Board of Ed for February: Level 5 updates

backup is here; introducing the new receiver
Wulfson: "as I think everyone realizes, you have to be named 'Jeffery' to get a senior job with the Department these days"
Villar: now in week three "and the learning process is now underway"
first in rural Connecticut then in Hartford, spent two years starting a charter school, then moved into Mereton Public Schools
was director of group focused "on closing the achievement gap"
"policy opportunity...a perform opportunity...depth of education"
"seven superintendents in eight years does an awful lot of destruction in a system"
Johnston: being on the ground was eye opening
23 different payroll forms that came into the HR office every week
"one small example...every system has corellaries"
"there was a lot of support for the turnaround plan...the problem is the schools didn't own the turnaround plans themselves"
what schools need to be doing is very different by grade level
school improvement plans that are based on the turnaround plan
"started with the principals but we said it doesn't end with you"
"school improvement plans are living documents"
visited every school at least once a month
take the tenets of the school improvement plan and comment only on those
"tried to stay true in our observations" to the plan
met with a lot of acceptance and excitement by the school communities
elementary literacy: what are our plans to get children to read?
assessing a single aspect of literacy doesn't look at enough: how do students make meaning?
very strong results on decoding results; when offered a more comprehensive assessment, they found that children weren't making meaning
"dose of intervention" for students needing it
"it's giving the school momentuum"
"still more to be done"
new writing program "the students really are writers"
dual language program: promoting students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds
student noted that new receiver spoke to them in Spanish
"not something students are used to seeing" in leadership
Open Architects doing financial management and human resources
"a lot of people have tried to stabilize the finances of the district in the past"
"inherited a lot of unpaid bills"
"about one in every four invoice he paid this fiscal year was from last fiscal year"
have worked through the backlog
have hired 70 teachers this year; there are only 170 teachers in the district all together
"high rate of turnover"
"there will be some turnover again this year"
need for a new high school principal as current one moves back to family
assistant principal appointed as interim starting March 9
balancing FY19 budget; "getting to the bottom of acknowledging the costs"
opening of OSV charter school meaning loss of funding to district
"there are challenges"
school design grant funds of about $2M over three years
Stewart: on governance
what has happened or is happening with Southbridge on governance
"all level five districts have locally elected school committees"
has been working with the district and "improving the outlook of the schools together"
"brought back some subcommittees...have more of a voice, more of knowing what is happening the schools" on budget and curriculum
will be ongoing work with Villars "to establish their role"
"so they can be part of the change, not simply inherited a changed district"
Craven: "a little bit alarmed by" reports from prior receiver that we were in a good situation
"we're a little bit stunned by the level of chaos the business office was in"
"I don't think in the future that a receiver should report to the Board without reporting in these matters"
Sagan: I didn't think it was going fine until now...maybe it was a question of depth
"I don't think they were sleeping well in Southbridge...I'm not sure they are yet."
Moriarty: want to flag PD on implementation on literacy
"love the dual language concept...if it aligns to the best practices in other Massachusetts communities"

And the rest of the Level 5's
Parker in New Bedford: soliciting proposals for potential receivers in the coming year
"we hope to be able to offer him a recommendation in the next few weeks"
will engage in community stakeholders as part of that process
McKenna: "the timing won't work to have the superintendent because you won't have a superintendent"
New Bedford "hopes to have for the beginning of March...it's not off the table"
on all Level 5s
each school increase in use of instructional rounds
distributive leadership: solicit feedback on key decisions from teachers
difficulty with staff retention and turnover
McKenna: challenge with suspensions
Johnston: really went after it
while I don't have the exact numbers, improvement in culture and climate have been notable
McKenna: turnover "which has been an issue in a lot of charter schools"
particularly young teachers and inexperienced teachers..."workload is enormous"
it is going to continue to turn "unless someone pays attention to it"
"has to be a more innovative" process for some of these positions
"hard to do long term"
"I think a lot of the charters haven't accepted that yet...thinking through more innovative ways to job share"
"in other parts of the country, schools have started to do that"
"I think that they lose really good folks, after they've put in time...they learn on the job, and then they lose them"
Moriarty: agree with that call to action, but I would broaden that to schools that DESE has intervened in
"systemic...encourage Department to better understand this ongoing issue with teacher turnover"
"the tough places are tough places to keep people"