Executive Director of Secondary Curriculum/CTE Programs

I have heard that Dale Ellis is going back to Human Resources. I do not know if this indeed true but I-SS is currently advertising for the position of Executive Director of Secondary Curriculum/CTE Programs. Mr. Ellis assumed position of Interim Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education/Student Services when Brady Johnson became Interim Superintendent. So it would seem that not only is Mr. Ellis leaving this position they have decided to make it an Executive Director position.

If Mr. Ellis is going back to Human Resources will he return to his old position of Executive Director of Human Resources? And, if so, will Bill Long go back to his previous position. Also, will they revert to their previous salaries as Mr. Johnson promised.

The advertisement for the Executive Director position has a couple of interesting statements. First it simply states State Salary Schedule as the salary for the position. As we know all I-SS Central Office administrators are paid more than the State Salary Schedule amount and I would imagine that this individual will be paid more as well. Also the advertisement includes the statement that if the position is filled by an employee transferring, then this vacancy announcement will serve as notice for that vacancy. I do not know if that is a standard statement on I-SS applications, but to me it sounds like they already have someone in mind for the position as well as someone in mind for that person's position. In addition, how can this be considered an advertisement for the second position unless they already know what that position is?

In my previous post regarding the media specialists at SHS, I included Mr. Rogers' comment that the two media specialists will be shared between SHS and Third Creek Elementary. If the administration feels that sharing media specialists between schools is an acceptable solution why don’t they just share the duties of the Executive Director of Secondary Curriculum between two or more of the current administrators? If sharing is good enough for the students shouldn’t it be good enough for administrators?

To view the advertisement for the Executive Director’s position, click on the link below.

Executive Director of Secondary Curriculum

SHS Media Specialist

On Friday, I received a phone call from Dewoyne Daye, SHS Student Body Vice-President. Dewoyne was concerned because one of the two media specialists at SHS was being transferred to Third Creek Elementary because the individual at Third Creek was retiring. He said that there were no plans to replace the specialist at SHS and that would mean a reduction in services at the High School. Dewoyne was particularly concerned in that this would mean that the library would no longer be open before and after school. He pointed out that many SHS students do not have access to computers at home and that they use the computers in the library before and after school to complete various class projects. Dewoyne also mentioned that the media specialists assist students and SHS staff in many other ways and that one media specialist at the high school would not be able to complete all of these tasks.

Dewoyne also informed me that at Statesville High currently enrolls 30% of the I-SS High School’s Hispanic population, 44% of the system’s African American population, and 19% of the system’s Asian population. SHS also has 14 different subgroups, which is more than any other high school in the system. In addition, SHS has the largest exceptional children’s population of all the high schools and Statesville High School has been declared a Title One/at risk high school.

Dewoyne asked me about the raises that were given to those taking the interim positions when Mr. Johnson was named Interim Superintendent. We talked about how that money could have been used for student programs and for funding positions such as the media specialist at SHS. Dewoyne said that everyone who works for I-SS should be looking out for the students' wellbeing but that is obviously not happening in this situation.

I think that the administration should be able to find money in the budget to keep these two media specialists at SHS and to hire a specialist to replace the individual at Third Creek. The students at SHS deserve the full support of the administration. I have already sent an e-mail to Mr. Johnson and to Mr. John Rogers in this regard and I am asking the readers of this blog to do so as well.

I received the following reply from Mr. John Rogers.

Paul,

All of the high schools except Lake Norman has lost a media specialist due to budget cuts. It was time for West Iredell and SHS to give up a media specialist. Keith Williams and I have worked closely with Mr. (Larry) Rogers concerning this issue. The plan at present is for both ladies to work at SHS and Third Creek.

This will keep both women at the high school a certain number of days per week. A major issue was the time in the morning and afternoon for students to work in the library on the computers. This will stay the same at the present. One major concern is for an experienced person at Third Creek. We are working on it.

Thanks for your interest and Merry Christmas!!!

New I-SS Organizational Chart

A new version of the I-SS Organizational Chart is now available on the I-SS web site. It is shown to have a December '09 revision date. Click on the image of the chart located on the left side of the blog to access the full-sized chart.

