5.) Superintendent's State of the District - Focus: Educational Excellence, Boundaries & Facilities and

Background: The Superintendent presented a planning process to address changing district demographics, enrollment imbalance between schools, inconsistency of high-quality education programs and long-term fiscal solvency.

Superintendent’s State of the District:

Focus on Educational Excellence, Boundaries and Facilities

Ardella J. Dailey, Superintendent of Schools

Quality Schools Shape Our Community

Alameda Unified School District is a community asset that positively influences the quality of life in Alameda and the choices that families make to locate here and enroll their children in our schools. Indeed, recent Alameda newspaper and magazine articles have drawn the relationship between Alameda’s good schools, property values, and the desirability of Alameda as a place to raise children. Alameda schools provide a good education to our students and this is supported by the fact that the State of California considers AUSD a high-performing school district, based on exceeding the state’s target of 800 on the 2006 and 2007 Academic Performance Index (API). This high performance is a tribute to the talent and commitment of our employees who are passionately dedicated to the success and well-being of our students. Fifty-seven percent of AUSD employees choose to live in Alameda, further demonstrating the strong community bond between Alameda and its schools.

Challenges and Opportunities

Alameda schools are not without challenges, however - historically low per student funding; limited, smaller than average school size and campuses; a pattern of gradually declining enrollment; and an imbalance in enrollment from school to school - constrain us, but also compel us to seek long-range solutions that ensure the long-term quality of our schools.

The reality is that the community’s desire for and the value placed on small neighborhood schools equates to higher operating costs. To add to the complexity of the issues, district leadership also needs to find ways to increase salary compensation for all of our employees and address the challenge of rising health benefit costs.

Building on Community Dialogue About Our Schools

The 2006-2007 school year was a time of intense dialogue in our district, brought about by lively community budget meetings, increased awareness of AUSD’s funding gap, and many occasions for “casual” conversations with parents, teachers, and staff in a series of Superintendent’s Coffees. In the course of these discussions, I had the great opportunity to hear many creative ideas and suggestions from our stakeholders. I am convinced that we have the talent and ability within us to chart our future together.

Now is the time and the opportunity to proactively address Alameda’s changing demographics, the district’s need for fiscal solvency, and our community’s high expectations for educational excellence and equity for all students. It is essential that we thoughtfully examine the complexity of the issues and determine a long-term viable plan.

As Superintendent of AUSD and a community leader of the City of Alameda, my focus of the 2007-2008 school year is to work closely with our community and staff to develop plans to address the following issues:

Planning for the Future of AUSD

The following ideas need deeper analysis and thoughtful consideration as we take on the challenge to proactively address the issues of changing demographics, enrollment imbalances, long-term fiscal stability, educational excellence and equity for all of our students.

AUSD Superintendent’s Goals 2007-2010

The Board of Education adopted four goals that will guide our work during this process of planning for the future of AUSD:

Goal #1: Continue to improve student achievement while also narrowing and closing the achievement gap in English Language Arts and mathematics between our lowest performing students (African American, Latino, English learners, and Special Education students) and our highest performing students.

Goal #2: Align the spending plan with educational objectives while ensuring the highest and best use of limited resources and long-term solvency.

Goal #3: Ensure all students will be in educational environments that are safe and conducive to learning.

Goal #4: Recruit and retain highly qualified and diverse staff and provide systems of support for and recognition of all employees.

Community Input Process and Timeline

In order to develop the best possible solutions to the above issues, it is essential that we provide a broad-based staff and community planning and communication process that allows adequate time for input, refinement of ideas, and thoughtful implementation. The goal is to develop and approve proposals in the 2007-2008 school year that would be implemented in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. We will use a variety of organizational structures to generate broad-based staff and community input. Following are proposed structures.

Pathway to Excellence & Equity

The pathway will start with a Task Force charged with developing preliminary options which will be refined through various feedback loops. The refined options will be presented at district-wide community meetings.

Establish Task Force to develop preliminary options

The Pathway to Excellence & Equity Task Force will consist of district and site staff with the charge to research and develop options for consideration by the feedback structures described below.

Refine preliminary options through feedback loops

We will utilize existing district organizational structures to involve AUSD employees and our parent community to provide feedback on options generated by the Task Force. Currently, the presidents of our four employee groups (Alameda Education Association [AEA], California School Employees Association [CSEA], Public Employees Local One, and Associations of California School Administrators [ACSA]) meet monthly as the Superintendent’s Council and we will add a standing agenda item for discussion of updates from task forces and feedback structures.

Other feedback loops include regular meetings of the District’s Curriculum Council (DCC), Principals, Counselors and Extended Cabinet, and Board of Education.

The feedback loops for parents will include PTA Council, the Alameda Education Foundation, District English Language Advisory Committee [DELAC], Alamedans for Better Schools, and others.

I will also create a feedback loop of community representatives through the formation of a community Sounding Board. The purpose of the Sounding Board is to provide the Superintendent with direct access to community members who can offer vital input, feedback and comments on options developed by the Pathway to Excellence & Equity Task Force. Members of the Sounding Board will be volunteers from our community who represent the cultural, racial and economic diversity of our schools as well as community perspectives such as business and community-based organizations. The Sounding Board will meet on a regular basis with the Superintendent beginning October 2007 through June 2008.

Convene district-wide community meetings

The Superintendent will hold a series of district-wide school community meetings between November and January to share preliminary options developed to address changing district demographics, enrollment imbalance between schools, inconsistency of high-quality educational programs, and long-term fiscal solvency.

Ongoing Communication and Updates

Parents, staff and community who are not able to attend community events will be able to access information and updates through the following communication channels:

Following is a Summary of Issues

Changing demographics impacting elementary enrollment

AUSD has an unusual challenge: the desire for small neighborhood schools and a pattern of gradually declining enrollment.