AUSD Strategic Plan 2003-2008
Alameda Unified School District is in the process of developing a strategic plan. A group of 70 individuals representing teachers, parents, staff, administrators and community members have spent the past few months developing possible goals for AUSD. These goals were presented to focus groups to provide a check point for the participants. I took the goals and broke them into smaller statements and created a survey. Beside AUSD Strategic Plan Survey Results, the individuals were asked to comment on the statements, the survey or the process. The comments are below.
Survey Comments
1. All classrooms are staffed with fully credentialed
teachers.
Staff - Credential does not mean qualified but it
does mean teachers have received the training required. Unfortunately teachers
in programs such as Pipeline do not get the highly important modeling experience
that those who go through traditional credentialing program get. Watching a
"master teacher " is a more effective way to learn to teach than the
"trial by fire" program that work/learn teachers go through. (Remember
that kids go through the "trial by fire" program right along with the
teacher.)
Plus a good master teacher can tell the credentialing
office who will make a good teacher and who will not.
Parent -The only two teachers at xxxx who can’t
teach are fully credentialed, I think it’s a joke.
Parent - Obviously, a trained good teacher is the
ideal, but credentialing does not guarantee--many administrators do not press
for performance, and do not help teachers who are in the wrong profession, move
on.
2. All classrooms are staffed with highly qualified
teachers.
Parent - If highly qualified means they love to
teach children, then yes.
Parent - I initially called this my #1 choice, but
decided to go for the safe environment since if that is not there, then real
learning cannot take place. Safe means emotionally safe, and free from
ridicule, exclusion, scapegoating, racial discrimination.
3. All classrooms are staffed with teachers’
representative of the diversity of the student population.
Staff - I would put 1.) qualified and 2.)
credentialed ahead of diversity. Given these two then yes representative
diversity.
Parent - Only if they are the most effective
(qualified).
Parent - This would be wonderful, but not realistic.
4. All staff will receive training in effective
educational practices.
Staff - Teachers hired should have already trained
in effective ed. practices. Managers need to do a great job of weeding out
unqualified teachers in the two years of probation.
Staff - Receive training or have the opportunity to
receive training? People never improve through “mandated” work. We need to
create the climate for it to happen. We tried the mandated training when we did
Class Size Reduction and did not see great changes in teaching practice.
I think lots of schools are working on effective
instructional practices with every staff development day AUSD has. If they
aren’t, AUSD should not have Staff Dev. Days
Parent - Expensive, but there is so much information
available now based on experiment and research that in order for teachers to
keep up and grow, this has to be in place
5. Effective educational practices should be focused on
eliminating the student achievement gap.
Staff - Student achievement should statistically be
a bell curve. We can tighten up the gap but if we do a great job then all
learners improve. Let’s make sure we move the entire bell up on the
achievement scale. (I see life experiences/enrichment, guardian expectations,
health/nutrition/drugs/security issues as the biggest cause in gaps.) We could
provide extra curricular activities that are safe, free, and convenient for our
kids. It is up to the government to mandate parenting classes for those need it.
Parent - As long as that means pulling the lower
ones up to grade level and not lowering my child’s expectations
Staff - We have been focusing on closing the
achievement gap for 8 or 9 years. Jane Lee has worked specifically in that area
as well as others. If we are serious about this issue there needs to be coaching
going on at every school, instead of equal $$$ going to every school, the
district should look at what the needs are at different sites. What sort of
counseling is necessary for students who are high risk? Who provides the support
for the high risk families? What schools have high levels of absences or tardies?
What support is provided to them? Throughout the country research has shown that
you can predict test scores by zip code because poverty area students have
greater needs to bring them up to the same academic level as more privileged
students
Parent - We really do not have much choice . If
schools are judged and funding based on test scores if we are not successful in
meeting this challenge, the neediest schools will fall further and further
behind. There has to be some recognition of the tools necessary to bring
the student who is behind, up to his capacity, and district funds should be
allocated with the recognition that there are schools with larger proportion of
such students--perhaps funding on a per student in need of extra attention
rather than a blanket allocation across the board
Parent - Does this mean helping every child achieve
their best potential or does this mean making sure everyone reaches the same
goal? We should focus on helping every single child achieve their best.
6. Effective educational practices should be focused on
ensuring that all students are performing at grade level.
Parent - THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT
Staff - How will grade level be measured? If we are
talking about percentiles it is impossible to have every student at grade level.
Effective educational practices should focus on all students learning and on
closing the achievement gap.
7. Effective educational practices should be focused on
math and literacy.