The only change that I noticed from the chart posted in September is that Mr. Johnson is listed as Superintendent instead of Interim Superintendent. As noted before, all of the other so-called interim positions were never listed as such. I guess it is now official that none of the interim administrators who were to go back to their previous positions and previous pay will do so. I understand the need for some of the changes in position as Mr. Johnson took over as Interim Superintendent and now as Superintendent but there was no justification to increase the salaries of these individuals when the budget was severely limited. As many have previously mentioned, teachers and other I-SS employees have been asked to take on extra responsibilities without a corresponding increase in pay. Shouldn't that philosophy apply to administrators as well?

Baldrige Award Received

According to the I-SS web site, a delegation of just over 50 administrators, teachers, Board of Education members, and students recently traveled to Washington, DC to attend the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award ceremony. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke presented the award and Vice President Joe Biden congratulated the recipients. Apparently President Obama was not present.

Click on the link below to access the article on the I-SS web site.

I-SS Accepts Baldrige Award

Update:

Click on the link below to download the video of the Baldrige Award Ceremony. (There is a lot of rhetoric but there are also some excellent selections played by the Air Force Band.)

Baldrige Ceremony Video

IF Training

Pam Schiffman recently sent an e-mail to I-SS teachers stating that Instructional Facilitator Training will begin in December. The e-mail is marked ‘** High Priority **.’

In the e-mail, teachers are asked if they are interested in becoming an I-SS Instructional Facilitator. Teachers are also informed that future Instructional Facilitators (IFs) are teachers who:

• Have had at least five years successful classroom teaching experience career status
• Are committed to continuous classroom improvement and the I-SS Model for Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps
• Exhibit strong people and leadership skills
• Enjoy helping fellow teachers develop high performing classrooms through training, coaching, & support
• Are willing and able to work and be paid August 1 through June 30
• Are willing to complete training in order to become qualified for future IF positions

The IF Training will begin in December and teachers are to contact Kim Rector or Sherrard Lewis if they are interested. According to the I-SS Organizational Chart, Kim and Sherrard are the Elementary and Secondary IF Coordinators, respectively.

This seems to be another example of the I-SS administration putting the cart before the horse. Most of the principals have indicated that the IF model needs to be tweaked and the teacher surveys have not yet been tallied. The roles of the IFs is still in question, yet someone in the Central Office has decided to go on with the IF training as usual. Shouldn’t the tweaking of the roles of the IFs be completed based on the results of the principal surveys and the teacher surveys before any IF training begins? Or, is that just too logical? Did Mr. Johnson approve this or is someone else running the Central Office?

Area Advisory Summary Report

I received a hard copy of Paul Hultberg’s summary report of the Area Advisory Meetings in the mail Friday. In addition there was a short note from Mr. Johnson stating that the notes would be posted on the I-SS web site. However, they have not yet been posted, so I am going to include a copy at the end of this post.

I hope that the School Board takes a good look at this summary report as well as the notes from the individual Area Advisory meetings. Mr. Johnson has already stated that he will use the common themes from each of the reports to direct his work. The Board needs to assist Mr. Johnson in this endeavor.

The summary report includes four observations as well as a listing of what seems to be the highest-ranking suggestions from the various meetings. The first of the four observations deals with Baldrige/Continuous improvement. It states that there were diverse opinions on this issue. This is verified in the listing of the various suggestions with many participants indicating that the Baldrige model should be eliminated and others saying it should be continued. It will be interesting to see the results of the Teacher’s survey in this area.

The second observation is titled: Light turnout for parents. However if you look at the total number of participants, you can see that there was a light turnout across the spectrum of all stakeholders. The School Board and administration must do a much better job of connecting with parents and other citizens. Citizens needed to be invited and encouraged to participate in all school activities and they need to know that their suggestions will be taken seriously.

The third observation deals with Technology and states that the participants indicated that technology issues were presented as an important means of accomplishing goals. I know that I-SS has increased the use of computers, smart boards, and other technologies but there is a lack of significant technologies in many of the schools. I-SS seems more interested in having Baldrige ‘wallpaper’ on classroom walls than they are of having technology in the hands of students. Perhaps I-SS should look at what Mooresville Graded School District is doing right in this area such as providing students with laptop computers and integrating the use of these computers in the classroom. Check out the information and video at the link below.

