Question of the Week: Do you believe that Oskaloosa Schools are making the right improvements to bring them out of the “in need of improvement” status?

Oskaloosa School Administration

Last week, we asked you if you believed that the United States should continue using Nuclear Energy. 38 Residents responded with 26 residents (68%) voting yes, 10 residents (26%) voting no, and 2 residents (6%) voting unsure. The Question of the week poll is unscientific and doesn’t reflect the view of Osky News.

This week we focus on a more local issue. Earlier in the week, we asked you on our Facebook page what you would change about Oskaloosa Schools if you were administration. We received 61 comments on that post. Some of the posts were for the good, and of course, some were for the bad. Overall, the general consensus of the responses seemed to be that the administration was not doing enough to help out our schools.

Oskaloosa Schools have been on the SINA (School in Need of Assistance) list for several years now. Over these years, the schools have seen more emphasis placed on doing well on tests. These “tests” are the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and Iowa Test of Educational Development. These tests determine whether Oskaloosa ends up on the SINA list. In some years, Oskaloosa has seen improvements on these tests, but in other years, we have seen our test scores drop. The scores have lead to divisions within the community on this matter. Those who say the right improvements have been made place more responsibility on the students. They say that we have hired good teachers and that the administration is doing a good job, but that it is up to the students to make the improvements. Those who say that we haven’t made the right improvements place more responsibility on the administration and teachers. They say that due to communication issues and problems in the classroom, students are not able to improve on their test scores.

Now it’s your turn to decided. Vote in our online poll. The poll will be open until 9 pm next week when we will close the poll and release the final voting numbers. If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail us at info@oskynews.org or visit our Facebook page.