Staff - And science and social studies and arts and
physical education and vocation etc. Am I missing the point here? If we want
students directly involved in their education (which I rate #1) we need to keep
them engaged. We want quality instruction in all subjects at all levels.
Parent - With those two (6&7) everything else
will come
Parent -
Unfortunately, we are also stuck with this one--these are essential skills, but
there is more to education than that.
Parent - Certainly in the lower grades
8. Students will be directly involved in their education.
Parent - Bogus question! If they are not involved,
how are they students?
Parent - At my children’s level, I do feel this is
happening
Staff - The triad of learning between student,
teacher and parent is the key to success. Motivated children, taught by
qualified teachers armed with excellent curriculum, supported by responsible
parents will move our district forward in achievement.
Staff - Is this a goal or a decree from above? Who
will or can mandate this?
Parent - How can a student not be involved in their
education, does this mean something more that I don't understand?
9. Students will provide input to the decision making
process regarding curriculum.
Parent - In elementary school this is not
appropriate, so I can’t really answer
Parent - The curriculum is mandated by the
State…neither teachers, students, parents or community members in
Parent - In older grades, students get to pick their
courses so isn't that input into curriculum, I don't this is applicable in lower
grades.
10. Parents will be directly involved in their
children's education.
Staff - Encourage parents to help in the classroom.
Let each and everyone of them know they are valued and can contribute to their
child's education. Encourage them to be active in their child's homework.
Parent - This is not the districts fault but it is
the 64K question, how do you get them involved?
Staff - Again, I assume that this will be decreed by
someone more powerful than I know. Will we punish the child if the parent is not
involved? Is this a hope?
11. Parents will provide input to the decision making
process regarding curriculum.
Staff - Please, lets put curriculum decision making
in the hands of professionals. (Too many cooks.) Give parents other ways of
giving input so they are empowered/engaged. The problem with input is that when
parent ideas are not used we turn them off.
Parent -That what School Site Councils are for and
if we handle the qualified teacher question it won’t be a problem.
12. Curriculum is connected to the real world of work
and higher education.
Parent - Our teachers do things at this level that
definitely seem to pull this inStaff - Instruction of curriculum may be
connected to the real world, but the curriculum is what it is…as decreed by
the State…and it is what is assessed by the State and AUSD will be accountable
not only to the State but also the federal govt. under No Child Left Behind.
13. The District has a comprehensive assessment system
-- supported by technology.
Staff- We assess our students to death.
"You can not fatten the lamb by weighing it" Sheila Jordan
Superintendent ACOE
Parent - The levels test is a complete waste of
time, it compares apples to oranges
Staff - I would think the CAT6, the CST,
Teacher - teachers must have training to use this
and access to the data and it has to be available around the clock if it is to
be used effectively. If done correctly, could be AMAZING!
14. Progress is communicated to parents and students
through clear and consistent grading system.
Staff - Communication is a key word
Staff - Consistent I agree with; however,
“clear” is in the eyes of the receiver. I am not sure we can guarantee
“clear”. Consistent will also require grade level/content level tests to be
developed throughout the District which will definitely have a price tag.
15. The comprehensive assessment will measure individual
student performance.
Parent -I would love to see this new system, but I
am worried it will cut into other needed funds
Staff – I think the above mentioned assessments
(CAT6, CST) measure individual student performance. If not what have parents
been receiving in the mail after testing has been done? Are we planning on doing
more “assessment”? If so, we might first want to look at the amount of time
spent testing rather than teaching now.
16. The comprehensive assessment will measure individual
teacher performance.
Staff - What reliable objective assessment
tool(s) will do this? How do we neutralize all the variables?
A good principal will generally know the level of performance of his/her
teachers. If they do that job of managing teachers using the same principals of
effectiveness we want for our students then even mediocre teachers can be
shaped/motivated to be better.
Staff - Will this be a different assessment or will
the teacher be measured on how well his/her students do? If all students come in
3 years below grade level and leave one year below grade level in one classroom
while in another classroom all students come in 3 years above grade level and
leave 3 years above grade level, who will be considered the more successful
teacher?
Staff - This is loaded. It would be great but only
if the classess are truly heterogeneous in all ways, race, gender, SES, access
to curriculum, materials, opportunities, etc. If not, we already know what will
happen!
17. The comprehensive assessment will measure individual
school site performance.
Staff - Yikes! A data nightmare.
Staff - We are already doing this and shocking, the
poor schools are doing worse. We don*t need more data on this!
18. There will be a clearly defined core curriculum.
Parent – I think there pretty much is.
