Successful first semester for Bobcat Plains Academy

District looking to increase enrollment next school year

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BROOKINGS – The Brookings School District recently wrapped up a successful first semester of the newly founded Bobcat Plains Academy – an alternative option for students who may not have been finding success at the high school. The academy, which began this past winter, was the result of a collaborative effort between the district and the Boys & Girls Club. 

Finding solutions

The idea for an alternative school was first proposed prior to the pandemic. Current Brookings High School Principal Paul von Fischer and then assistant principal Shelly Jensen noticed that more and more students weren’t finding success at the high school. An increasing number of students were receiving “Fs” or incomplete grades along with more defiant behavior from the students. Administrators noticed a “changing culture” in the high school as attendance and behavior issues became more prevalent.

Discussions on an alternative school began to increase in February 2020. Then suddenly many of those problems took a backseat to an even more challenging and pressing issue for school administrators: navigating a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. 

School was held remotely for the rest of the 2019-20 school year. After a tumultuous summer where schools across the country grappled with how they were going to navigate a school year with no vaccine and no end to the pandemic in sight, the Brookings School District made the decision to give students an option: you could either attend school in-person or remotely. 

Dealing with a pandemic was not convenient nor enjoyable for anyone – staff or students, but many of the attendance and behavioral issues subsided in the 2020-21 school year. Why? Many of the students who contributed to the issues chose to take classes remotely. While away from the normal routine of a school year – and outside the vision of district officials – some students began to pick up habits that were not conducive to successful academics. 

Heading into the 2021-22 school year, the district decided that unless there was extenuating circumstances, the remote option would end. Nearly every student would be returning to in-person classes – some for the first time since March 2020, nearly 17 months removed from their last in-person class.

“COVID didn’t create some of these problems – it revealed them in some really nuanced ways,” Superintendent Klint Willert said.

As the 2021-22 school year began, it quickly became clear that many of the behavioral issues that were discussed prior to the pandemic were back – in a big way. Students were now more defiant, attendance took a dive, and behavior issues became even more frequent.

Von Fischer and current Assistant Principal Justin Stanley quickly identified that something had to be done. The current situation saw some students not finding any success – some without any real hope to pass even a single class – and it was starting to affect not only staff in the building, but other students as well.

“Some of the students were realizing once you’re so far in the hole, there’s really no hope of getting out, given the existing structure at Brookings High School,” Willert explained.

This was not just a Brookings problem. Schools throughout South Dakota and the entire country were experiencing the same types of issues.

Rather than sitting back and admiring the problem, as Willert likes to say, district offials collectively “rolled up their sleeves and found a solution.” The idea of an off-campus, alternative school was discussed again, and it was decided that the high school would begin identifying options. Just a few small details had to be ironed out: where would the school be, who would teach, and where would the funding come from?

Enter Lindsie Bell, chief operations officer for the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Plains. After reading of the high school’s current issues, she requested a meeting with the administrative team to offer any help she could. After meeting with Bell, Stanley identified that the Teen Center (part of the Boys & Girls Club) had a large space upstairs that was vacant for nearly the entire school day. Stanley asked Bell if it would be possible to utilize that space for the proposed alternative school.

Bell was immediately in and helped the district turn the space into what would then become the Bobcat Plains Academy.

“(The Boys & Girls Club) partnership has been huge,” Stanley said. “It’s been all and more than we could have dreamed of.”

When an alternative school was first being discussed by district leaders, a major barrier was funding. As Willert explained, “There is only so many ways to cut the pie.” It would be difficult to hire two full-time teachers for an alternative school while also keeping all the courses at the high school. 

Because of the pandemic, the federal government had provided school districts with federal relief funds (ESSER). Earlier in the 2021-22 school year, the district had decided to allocate funds to each school, which would include hiring “success interventionists,” designed to help students catch up on academics due to learning loss, COVID, etc. 

District officials decided, rather than hire two success interventionists for the high school, they would use their allocated dollars to hire two teachers for the academy. 

Who would be the two teachers? It was decided that internal teachers – those who were familiar with the students and who knew what it meant “to be a Bobcat” – would be necessary to the academy’s success. 

Dan Berg, previously a business/technology teacher at BHS, and Sara Broesder, previously a special education teacher at BHS, “stepped up to the plate” and asked to be become instructors at the academy.

 Each of them had unique skillsets which made them perfect for the positions, Stanley explained.

