The principals in Little Rock's five academically distressed schools on Thursday described for state education leaders the efforts at their campuses to improve student achievement and the learning environment.
Routine analyses of student test data by faculty teams, establishment of student achievement goals, delivery of rigorous instruction based on individual student needs, innovative discipline strategies, new staff members, building renovations, and City Year mentors were among the initiatives listed by the school leaders for the Arkansas Board of Education.
"At Hall High, the school leadership team has worked to create more rigorous long-term goals," Principal Larry Schlelcher said in describing intervention classes and online supplemental reading and math programs. "Ultimately our goal is to be removed from the academic distress list, but even more important is our goal to educate every student who walks through our doors."
Hall, J.A. Fair and McClellan high schools along with Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools are labeled as academically distressed by the state because fewer than half of their students scored at proficient or better levels on state math and literacy exams over three consecutive years.
Because of the labels at those schools and at Baseline Elementary, the state Education Board in January 2015 took over the school district, dismissing the elected School Board and putting the superintendent under the direction of the Arkansas education commissioner. Baseline has since been cleared of the label.
The Arkansas Department of Education's school accountability division routinely provides technical assistance and monitoring to the academically distressed schools in Little Rock and elsewhere in the state. The state Education Board requires regular progress reports on schools' efforts to carry out their improvements.
Michael Anthony, principal at Fair, told the Education Board that he is the school's third principal in three years and that one-third of the school's faculty members are new to the school or are in the first year of their careers. A majority of ninth- and 10th-graders at the school achieve well below their grade level and are not on track to be prepared for college and careers.
"We recognized that our efforts need to be schoolwide," Anthony said. "We didn't need a program, so to speak, but we needed intensive classroom support. We recognized that we needed rigor. We recognized that students weren't accustomed to performing at the depth of knowledge required on the ACT Aspire exams."
In partial response, Fair leaders have purchased computer software that students can access day and night in problem solving to practice as a supplement to classroom instruction.
"The leadership team will continue to reflect upon teacher practices as the data dictates. We ask our teachers to teach, assess and then use the assessment information to determine the next steps," he said.
The school principals, including Wanda Ruffins from Cloverdale Middle, Frank Williams from Henderson Middle, and Gabriel Jackson at McClellan High, also described for the Education Board the ongoing challenges at their schools. Those challenges include high absenteeism rates among students and teachers, high percentages of teachers new to their schools, student discipline problems, and struggles to assist students who are not native English-language speakers.
The principals were complimentary of the district's new Achieve Team approach to school improvement in which district-level administrators and state Education Department leaders meet as a large group with school faculties to hear what the obstacles are to raising student achievement and then finding ways to remove those barriers.
For Cloverdale, the Achieve Team helped provide needed teacher training on working with students who don't speak English, Ruffins said. At Henderson, the Achieve Team made training possible on how to blend technology and traditional classroom instruction, Williams said.
Schlelcher from Hall and Jackson from McClellan were appreciative of the support from Superintendent Mike Poore and his establishment of "think tanks," which are made up of community leaders who are developing career education programs. Schlelcher said the programs are intended to make education more interesting and relevant to students.
Richard Wilde, public school program manager in the Education Department's School improvement Unit, told the board that frequent superintendent changes are a concern because with each change comes a new plan and a new process for improvement. There is little effort to incorporate the prior work into the new work.
But he also said there are some noteworthy differences now in that school leadership teams are being asked to be more inclusive of all school faculty to help with improvement, a move that the state leaders encourage. Additionally, the current superintendent, Poore, sees himself as an instructional leader, is modeling that to other administrators, and is delegating district support to the schools, Wilde said.
Wilde said the state school improvement unit will work with the district and schools to integrate the Achieve Team plans into each school's overall improvement process. He recommended that the state help the district develop a "feeder pattern" Achieve Team plan. That is to address the fact that students enter middle and high schools with large achievement deficits. The high schools are "the symptom bearers" for the elementary and and middle schools that produce low-achieving students.
Education Board members welcomed the reports from the schools.
Diane Zook of Melbourne observed that student attendance in the first nine weeks of the school year has "greatly improved" over past years and that teacher attendance also has inched upward, "but we still have a problem."
"We know from other entities that if you have teachers who aren't coming to work and students who miss a lot, that impacts learning," she said, acknowledging the principals' frustrations over absenteeism.
Education Board member Susan Chambers of Bella Vista said she appreciated hearing from the principals.
"It's really good to hear from the leaders of the individual schools. There is nothing more authentic," she said, urging them to be honest and transparent about their schools. "I actually gain more confidence in hearing the very specific things that need to be addressed. Society sometimes encourages putting a more positive face on it."
Chambers said she knows the schools have a ways to go, but "I'm really feeling a sense that we are really getting arms around this and we are headed in the right direction" to achieve desired goals.
Metro on 11/11/2016