Mooresville Schools: Digital Conversion

The fourth observation is simply the sentence: These sessions document a desire for a more collaborative as opposed to authoritative approach to leadership. There has certainly been a change in this direction with the change in superintendents, but there is still a lot a baggage left over from the past administration that needs to thrown out the window. The emphasis must be on what is best for the students and not on winning some award.

The last two pages of the report list the characteristics and strengths desired in the new superintendent. I do think that Mr. Johnson possesses many of these characteristics and that he is capable of leading the school system. That does not mean we can let our guard down. There is still a lot of work to be done to change the course of the system away from the mistakes of the previous administration.


Update (Monday, Nov. 23): The summary report is now available via the I-SS web site. Click on the link below to access the report.

Advisory Reports

Advisory Summary Report Pages 1 and 2. Click on an image to enlarge it.

      

Advisory Summary Report Pages 3 and 4. Click on an image to enlarge it.

      

Area Advisory Notes

On Tuesday I received an e-mail from Dawn Creason that included Paul Hultberg’s notes from the Area Advisory meetings. They are listed as notes not as reports. The notes first list the issues posted on the Plus/Delta chart that was created at the end of the meeting.
Following this is the list of the participant’s suggestions given when asked to identify the pressing issues for the superintendent to address. After the various suggestions were sorted by category and summarized each participant was given four sticky dots to vote for what they felt were the most important suggestions. This list also includes the tally of the points or votes for each item.

The last part of the notes includes the suggestions for the strengths and characteristics that the new superintendent should possess. The participants were also given four sticky dots to vote in each of these categories and those tallies are included.

In an e-mail reply to Dawn Creason, I asked if there was going to be an overall report and if these notes are going to be posted on the I-SS web site. I have not yet received a reply to those questions.

I also received an e-mail from Mr. Johnson stating that he shared the feedback from the advisory meetings with certified and classified staff advisory groups last week. I assume that these advisory notes are the feedback to which he was referring.


UPDATE: The area advisory notes are now available on the I-SS web site. You can access the notes on the I-SS web site by clicking on the link below or you can click on the images below to see an enlarged image of the individual Pages.


I-SS Web Page: Area Advisory Notes

The links to an image of the individual Area Advisory note pages are included below. Click on the image of a page to enlarge it.

Statesville High School: (3 Pages)

 

North Iredell High School: (4 Pages)

South Iredell High School: (4 Pages)

Lake Norman High School: (3 Pages)

West Iredell High School: (7 Pages)

Baldrige Award Ceremony

At the Board of Education meeting last Monday, Mr. Johnson announced that I-SS will be officially receiving the Baldrige National Quality Award in Washington DC on Wednesday, December 2nd. Mr. Johnson also mentioned that President Obama will be presenting the award.

Click on the link below to access the list of I-SS attendees.

BNQP Ceremony Attendees List

Missing: Area Advisory Meeting Reports

As I stated in my previous post, the School Board’s selection of Mr. Johnson as superintendent was made before the report of the various area advisory meetings was publicized. Wednesday, I sent Dawn Creason, I-SS Director of Public Relations, an e-mail asking to inspect the final report as well as any intermediate reports of the various Area Advisory Meetings that began on Oct. 1, 2009. I also requested to inspect the reports of any other advisory meetings, including the one with certified personnel, that were held relating to the selection of the new superintendent. I received the following reply.

Mr. Klaene-

I have checked, and the minutes posted online are the reports of the advisory meetings. There were no intermediate reports. Additionally, there have been no meetings with certified personnel relating to the selection of the new superintendent.

dc

I have read the minutes of the advisory meetings and they are not the reports that were promised. As a matter of fact, each of the minutes includes the following statement.

All information gathered at this and all Area Advisory Meetings will be presented back to the community in the form of a report from Mr. Hultberg and Ms. Masiello.

Additionally, at the last of the area advisory meetings, Mr. Johnson stated that the advisory meeting report would be posted on the I-SS web site within a few days. Why is there no report? Why was no advisory meeting held with the teachers as promised? Why was there no public survey as promised?