We have lots of other broken items before spending money on this
Staff - When the State adopted Content Standards, it
became the core curriculum. It is what every teacher must teach and every child
must learn; so what does this question mean? I gave it a 1 because it is already
in place…if the question was about implementation of the core curriculum I
would have ranked it a 5 in importance.
19. Each school site should be a physically safe and
secure learning environment.
Parent -
Staff - I assume this question means that this is
not in place now so that is the perspective I will use when answering it. I am
uncertain what a “secure” learning environment is.
20. There will be an equitable continuum of academic
support services offered to all students.
Parent - It is immoral not to do this, especially
with the children who have the ability to go on to higher ed
Parent - wow, jargon overload, hard to guess how
important when it is impossible to know what this means, but certainly
"sounds" good)
Staff - Are you sure you mean “equitable” ? This
community has always been committed to “equal” … no matter what the needs
are. It is nice that Edison and Earhart “adopt” west end schools, donate
books etc. But what about giving the schools more decentralized dollars to
address their own unique, identified needs.
21. Career and technical education is fully integrated
into all schools.
Staff - As long as there is money to fund it. It is
hard to lump these 2 together because technical education is a tool as opposed
to a curriculum and it takes money to keep it current, in good working
condition, and available outside of school hours. Unfortunately in a time of
decreased dollars per student this becomes impossible.
22. There will be an effective communications system
that promotes information exchange between teachers.
Staff - Grade level articulation facilitated by prep
periods that are scheduled at the same times. E-mail for all teachers. Cross
grade level meetings scheduled. Communication!
Parent - location is it in real estate and
communication is it in education
Staff - What does this mean? This is so vague.
Sounds good but not sure what it is!
23. There will be an effective communications system
that promotes information exchange between all District employees.
Parent - This is the biggest gripe I hear from
teachers, not just heard but listened too. They will be better for it.
24. There will be an effective communications system
that promotes information exchange between the District and parents.
Staff - AUSD has had a public relations officer for
the past several years. Is this to assume that that position needs more support?
Has AUSD identified a communication gap? If so what is the gap? Communications
is important but I would not want to see more $$$ going to increase it. I
believe that all schools communicate with their parents…however since
communication is a two way journey we must rely on both parties to commit to
communication.
25. There will be an effective communications system
that promotes information exchange between the District and the
Parent - If the District gets better at
communicating throughout other communication will naturally follow.
General Comments
Parent
This was – and continues to be – an interesting
structure of Strategic Planning. In my opinion the process is too limiting to
“improving what we currently do” versus taking a big step back and saying
what should we be doing – similar difference to bureaucratic budgeting versus
zero based budgeting.
The biggest part I think is missing is a “Marketing”
piece. My view is that we must continue pushing the entire community to be
involved in the
One interesting realization by me, how much I do not know
in grading some of these items.
Will be interesting to see the perception versus what staff
believes.
Parent
I think we need to take such a hard look at this new test
thing. It is very expensive.
The levels test cost the district a fortune and I don’t even read my
child’s score. It needs to be
something that can easily be explained to parents, read by teachers instantly,
and have an instant response scoring. I am sure there is one out there.
How much is it and what do we have to sacrifice to get it? That is the
million dollar question.
2)
Parents who are very interested in their child’s education
3)
Parents with a language barrier, but will try
4)
Parents who mentor their children from home but do have a lack of
communication and don’t participate
5)
Parents who are the working poor and don’t have time
6)
People (I don’t call them parents for a reason) who forgot they gave
birth because they forgot to take a pill.
#1 can educate #2 why they need to look out for all
children and they can seek people to reach out to #3 & 4.
We can let #5’s know we are there and will help in any way we can.
We need to find it in our hearts to “adopt” the #6 children and
mentor them, for raising yourself pushes survival over education.
That is the only way to keep the #6 numbers dropping.
Staff
A team unified to ensure that every school creates a
learning environment where every student succeeds.
Usually a
Strategic Focus
Every student will meet or exceed all AUSD and state
standards as measured by District and state assessments.
Is there latitude for Special Ed. Students and other
special needs students? Are we going to continue with District assessments? Do
we have the money to develop them if we drop LEVEL testing? Every student
succeeding sounds like a goal statement.
Staff
As you can see I am not certain that the questions reflect
the heart of the matter which is effective teaching and learning. When that
cycle is clearly in place the achievement gap will be closed and students will
demonstrate higher academic achievement. It will be interesting to me to see if
this district will buy the “equitable” rather than “equal” focus.
