Pleasantview taken off state’s partnership agreement list

EASTPOINTE — Pleasantview Elementary School in the Eastpointe Community Schools district was identified by the state as being in the bottom 5% of academic performance for the 2021-2022 school year. 

At the time, the school was identified for comprehensive support, which required a three-year partnership agreement with the Michigan Department of Education to improve academic achievement. 

On Nov. 20, the MDE released the 2024-25 Michigan School Index accountability results that showed 68 schools, including Pleasantview, had been removed from the partnership agreement due to improvement within their schools after the three-year period. 

“This achievement comes from years of hard work from our Pleasantview staff, students, and families. Keeping our focus on increasing student attendance and parent participation was key,” Principal Falicia Moreland-Trice said in a prepared statement. “With that being said, I could not ask for a more dedicated and hardworking group of educators, and we are successful because of the way our families support their children’s learning.”

A partnership agreement with schools is a formal collaboration designed to turn around low-performing schools by bringing in various partners and resources. In the ECS partnership agreement, educators worked with the MDE and the Macomb Intermediate School District to improve achievement levels at Pleasantview. The educators identified a plan of support and interventions to improve academics. A number of goals were set for Pleasantview students and staff to achieve.

The students’ scores on NWEA and M-STEP assessments were among the factors that placed Pleasantview in the bottom 5% of academic performance. NWEA, which stands for Northwest Evaluation Association, is a nonprofit organization that assesses students in various academic studies. The Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress is a computer-based assessment designed to gauge how well students are mastering state standards. 

Eastpointe Community Schools Superintendent Christina Gibson attributed some of Pleasantview’s low academic performance to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which students learned online rather than being in the classroom. 

“I think we were missing some of our key instruction,” Gibson said. “We watched math and reading scores in the country completely plummet.”

In an effort to get off the partnership agreement list, educators “tried to align all of our work to our strategic plan,” Gibson said. A school improvement team was assembled to target certain benchmarks.

One strategy was bringing in new math and English language arts curriculum for all K-12 students, including those at Pleasantview. Gibson also credited the leadership of Moreland-Trice for the school’s improvements. Parent support, too, was vital.

“Principal Moreland-Trice is really strong in trying to involve parents in their learning for their kids,” Gibson said.

Other factors were considered, including interventions for students in need of extra help.

“I think the Pleasantview teachers worked hard at the interventions with students who were struggling,” Gibson said. “We doubled down on our professional development in the core curriculum.”

During the Nov. 24 Eastpointe Community Schools Board of Education meeting, Gibson informed the board and the public about Pleasantview’s news.

“Congratulations to Mrs. Trice. I know that was a lot of hard work to her team and to the executive team that Superintendent Gibson has put together,” Board Secretary Edward Williams said. “It’s a collaborative effort and it makes the whole district shine, so congratulations to the whole team and the district.”

Board President Chineva Early acknowledged Pleasantview parents and students for the school’s recent improvement.

“Those parents had to do something at home, read an extra book, say some encouraging words. Thank you to the students, who wanted to change, who wanted to try.” Early said. “Also I want to say thank you to Mrs. Trice and her team because they bought into it. They said we need to improve our students and they did it. They didn’t say they’re behind and they’ll always be behind or anything like that. They believed they could do it and they did. 

“I just want to say congratulations to them,” Early said. “This took everybody to say what’s the right curriculum, how to present it, how to get help, professional development days, all the things that go on behind the scenes. It wasn’t just one thing. It was a whole lot of things coming together to make this successful.”

“We’re not done yet,” Gibson said. “We still have work to do.”

Eastpointe High School was placed into a partnership agreement at the same time as Pleasantview and still remains on the list.