As part of his comments at the Board meeting, Dr. Cash said: “we reviewed recommendations made through the district advisory meeting process and the data obtained from formal and informal surveys throughout the education and civic community.” How could they review the recommendations if there was no report? What formal and informal surveys was he referring to? Perhaps the Board members simply talked to their friends, relatives, and close associates.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Mr. Johnson is a capable and dedicated man. I certainly think that he will do a good job as superintendent. However, the Board promised that they would use a particular process in the selection of the new superintendent. Yet, in the end, they chose to abruptly stop that process and go behind closed doors to make their decision. This casts a dark cloud over the whole process and even worse; it casts a dark cloud over Mr. Johnson. Once again, the School Board has shown a lack of respect for students, parents, teachers, other I-SS employees, and the citizens of Iredell County.

New Superintendent Update

Update: Audio clips have been added.

As I stated in my previous post Mr. Johnson was named New I-SS superintendent at the Board of Education meeting on Monday evening. Dr. Cash, Board Chairman, said that the decision was made at a previous meeting. I assume that it was made done during the closed session after the Committee of the Whole meeting last Monday. Click on the link below to access the official announcement on the I-SS web site.

Board Selects Johnson

Click on the link below to access the announcement on the Record and Landmark web site.

Johnson named I-SS superintendent

Prior to naming the new superintendent, Dr. Cash made a number of comments some of which are not included in those announcements. Some of Dr. Cash's comments are listed below.

“One of the most, if not the most, important responsibilities of a Board is to ensure the placement of a leader or CEO who shares the vision of the institution and is able to capably and responsibly nurture the institution in carrying out its mission. As the Board of I-SS began to consider who would be chosen to become our next superintendent,

we reviewed our vision to improve student learning by igniting a passion for learning and began to contemplate what leadership skills could help us all be excited about our focus on learning,

we thought about our mission …

we considered personal attributes and characteristics of a leader …

we reviewed recommendations made through the district advisory meeting process and the data obtained from formal and informal surveys throughout the education and civic community.

Resulting from this process, several common themes, skills, attributes, characteristics of our next desirable leader emerged.”

You may now listen to Dr. Cash's comments and announcement.

He then went on to make additional comments and stated some of the reasons behind the Board’s decision before making the actual announcement.

While I think that Brady Johnson is a good man and was an excellent choice for Interim Superintendent, I think that naming him Superintendent was a very premature choice. The reports of the area advisory meetings have not yet been publicized, the advisory meeting with certified personnel has not yet even been held, and there has been no public survey. The board made certain commitments regarding the selection of the superintendent that have now been totally discarded.

The Board is again stating that they really don’t care about students, teachers, parents, and the public. They made this decision on their own without the full input of the I-SS stakeholders. That is not a good for anyone but the Board. They were not properly carrying out the duties of their elected positions. Quite simply, they took the easy way out.

You may now listen to Mr. Johnson's comments.

New Superintendent Named

At tonight's Board of Education meeting Dr. Cash stated that Brady Johnson had been selected to be the new superintendent. Before making the announcement, Dr. Cash read a number of recommendations that were made at the various advisory meetings and stated that the Board had made their decision based on those recommendations.

Congratulations to Mr. Brady Johnson!

In a subsequent post I will give more information and some comments.

Teacher's Survey Update

Note: I entered the following as a comment to the original post about the teacher's survey but I decided to enter it as a separate post as well.

I met with Mr. Johnson Thursday afternoon. We spent most of the time speaking about the teacher’s survey. Mr. Johnson said that he did not put abandon as one of the choices because he was afraid that teachers would mark abandon and not explain why. As for only listing 15 items, while the principals had 34 items on their survey, Mr. Johnson said that he knew some of the items on the principal survey did not relate to teachers and that he wanted to select those items that he felt were the ones that were the most critical to teachers. He also said that he wanted to keep the survey more manageable. Mr. Johnson said that he probably should have structured the survey differently but that he is interested in hearing from the teachers.