Research is pretty clear that with enough money educators can make a difference
with students who are at academic risk.
I really don't feel qualified to rate some of these items.
I also have lots of question about the whole process through which they were
derived. The composition of the participants was heavily weighted with
district personnel. The recruitment of participants was elitist. I
also think that the process was set up to ensure the outcome.
Staff
For the most part, however, I had a difficult time
responding to prioritizing and grading the district.
So I will try to respond more holistically, if you don't mind.
Regarding the teaching staff: I believe it is more important to have
highly qualified teachers than teachers with credentials. I would rather
have my own personal children have teachers who were motivating, knowledgeable
and kind, than someone with just a teaching credential. I don't believe
teaching credentials guarantee anything, but that the person endured a teaching
credential program. I know it is critical for kids of color to see
teachers who are like them in terms of their diversity, however, I still want
the best teachers regardless, for my kids. I also know that for the most
part, credential programs do not mirror the ethnic breakdown of our schools, so
we are sort of fighting a losing battle on this one.
Regarding teacher training: I think this is critical. However, with
$$ short, and three days available for staff development, again it is a losing
battle. We do however, have experts sitting in our schools whom we should
use (Teachers who are real experts!). Also, a principal's role should be
that of an instructional leader, however, some schools have so many other issues
that that role is put on the back burner. Schools which have high numbers
of under performing students should have extra staff to either serve as
instructional leaders and mentors, or do some of the other jobs that these
principals have to do, to free them up to be instructional leaders. Down
in
With regard to educational practices, I think it is the responsibility of the
district to ensure that high end kids continue to perform at the high end, and
students at the lower end make progress towards grade level. Again, this can't
be done by simply stating it as a mandate. Some schools only have to worry
about 5% of their kids. Others have a much tougher job--40 to 50% of their
kids. Is this because there are better teachers at the higher end schools?
No. It is because the numbers are too big, and those schools need more
district support.
Regarding students should be involved in their education? Yes. They
should know about consequences and choices. We should have more choices
for kids at the high school level that are still aligned with the standards.
Our curriculum as I understand it are the standards. Therefore stating
that kids should have a say in their curriculum is a bit contradictory, since
now teachers don't even really have a say in the curriculum.
Parents do need to be involve in their children's education. In fact, I
believe that all schools should have contracts stating exactly this. Personally,
I believe schools are losing the educational battle because we are not forcing
parents to be involved enough. If a child makes it difficult for others to
learn, our hands are often tied (the hands of the school). I recently read
of one high performing, high poverty school which provides a unique suspension
service. If their child chooses to be disruptive, they are delivered right
to their parents workplace. It has had amazing results. At all
schools, we need more supportive parent involvement.
Regarding assessment systems: If we are going to have a system, more than
a handful must be knowledgeable of it. We need to educate teachers,
parents and kids. I'm in favor of even measuring teacher performance,
provided we take into account that not all teaching jobs in the district are the
same. Yes, I will say it. Some teachers have much greater challenges
than others in terms of the students they teach.
Site safety: This is my number 1 area. If my kid ends up dead or
endangered at his/her school site, all the other things I just have mentioned do
not mean a thing. There is a huge disparity in the district on this one.
Again, if a district builds a school which has 6 different ways to enter and
exit the school, then they must be responsible for making sure it is secure.
I have zillions of ideas on this one as well. I think all district
employees and students should have visible id's. I could spend an entire
day at Chipman just asking people who they are and what are they doing on
campus. I know we must offer a free public education to all of our
students, but I don't believe that is the case if the student is not making it
safe for the teacher to teach or kids to learn. Again, we will never
accomplish the other goals (most importantly, closing the achievement gap,) if
we continue to make excuses for kids who have really blown it.
I also would rather see smaller schools and (less
Well, there you have it. Yes, communication is critical, but what I have
noticed is we can communicate all we want with parents and students, and they
hear what they want to hear, and ignore the rest. I believe safety is #1,
and well-trained competent teachers are #2. Equity must be a critical
issue as well. As I wrote on my Encinal SSC survey,
"Please note that the word equitable does not or should not mean equal.
Different schools have different needs and the district needs to be supportive,
especially supportive to those schools who have kids with greater needs.
Otherwise, there will be children left behind. . . the same ones who have
always been left behind.
Staff
I took this survey at our site and honestly, I didn*t
really think it amounted to much. In fact, I am not sure how thoughtful my
answers were because the questions are pretty vague and without knowing more
information, the result of the survey could easily not provide us with on which
to move.
