THE 3 Rs:  Relationships, Resources, and Results

• Relationships: Educational success depends on the teacher-student relationship. And the success of all children in a community - or what might be called "school success" - depends on the health of the school-community relationship. Board members must always act with the importance of these relationships first and foremost in their hearts and minds.

• Resources: The Board must lead in managing and developing the resources teachers and students need to focus on learning and the resources school communities need to prosper.
  

• Results: The Board must set the tone for holding our schools accountable for results. The goals set by the recent strategic plan are a good place to start:
  • 80% of students proficient in reading with special emphasis on preK readiness and read abilities in the 3rd grade;
  • 80% of students proficient in math with all students taking Algebra in the 8th grade and successfully completing Algebra 2 before graduation;
  • 75% reduction in the achievement gap as measured by successful high school completion rates and post-secondary successes

Results do not occur in a vacuum: there are issues of student motivation, parent support, teacher preparedness, peer influence, educational readiness, student health, classroom behavior, textbook availability, learning disabilities, and the sheer complexity can be overwhelming.

But we must do what we can - smarter, better and faster. The current board brought us back from the brink of financial and managerial disaster. The outlines of a viable school system have been sketched out over the past year - now it's time to make things happen.

We can do better!

Some places to start

The strategies I outline below are about improving district governance - the role of the board - so that teachers and students have the resources they need to focus on learning.

District governance will be improved

• by increasing the accountability of the Board and the administration for results and
• by looking to parent, teacher and community leadership for solutions in the schools.

Some place to start include the following:

1) Collaborate with district staff on creating a budgeting process that is transparent and understandable to parents, staff and the broader community. The process will include measures that insure each school can provide strong fundamentals, that resources are distributed equitably, that supplemental funding is targeted properly, and that cross subsidies are minimized.

2) Establish clear means of evaluating the Superintendent in terms of student achievement, parent involvement, and staff satisfaction. Collaborate with district staff in establishing means for conflict resolution between parents and the district. A significant feature of this evaluation will include a role for the community and for teachers in evaluating district policy and how the district administers policy regarding behavior issues, school safety, suspensions, and special education.

3) Participate in a renewed commitment to secondary school reform with an emphasis on creating strong, viable pathways for students. This means a renewed commitment to the Middle School Platform and a much more focused approach to high school reform. This work will be done in close collaboration with the families, the staff, and each school community through the district parent advisory councils. Questions regarding the role of race in school environments, the impact of cultural differences on school and family relationships, and planning for staffing needs for specific school communities will be central to this work.

4) Establish an ongoing, serious commitment on the Board level and within the broader community to providing rigorous educational opportunities in the math and sciences for all students. Such a commitment will be seen in increased funding for math and science education beginning in elementary school, the widespread availability of math and science materials such as textbooks, as well as graphing calculators and laptops, and a marked elevation of the status of Career and Technical Education programs within the district and the city, such as the award-winning Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program.

5) Support a Board level review of special education in the district with particular attention to the following issues: the effectiveness of district screening processes for identifying special education needs in elementary school, the effectiveness of special education service provision across the district and within schools, and creative approaches to curbing runaway special education costs while also enhancing current service levels.

A Special Note

I do not have an ideological commitment to any particular school reform agenda - k8's vs. middle schools, magnets vs. neighborhood schools, charters vs. district-operated schools. Some communities have had to establish charters when relationships with the larger district were broken; families make choices for a wide variety of reasons. We've had too much infighting focused more on school structure than student learning. School reform is obviously necessary; how and why such reforms take hold will need to be decided upon to the benefit of all, sometimes community by community, sometimes student by student.

Thanks for reading. And let me know what you think by dropping me an email at carla@carlabates.org.