EDLD 5399, Week 3 District Improvement/Lessons Learned

         Through the course of this superintendent program, my participation in improvement initiatives took a different turn when I was named the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction/Technology in the spring. My focus in improvement initiatives took on a broader focus than what I may have realized earlier in the program.  It did not take long to realize areas that needed to be addressed for district improvement.

            I identified three major areas of concern for our district:  STAAR writing challenges, performance of our economically disadvantaged students on the TAKS test, and a general decline in attendance that is costing the district thousands of dollars.

Recommendations

After our writing teachers attended the regional service center writing academies, they returned with concerns about preparing their students for the STAAR writing test.  During a district meeting with writing teachers, it became evident that we needed to develop a plan for vertically aligning the writing curriculum beginning in Kindergarten.  A team of writing teachers was formed and these writing teachers will work during the summer to align their curriculum and develop a series of grade level writing benchmarks.  This team of teachers will present the writing benchmarks to other district writing teachers in August staff development and will train their peers in what is needed and what has been identified.

Once our 2011 TAKS results became available, we immediately started reviewing our data through DMAC data disaggregation.  As an administrative team, we recognized that our economically disadvantaged student population was not performing at as high a level as other groups of students. A team of administrators has been defined and this team will plan for transitioning to STAAR/EOC for the 2011-2012 school year.  In addition, they will focus on our economically disadvantaged student group and how to better meet their needs. In order to do this, principals will have to be trained accessing DMAC STAAR attribute reports to prepare for problem areas identified through DMAC data analysis.

A recent PEIMS audit revealed that our attendance rate has steadily declined over the past five years and, as a result, has cost our district thousands of revenue dollars. The data indicated significant drops in attendance during the 3^rd and 6^th weeks at the high school which is when exemptions are scheduled. Therefore, an immediate recommendation was to review the current high school exemption policy.  Of course, details have to be worked out because of the new EOC assessment requirement for the EOC test to count 15% of a student’s grade, but if an exemption policy somehow remains in effect, change the exemption policy so that students must come to school for attendance purposes BEFORE being exempt from their exams.

Lessons Learned

            Since my participation in improvement initiatives changed drastically from the beginning of this program to now, I realized that district needs are ever-changing and new needs can pop up at any time.  I have always known that data analysis is powerful, but the recent disaggregation of our TAKS and attendance data certainly emphasized the importance of how critical data is to identifying areas that need improvement.  As educational leaders, we must constantly review data in our search for improving our district.