English learn and adapt more fluently in our society. ELL teacher Brielle Cerven said we don’t really understand what her students go through on a daily bases. They are constantly trying to understand the things we are saying. To emphasize the point, Cerven had a student’s parent speak in Portuguese to the board.

The ELL program currently has 35 students, 20 Chuukese students, 13 Spanish students, two Portuguese students and eight incoming kindergarteners, as well as ten who are too young to attend school.

The past year has been great for the ELL students, said Cerven. They have really chosen to put themselves out there. They are joining sports and clubs, which is fantastic because in the past no ELL student would even think about going out for any of the things the kids now are doing.

The third discussion at the meeting was about the homeschooled students we have in our district. The homeschooling program will allow students to get a high school diploma from the state or a GED, and students can still take the SAT. Right now there are 11 kindergarten through third-graders being home schooled. There are also five Schuler students, nine middle schoolers, and fifteen high schoolers homeschooled in our district.

The homeschooling program does a study hall for the kids to come in and ask any questions about anything they might have. This study hall is on Tuesdays and is also a way for the homeschooling program to observe the students to make sure they are getting the proper education one needs to be college ready.

A fun thing that the homeschooling program does is they take the kids on field trips, have workshops for them and do all the testing that a student needs. There are 16 students in the Atlantic school district being homeschooled and two students who are enrolled in other schools but come to our district for sports.

The last thing talked about at the board meeting was the special election discussion. They talked about whether they wanted to increase the tax. Right now the tax is 85 cents but there has been no increase in that number for a long time. There biggest debate was is the current tax enough to serve what we need.

Just because something is set doesn’t mean it can’t change, said board member Kristy Pellett moments before they approved to talk about this tax debate at the next meeting.

If you are interested in seeing all this for yourself, you should come to the next board meeting. It will be on May 11 at 5:30 p.m. in the Atlantic High School library.