Delafield/Kettle Moraine school district and Summit Learning (houses, school districts)

[Schiben]

Hi all,

My family and I are looking at houses in the lake country area. Delafield is pretty high on my list and we've recently found a house that might check most/all of our boxes. The biggest question mark for us is the school district. We know that they've typically been among the highest in the state. However, the Kettle Moraine school district has been working on implementing Summit Learning (apparently self paced and tech heavy) starting in their middle school. We've ready some pretty negative reviews on this system. My wife is a teacher and has a good finger on the pulse of education in the area. We both have concerns about this system but we admit we don't know the whole story. Our 2 kids will be going into kindergarten and 2nd grade next year and plan to stay in the same district through their graduation. We want to make sure we're comfortable with what we decide for our kids.

So, how is it? Do kids seem to be taking to this system? Are teachers approving of the instruction style? Is there a future for this system? I understand there's a way to opt out; how does that work?

[damba]

Originally Posted by Schiben

Hi all,

My family and I are looking at houses in the lake country area. Delafield is pretty high on my list and we've recently found a house that might check most/all of our boxes. The biggest question mark for us is the school district. We know that they've typically been among the highest in the state. However, the Kettle Moraine school district has been working on implementing Summit Learning (apparently self paced and tech heavy) starting in their middle school. We've ready some pretty negative reviews on this system. My wife is a teacher and has a good finger on the pulse of education in the area. We both have concerns about this system but we admit we don't know the whole story. Our 2 kids will be going into kindergarten and 2nd grade next year and plan to stay in the same district through their graduation. We want to make sure we're comfortable with what we decide for our kids.

So, how is it? Do kids seem to be taking to this system? Are teachers approving of the instruction style? Is there a future for this system? I understand there's a way to opt out; how does that work?

Keep in mind that a lot of the fears/complaints about STEAM heavy learning, common core, etc. are overblown.

You would simply network with the local school(s) in question for such specific, granular level details. Especially on the admin side. Also contact the PTO for local parents/teachers to speak with.

Good luck.

[Schiben]

We're going to an open house that explains some of what the system is about. I'm also doing a during school hours walk through soon. Hopefully that will help shed some light.

We've reached out to people in the community in other ways too. There's some pretty bad stuff said about the school district. But, I realize that people usually don't scream from the mountain top that they're happy. It's just more common to hear complaints. That said, it's hard to ignore.

[TWG1572]

My experience with Kettle Moraine has been through sports - my kid's team plays them a couple times a year. If we could find a way not to schedule them anymore, we would gladly do it. Poor sportmanship (both players and parents) and cheap shots are typically what we encounter. Last year, a KM parent had a drone over the field recording the game. One of our parents asked him to stop, since it was distracting to the kids. He blew us and started yelling. In the next game with them, one of their players wound up and took a baseball swing at one of our players stomach with his lacrosse stick. He knocked the wind out of the kid, it was a scary moment until he was able to breathe again and walk off the field.

I'm not a believer in picking school districts on sports performance. I could care less what the win/loss record is. But when you see incidents like this, it says something about the culture of the team and likely the culture of the school as well. This is just one random observation, but may be something to be observant about when talking to people in the district.