Social Studies standards, absenteeism discussed at school board meeting

Watertown School Board Member Jean Moulton expressed continued concern on high school class sizes.


The Watertown School Board heard from Instructional Design Coordinator Tricia Walker at the board’s monthly meeting on Monday, September 9. Walker presented the District’s evolving plan to implement the State’s new Social Studies standards, with a plan for full implementation by the 2025-26 academic year. The State has partnered with Utah-based Studies Weekly to create age-appropriate content for students. Watertown School District has signed on to this program as well. Walker presented an example of a reader that all K-5 students would receive.   At the high school level, a new freshman half credit course on South Dakota and Native American History would be added as a requirement. Sophomore world history would be expanded to a full credit course. Senior requirements in personal finance and US Government will remain in place.  Board member Roshal Rossman confirmed with Superintendent Jeff Danielsen that the changes at the high school level will need to be approved by the School Board this fall in order to accommodate registration which begins in January.

Studies Weekly, mostly serves younger students in the K-8 space, with a focus on science and social studies, and its curriculum—short lessons in a weekly pamphlet format—is used in roughly 45,000 schools across the nation including big states like California, Texas, and Florida. While the organization unbiased, they have a checkered past according to Education Weekly when it comes to teaching Native American and African-American history, including misrepresentations of the two groups, and the alleged “whitewashing” of curicculm by removing racial issues from historic events like the Civil War. Studies Weekly responded to past criticisims by shipping reprints of books or offering stickers to cover the questionable passages.

Watertown School District Superintend Dr. Jeff Danielsen addresses the School Board at their September 9 meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Jeff Danielsen then addressed the School Board regarding the District’s plan to decrease absenteeism. Last year, the District received a grant from the State, with the majority of those dollars being used to hire three Family Support Specialists. These positions started in January 2024, and continue this school year. One specialist is assigned to the K-4 elementary schools, one to the Intermediate and Middle Schools, and the last serves Watertown High School. Danielson explained that the Specialists assist students and families in a variety of ways, such as planning and prioritizing getting to school on time. This includes physical transport to school themselves, but Danielson emphasized this should not be the norm.  The program is “not supposed to be school Uber” he said.

The program already seems to be working. Dr. Danielsen stated that in the 2023-24 school year, the first year of the program’s implementation, over 90% of students were in a “good’ attendance. This is up from 84.53% in the 2022-23 school year. The upward trend is also true for student from minority and low-income backgrounds. Danielsen report that the Family Support Specialist made over 700 phone call and text messages, made over 300 home visits and gave over 300 rides.

At the end of the meeting, Board member Jean Moulton addressed Superintendent Danielsen and the other members of the School Board. Moulton expressed concern at recently changed elementary mathematics curriculum, and the contract that the District into with Illustrative Mathematics and McGraw-Hill for materials. The majority of Moulton’s concerns were on over-crowded and under-staffed classrooms at the High School. Moulton placed most of the blame for this on the Arrow Academy, which pulled eight core teachers out of the traditional classrooms. Said Moulton, “Why must 1,000 students suffer because of the 200 in Arrow Academy?” Neither Dr. Danielsen nor any other Board members responded to Moulton’s concerns and the meeting was adjourned by Board President Stuart Stein.

The full meeting can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/@watertownschooldistrict14-74