LINN — Linn R-2 Superintendent Bob James told board members on Thursday that the district’s Annual Performance Report (APR) dropped by 10 points, and explained what needs to happen to bring it back up from 78.5%.

“Normally, this is one of my favorite topics, which is teaching, learning, and student achievement,” he said. “I cannot say that I’m super excited for this to be the topic this evening. Compared to last year, we were at 88.5% and we fell backwards for the first time in our tenure here. We’ve made some incremental gains through the last few years, up to 88.5%, and then we lost 10 points.”

Of those 10 points, two involved continuous improvement. “We’re not the only ones,” said James. “For whatever reason, Infinite Campus wasn’t pulling in its report for Core Data, so we lost two points for that. It’s four points of your APR, but it equates to two percentage points.”

James explained that Guidance Counselor Michelle Wolfe correctly input all the data. “She did a great job,” he said, adding that several other districts in the area had a similar experience.

Linn R-2 lost eight points in student achievement, and some of that, James noted, administrators understood what areas were struggling. In her second year, Elementary Principal Cammie Otto told James about curriculum gaps in elementary math, so the district purchased Eureka Math. “We got that in the spring,” said James. “We did some pilots, and we’re running with it this year. But the hit that we thought we were going to take, we took last year.” That’s when Linn went up 20 points in Algebra 1. “We thought that was awesome, but we lost every bit of those 20 points in Algebra 1 this year,” James noted. “So, we actually went backwards where we had previously had a leap forward. We just took two hard hits there, mostly in the math area. I would love to tell you that this is statewide, and everybody had a challenge, but honestly, there are mixed results. There are a lot of good districts around us that made progress this past year, and their APR went up.”

Chamois, Owensville, and Belle saw improvements, James added. “We knew a couple of things were coming our way,” he said. “We missed. We’re already meeting about the 30,000-foot-level data, which is our general student achievement data, but we’ll be taking a look at the student and teacher breakdown when they come in, trying to figure out where our curriculum gaps are and where we’re missing, and it will be our priority focus. The bottom line: teaching and learning is our core business, and that’s the only place that we didn’t win big this year. We’ve got to rectify that. Our student data will tell us the most.”

Linn R-2’s score put the district in about the middle of the pack compared to other Central State 8 Conference schools.

James told the board that about five years ago, the district’s score was around 80%, but that was calculated with a different rating system.

“Our goal was to break into the 90s,” he added. “This year, we thought we were a point and a half off at 88.5. We knew we were going to struggle a little bit, but we thought we still might make that.”

Linn R-2’s increases in the last three or four years were offset by this year’s score. “I think our net loss was like 1.8 over the last three or four years,” James noted. “We’re inconsistent. Where I thought we had some consistency in gaining two and four points each year, we lost 10 all at once. So, our focus is going to be to gain all 10 back. We can be better, and I’ll tell you why.

“If you can lose 10 points, we’ve said this a lot over our data discussions, and also as an administrative team — when you’ve got maybe one kid, that’s 1% or 2%, then getting 10%, that’s five or 10 kids. Let’s drill down and focus. Let’s find where those five or 10 kids are at, where they’re at in their learning, and bridge the gap between what we’re delivering instructionally, how they’re engaging them, and what they’re able to achieve afterward. It is a doable thing. We just missed it by, I would say, five to seven kids in each area, but we can get to five to seven kids in each area. I’m used to this number of bigger schools targeting 50 to 100 kids to get this kind of move.”

At the high school level, Linn has about five teachers who handle most of the APR rating. “Let’s buckle down with those five teachers, and really support them better than we ever have before,” said James. “We’ll drill down to aligning written, taught, and tested, making sure instructional delivery is on, is quality, our engagement is high, and what we’re giving them is on level. I think our students will handle their business on the assessment.”

Board President Dr. Shawn Strong asked James to describe the district’s philosophy. “New teachers will try to focus on that bottom third, bottom half, when, in reality, if you focus on them, those top kids aren’t going to score any higher than what you’ve already taught them,” he said. “What is our philosophy? Teach to the top kids or teach the top kids, but then try to figure out how to help those bottom kids up?”

“We have to do both,” said James. “We are changing a little bit of our strategy. We have typically taught tier one, tier two, and tier three, which is kind of what you’re talking about. Tier one is general instruction on how to meet the needs of everything we have. That is always our focus. But we’ve also started with a tandem effort on what we call our ‘reds,’ those that are far behind. We try to get them caught up. That takes the majority of the year, and then we’re scrambling to blitz what we call our bubble or our ‘yellow’ kids. We still have to have tier one learning, but we’re going to put the majority of our effort on our bubble kids and really targeting those kids that have the opportunity to make it over into that proficient and advanced range. I think we’re better off doing that if we limit our effort and focus where we have the greatest potential for gain. I think we’ll have some success there. I think this is going to test our culture, and it’s going to weigh on our climate. It takes blood, sweat, and tears. That’s how that happens. Honestly, we’re going to be all hands on deck focusing on our APR data.”

Phil Boyd will be at the school in January to provide professional development and assist with plans to improve scores. “I’m glad he’ll be here to help us get through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult time with climate as we bear down on APR,” said James.

• Seats currently held by Dr. Strong, Secretary Lori Greer, and board member Naomi Klouzek will be up for election in April 2026. Filing will start on Dec. 9 and run through Dec. 30. Anyone interested in filing for a school board position can do so in person at the Superintendent’s office. James said he will be in the office from 3-5 p.m. on Dec. 30 for any late filings.

• The school’s checking and investment balance was $1,359,796.82, including investments of $508,253.74 through Mid America Bank.