Tosa's Trades School Holds Promise, Challenge

The Tosa enters its third year in 2011-12 with the positive momentum of graduating its first class in 2011 and the ongoing challenge of building a sustainable program based on student achievement.

The Wauwatosa School Board on Monday received a snapshot of student performance based on a mix of test scores and grades data. Among the highlights outlined by co-principal Jason Zurawik were that the school graduated 12 of its 13 seniors this year, and two of four graduates who opted to pursue apprenticeships in the trades have secured jobs.

For the juniors, soon to be seniors, Zurawik said, 71 percent improved their grade point averages from sophomore year, and 71 percent also increased their cumulative GPAs. Among the graduating seniors, 72 percent earned GPAs better than their junior year, and 55 percent improved their cumulative GPAs.

Among the test scores presented were scores in the core academic areas of reading and math. These scores improved or remained the same for most students, although test scores showed math and reading scores declined for 28 percent of the students. That data snagged school board members' attention, and Zurawik and fellow co-principal Bill Anderson, who also serves as the district's supervisor of student learning, said the data will direct academic strategies for the upcoming year.

Anderson said staff development will play a part in preventing such fall-back in test scores. Ensuring students understand the value of the tests also will play a part, according to Zurawik, as not all students take standardized testing seriously or understand that the tests are tools to help students.

"Those who take the tests seriously do well," Zurawik said.

Overall, school board members were pleased with the charter school’s success to date, and were confident the program has a place in the district to meet the needs of students with an affinity for and an interest in trades.

“If you can get progress up, I am sure this will be a popular program,” said board member Phil Kroner.

The two-year Tosa School of the Trades provides a college prep curriculum in core academic subjects, which is complemented each year with nine weeks of teaching by master tradespeople in plumbing, carpentry and electric work. Anderson said the goal is for students to have skills and options when they graduate — to attend college, a technical or trade school, or to move directly into the trades through apprenticeship.

In 2011-12, the school will have 12 new juniors and eight returning students as seniors. The target enrollment is 20 students in each grade level. To hit that target will require building a record of solid student performance that results in gaining parents’ buy-in that the school is a good option for their kids.

“We need parents to believe this is equal or better education for these students” who have a special interest and talent for the type of learning required for working in the trades, Zurawik said.

To hit enrollment targets for 2012-13, if there are not enough students from within the Tosa district, the trades school may consider contracting open seats to area school districts that don't have a trades specialty school option for high school students. Such a contract option would have to go before the school board for approval, said Superintendent Phil Ertl.

"The only way this school will survive is by getting the numbers, or it won't last beyond this year," Ertl said.

Anderson said later there likely are 20 students from within the district each year who would be interested in attending the trades school and make up the next junior year class. Key, he said, will be cultivating future students who are interested and motivated to do trades by identifying them earlier, in their freshman or sophomore years, based on test results that help pinpoint students‘ interests.

In terms of recent student performance at the school, Zurawik said some of the school's first students opted to attend the trades high school because they were not successful in a traditional high school environment, "but they were not necessarily motivated to do the trades."

“We want motivated students, not those who just want an alternative school,” said Zurawik, who, like Anderson, wears more than one hat and will be associate principal at Longfellow Middle School in 2011-12.

School board member Mary Jo Randall urged Zurawik and Anderson to keep working at finding those students for whom the school is the right fit. 

"There are kids out there, we just don't know about them yet," Randall said. "It's really important that we keep going."