From The Principal's Desk

‌

IN THIS EDITION:

1. Parent Survey

2. Important Sunday Vote for Trinity Members

3. Education Freedom Pledge

4. Remodeling / Expansion Update

5. State Report Card

6. Faculty Christmas Gift

‌

Parent Survey

Help us to continue improving our service to your family!

Trinity kindly requests your participation in The 2021 Family Survey. The Trinity Family Survey focuses on our core values, vision statement, and strategic efforts (critical targets). As always, if you would like to provide more detailed feedback, we strongly encourage face-to-face conversations (or phone calls) whenever possible. Those opportunities can be created by emailing me directly, at sseefeld@trinityfreistadt.com. Thank you for helping us improve our service to you, your children, and to our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ! The survey will remain open until 12pm on 11.23.21.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

‌

Important Vote on 11.21

Increasing Trinity's fundraising capabilities.

On Sunday, November 21, 2021, Trinity's voting membership will gather at 12pm to conduct board elections and also vote on a critical next step in our school's journey to expansion. Our school is proposing a partnership with Atlanta-based Generis, a professional advancement firm that helps faith-based organizations maximize giving and develop effective fundraising strategies. Particularly, the outlined partnership with Trinity includes the development of a capital campaign. If the vote approves the partnership, Generis will get to work with Trinity leadership to develop a plan that will culminate in the proposal of a formal capital campaign (the targeted delivery for that is February). If and when a campaign and strategy are then approved by Trinity's voting members, our team can begin raising funds for our ambitious school building expansion. If you are a member of Trinity's congregation, we strongly encourage you to be present at 12pm on Sunday, November 21, to participate in the discussion and vote on this partnership.

‌

Education Freedom Pledge

Advancing parental choice, nationwide.

On Friday, November 12th, I attended a workshop and roundtable event with School Choice Wisconsin (SCW), Assembly Education Committee Chairman Jeremy Thiesfeldt (former Lutheran school principal and teacher), and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu. The purpose of this workshop and roundtable was to collaboratively work towards education policies that advance a family-first agenda and the expansion of school choice in Wisconsin. While Wisconsin enjoys a legislature that has a majority (and growing) support for school choice, the program has room to improve and grow! Our discussions centered around policy preparation ahead of the 2022 elections; SCW wants to be prepared to hand a (hopeful) pro-family governor legislation that advances choice in our state.

How can YOU help?

Our friends at the Wisconsin Federation for Children, part of the American Federation for Children, have created a mechanism for parents and voters to use their voices. The Education Freedom Pledge is a national database of policymakers, candidates, and voters who support policies that promote parental rights in education and educational freedom. This includes the right of parents to take their children's taxpayer-funded education dollars to the education providers of their choosing - whether it be a public, private, charter, or home school. Sometimes known as "universal choice," this policy truly places each child's education and future in the hands of families, and not politicians, political boundaries, or even a family's income. Trinity leadership supports this concept and continues to advocate for children first. Consider clicking the button below to encourage your legislator to sign the pledge.

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR

‌

REMODELING UPDATE

Trailers are out - remodeling is in!

Looking ahead to the '22-'23 school year, space will be at a premium. We've already repurposed some space on campus to account for our growing student body, and next year will be no different. We are projecting 300+ students for the fall of '22. We began our search for more space with temporary trailers; this conversation, however, has ended as costs began to skyrocket and we did not find a cost-effective solution to connecting the trailers to our main building. The discussion has now shifted to remodeling existing spaces.

One of the most underutilized spaces in our building is our library (not the library itself, just the space). Our current leading proposal includes 1) the addition of two (2) classrooms in the existing library by creating a corridor from the gym doors to the eastern-most exit; 2) the repurposing of the library conference room to account for our new piano lab; 3) a repurposing and remodel of the church basement (known as the Schedler Resource Center) to include office spaces, multipurpose space, and library stacks; and 4) extra utilization of our resource room and conference room on the western-most edge of the campus. This means the library may be moved, not removed!

Funds for this project will be taken from our 2021 Gala along with other undesignated and designated gifts. A final proposal and rendering will be out soon. Work on this project will begin as soon as school lets out in June 2022.

‌

STATE REPORT CARD

Exceeding expectations with room to improve.

As part of the state accountability system, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) produces report cards for every publicly funded school and district in Wisconsin - this includes qualifying schools with students who are in one of the three voucher programs. These report cards include data on multiple indicators for multiple years across four Priority Areas (Achievement, Growth, Target Group Outcomes, and On-track to Graduation). This is not the sole means of how Trinity measures success, but it is perhaps one of the most public.

Trinity elects to have all students take the state's Forward exam each year so that we have some comparable data (more on this from our AP in a coming memo). While we are happy that Trinity's 2021 state report card demonstrates an 'exceeding expectations' rating, we still have work to do.

Over the coming weeks and months, our office will prepare a rich data analysis and report for parents. Our goal is to have this report completed by our annual February 'EdTalk' held in our gym. Without a full analysis complete, here are some trends we observed based on available data:

Trinity students enrolled as part of one of the state's choice programs are performing at extremely high levels;
Trinity Choice-only students scored in the top 2% for the "on-track to graduate" rate, among the highest in the state.
Trinity's "Choice-only" report card is among the strongest in the greater Milwaukee area, "significantly exceeding expectations."
While students transferring into Trinity tend (on average) to be behind in grade-level proficiency, we are seeing the gap close very quickly. The longer students are enrolled at Trinity, the likelier they are to meet or exceed expectations.
This means we are seeing more students come into Trinity behind, but our task to catch them up is working.
Our priority areas continue to be math and reading, but especially reading.

We are already hard at work designing programs, support, and new models to address the gaps presented to our teachers. As our analysis concludes in early '22, we are excited to be preparing some significant and powerful changes to our operations that, we believe, will close gaps even further and faster.

‌

REMINDER:

TEACHER CHRISTMAS GIFT

Consider a small gift to support Trinity's teachers.

Our team works hard, each day, for the good of our children. I am so proud to be a part of this team and honored to support them in their work. Because of budget constraints, it is unusual for Trinity to provide any sort of bonus or Christmas gift to our teammates. This year, we are asking our donors and the greater community to consider a small gift to be shared amongst the teachers. Cash gifts in sealed envelopes to the office are encouraged, as this is not a gift to Trinity, but only a 'thank you' to our teachers. If you have specific questions about this project, please email me directly. Thank you in advance for your consideration and kindness!

‌