“(Dan Berg) is just phenomenal at creating the relationships and always has been and will continue to be,” Stanley said. “(Sara Broesder) has a special education background  – she has a lot of knowledge working with diversity in learners, everything from emotionally to academically and everything else. She’s also great with relationships.”

“(We) feel so honored and privileged to be working with our Brookings High School colleagues, the staff at the Boys & Girls Club and our amazing students at the Bobcat Plains Academy. We are all in the business of helping our young people to realize their full potential,” Berg and Broesder said in a news release earlier this year.

With the teachers, funding and location secured, the academy would become a reality – in an incredibly short time period. It had only been three months since the initial school board meeting in the fall to the expected start date of the school – an impressive achievement in community collaboration. 

Bobcat Plains Academy

With the major details of the academy sorted out, the district began to focus on the day-to-day operations. The key to the success for the student’s enrolled at the academy would be relationships built on trust, Stanley explained.

“Relationships first and then academics will come, and that’s exactly what has happened,” Stanley said.

The academy officially started on Jan. 31. The first week was spent primarily focused on relationship building.

“They’ve really worked hard to build that relationship with the kids,” Stanley said. “That was their No. 1 goal coming into this.”

The first semester saw two-dozen students enrolled in the academy with a few more joining throughout the semester. Class began at 8:30 a.m. and was broken into two sessions – a morning and afternoon – with about an hour break for lunch. Students are enrolled in two classes at a time with a goal of completing “four to six” classes in a semester.

“The concept of this is a supported online environment,” Stanley said. “So, the kids that are there, we ask them to work probably 80-90% independently with the teacher becoming more of a facilitator.”

The supported online learning environment has created successful opportunities for students in the academy, Stanley said. A number of students have been able to not only pass their classes, they have also been able to catch up on a missed credit from the previous semester.

According to Brookings County State’s Attorney Dan Nelson, 18 students completed more credit hours than they did the previous semester at BHS. Further, half of the academy students completed nearly doubled the credits they did the previous semester, Nelson said at the June 21 meeting of the Brookings County Commission.

“Every kid’s kind of on a personalized path,” Stanley said. “Whether it’s mental health or the academic piece, they’re all kind of on that personalized path.”

Part of why the academy has been successful is because the Boys & Girls Club has fostered a supported and safe environment for these students.

“The kids know it’s a safe place to go,” Willert said. “They know that it’s without judgment, and all those things that may have been barriers and impediments at the high school. So, we’re really thankful for that partnership with the Boys & Girls Club and how they’ve stepped in this space with us.”

BHS 

The goal of the academy was two-fold, Stanley said. First, they wanted to create a great culture of learning at the academy, and they also wanted to improve the culture at the high school.

According to Willert and Stanley, the culture at the high school did improve over the course of the second semester of the 2021-22 school year.

“We’re feeling like we’re improving the culture and giving everybody the opportunity to succeed,” Stanley said. “We’re able to provide a high-quality education in one way or another, maybe it’s at Bobcat Plains Academy, or maybe it’s at Brookings High School. They’re both going to be a world-class education, in my opinion.”

The attendance issues at the high school, while not completely eliminated, have subsided as have most of the major behavior issues. 

Future plans

Moving forward, the district is looking to expand the size of the academy. Next year, officials are looking at an enrollment of roughly 40 kids – the max capacity for their space at the Teen Center.

“We look to grow the program,” Willert said. “We know the needs aren’t going away.”

Funding will continue to be a barrier as the ESSER funds will run out in two years, but Willert is confident they will find a way to continue the academy.

“We can have one of two responses. We can say, well, that was great, we had two years’ worth of funding, and well, we did this and that was great for two years but now it’s gone,” Willert said. “Or we can say we’re taking a long vision commitment to this because it’s the right thing to do for our kids and I think how we, as a community and as a school district, continue to respond to this really going to be instrumental in the overall success of the high school as a whole.

“I would hope that our community would embrace that notion and appreciate that that’s our school district’s effort and commitment to ensure that every child is successful, because, frankly – and it’s a little cliché,  I know – but we can’t leave one behind,” Willert continued. “We have to have everybody be successful and become productive members of our community if we’re going to continue to sustain what’s going on in Brookings right now.”

For more information on the Bobcat Plains Academy, reach out to Brookings High School Assistant Principal Justin Stanley.