The Mount Pleasant Community School District’s School Improvement Advisory Committee (SIAC) met Wednesday evening in the high school media center, bringing together students, teachers, principals, school board members, parents, and staff — including the school resource officer — for the first session of the school year.
Superintendent John Hendrickson opened the meeting by noting that this initial session would differ from past years. Rather than functioning as a roundtable discussion, the focus would be on gathering information to help guide future recommendations to the school board. Under Iowa Code, SIAC committees advise local boards on major educational goals, student performance, bullying and harassment prevention, and other improvement areas.
Dr. Angie Butler, Director of Instruction, led much of the evening’s presentation. She outlined how the district’s Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) operate, emphasizing three core ideas: a focus on learning, a collaborative culture, and a results-oriented approach. Butler also reviewed the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), which details how the district responds when students need additional academic or behavioral assistance.
Focusing on the first pillar, focus on learning, the committee examined data from the Iowa School Performance Profiles, including student demographics, attendance, academic growth, graduation rates, post-secondary readiness, and building-specific results for Van Allen, Salem, the Middle School, and the High School. Butler highlighted several areas of progress, including a significant drop in chronic absenteeism — down to 11.2% in 2025 from 27.5% the previous year — and an increase in science proficiency, rising to 67.8 points from 58.3 in 2024.
Members also revisited the “Portrait of a Panther,” a framework developed last year to strengthen students’ soft skills. The model outlines six core competencies, each broken into three skills, adapted to be developmentally appropriate for all grade levels.
Under the second pillar, collaborative culture, Butler described how teacher teams operate and the questions they use to evaluate instruction and student learning. After each presentation segment, table groups discussed what they noticed in the data and what questions they still had.
Finally, the committee reviewed action plans related to attendance, graduation rate, academic performance, skills for learning, and professional practice under the third pillar, results-oriented approach. Each goal includes specific action steps, staff responsibilities, and scheduled check-ins three times before the end of the school year. The current graduation rate baseline stands at 80.3%, reflecting the typical one-year reporting delay.
John Hendrickson closed out the meeting by sharing updates about the Facilities Ad Hoc Committee. He outlined what the committee has accomplished in recent meetings, the information they have gathered for assessment, and the list of committee members, which includes a mix of community members, parents, and teachers. All details are available on the district’s website, you can click here to view the information.
The SIAC will reconvene for its next meeting on February 18 and will continue monitoring student progress and guiding district priorities throughout the year.