Of course all teachers should be credentialed however, more
importantly, they should be qualified to teach! Does it take a survey to know
that? We have many teachers who are credentialed and NOT qualified and vice
versa.
Assessment and access to the information is a huge issue.
The districts current assessment system, ARMS has a lot of valuable information
but there are a few problems. It is not easy to use. It requires training it
what to ask, how to ask it, and when to ask. The other problem is that in poor
schools where the student transient rate is high, there are a lot of kids not
yet in the system and they are often the ones who are really low and on whom we
need the most information. Each site is allowed to have 1-2 computers with this
program so that means that access is limited even if all are trained... which
they aren*t!
The assessment system also needs to be able to include
other pieces of assessment that teachers use and they need to be able to input
this information rather than waiting for the DO to do a download.
I think that Jane Baldi and Leni VonBlankesee have a great
idea of what could be and I would trust them implicitly to tell us what we need.
Jane also knows what schools are doing what because while it is important that
we have all schools on-board, I think we will find that the schools who get the
most (money, positive newspaper coverage, opportunities, etc) are the ones who
are doing the least with the current data we do have. The ones who are doing the
most would be the Title 1 and BASRC sites.
Parental involvement is important. But, the fact is that
many parents are not involved because they can*t or won*t and we still need to
teach the kids. I think that the schools with low parental involvement have
tried very hard to get them in and the fact that they are not there does not
reflect on the intent but on the resources. It is easy for an educated white
woman to say that parents need to be involved but the truth is, I have no right
to tell a poor single African American woman what she needs to do. I only know
what I can do. Chipman is using an outside organization to do a parent
institute. I don*t know how it will go but we have been trying in vain for years
to get a better representation from parents and in the end, they come out for
band concerts and graduation. Lets not look at this issue unless we really want
to go deep. It is not about PTA, field trips, donating time, it is about access.
Now, the BIG issue I want to discuss is literacy. If
you want to simplify things, there are really three groups kids can fall into
for teaching reading. The easy to deal with group are kids we call
"Benchmark and Advanced". These kids are at grade level and above when
it comes to reading academic material. These are the kids that are easy to teach
if you have a reasonable understanding of adolescents and curriculum.
The next group is called "Strategic". These kids
can read, but usually at a rate that is so slow, they can*t make meaning of
academic language at their grade level. My mother just asked if these are
English language learners. The answer is sometimes. It really depends on their
ability in their native tongue. These students issues range from fluency to
comprehension to decoding more complicated words with multiple syllables i.e.
Ok, the tough group. These are the "Intensive"
kids. Think of them as the ICU patients. These are the ones who are not going to
make it. We are the last shot at survival. These kids can*t decode even near
grade level work. This group of kids needs explicit, strategic instruction
taught by a very well trained and supported teacher for a minimum of 2- 21/2
hours per day in a block of time. This must be done so that the decoding skills
they are provided during the first hour can be immediately put to use doing work
in both reading comprehension as well as applying it to a content area i.e.
Social Studies or Science. This group of kids can*t learn to read better on a
computer because they can*t read the computer well enough to make meaning of
what it is saying. Remember, I am not talking about a 4th grader who is low, I
am talking about a 7th grader who is reading like a 2nd grader.
I remember the AUSD visioning process and there was an
intense effort to bring together all stake holders. This process did not to
that. I spoke to people at school and some had read it somewhere but were not
clear on what it was. No one made an effort to get the progressive, strong
teachers there. In fact, Victoria Forrester, one of the most well known and
respected teachers I know, never heard of the process.
I stopped trying to number them from 1-10 because I think
that when it comes down to it, we are really talking about equity or lack there
of. I am becoming more and more aware that people do not even understand equity.
They think we are talking about who gets how much. It is far deeper than that.
It is a way of thinking and it is what you understand based on life experience
or being open to seeing the experience through the eyes of others. The problem
is that those who don*t see it is that they don*t want to. Once you see it, you
have to do something or it becomes difficult to deal with your conscience.
I advocate for identifying who needs what the most to be
academically ready to graduate. We should then provide each site with the
resources it needs to meet the needs of those who are most in need and what is
left over gets divided evenly. This includes not just money. It means, time,
resources, policies, etc. Equal is not equality. There are kids at every school
in this district who need us to see that they are not getting what they need
while we provide opportunities that even widen the achievement gap.
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Last modified: February 20, 2003
Disclaimer: This website is the sole responsibility of Mike McMahon. It does not represent any official opinions, statement of facts or positions of the Alameda Unified School District. Its sole purpose is to disseminate information to interested individuals in the Alameda community.