Mr. Johnson said that a number of the surveys have already been returned and that he has looked over some of them. He also showed me a few of them. I noticed that there were many items marked as needing to be tweaked. Mr. Johnson indicated that he was pleased that there were also many written suggestions. Some of the suggestions were quite lengthy.

Mr. Johnson said that they would probably have to have someone come in and tally the results. He mentioned a name but I will not say who it is because the person has not yet been contacted. Mr. Johnson said that he does want teachers to complete the survey, that they will get a report of the findings, and that he will act on the responses.

Mr. Johnson said that one of the things that he is hearing is that teachers want more flexibility. He said that for the last two years I-SS was doing everything strictly ‘by the book’ so they could win the Baldrige Award. Mr. Johnson added that I-SS cannot maintain that pace and things have to change. He said that there is still some resistance to that change among some administrators. Mr. Johnson said that some principals were still very committed to the way things have been done and even told him that he should not give teachers the opportunity to take the survey. Mr. Johnson said that he has heard from some teachers that things have been better this year, but he also admitted that for others things have not changed.

Creativity vs. Standardization

There is an interesting article available on CNN.com titled How Schools Stifle Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D. It also includes a video of a talk Sir Robinson gave at the 2006 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. Sir Robinson speaks of how educational institutions often stifle the creativity of students. The following are some statements that Sir Robinson makes in the article.

“What is the argument? In a nutshell, it's that we're all born with immense natural talents but our institutions, especially education, tend to stifle many of them and as a result we are fomenting a human and an economic disaster.”

“In education, this vast waste of talent involves a combination of factors. They include a narrow emphasis on certain sorts of academic work; the exile of arts, humanities and physical education programs from schools; arid approaches to teaching math and sciences; an obsessive culture of standardized testing and tight financial pressures to teach to the tests.”

“It happens in part because the dominant systems of education are rooted in the values and demands of industrialism: they are linear, mechanistic and focused on conformity and standardization. Nowadays, they're buttressed by major commercial interests in mass testing and by the indiscriminate use of prescription drugs that keep students' minds from wandering to things they naturally find more interesting.”

“There's a wealth of talent that lies in all of us. All of us, including those who work in schools, must nurture creativity systematically and not kill it unwittingly.”

I-SS must follow State and Federal regulations, but in the last several years the administration has put in place a ‘one size fits all’ application of the Baldrige plan. This has forced teachers to comply with an I-SS mandated standardized mechanism of PAs, PDSAs, formative assessments, PLCs, IF lead meetings, plus/deltas, and the like. Teachers are left with little time or energy to truly promote student creativity.

At Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, two teachers gave enthusiastic presentations of how they use Predictive Assessments in their classrooms. I am glad that these teachers have been able to integrate this mechanism in their classrooms and use it to enable their students to succeed. The problem is that the Board members and the administrators see these presentations and think that since this instructional method is working in these classrooms, then it should work in all classrooms. Educational studies have shown that teachers need the freedom to use whatever instructional methods best suit the strengths and talents of their students. These two teachers were invited to speak at the Committee of the Whole meeting. There are many I-SS teachers who successfully use other instructional approaches to inspire their students to learn. Why doesn’t the administration invite them to speak at School Board meetings?

Click on the link below to access Sir Robinson’s article and video.

How schools stifle creativity

Teacher's Survey

As has been mentioned in several comments to a previous post, I-SS teachers are now being given the opportunity to take a version of the survey that the Principals took back in August. Pam Schiffman, Associate Superintendent of Accountability and Technology, sent the survey, via e-mail, with the subject line: I-SS Learning initiatives Opinion Activity – FOR TEACHERS. The survey lists a number of I-SS initiatives/processes and asks for input about each one.

Both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Rogers told me some time ago that the teachers would be given the same survey that was given to principals. However that did not happen. First of all, principals were given the option of listing most items as OK as is, tweak, or abandon while teachers are not given the option to directly mark abandon for any of the items. It was mentioned in one of the blog comments that teachers could write abandon in the Suggestions For Improvement section, but teachers should have been specifically given a column to mark abandon for individual items.

Next, the principals were given 34 items on their survey while teachers were only given 15 items. The following items were on the teacher’s survey.

1. Baseline Assessments (BA)
2. Common Formative Assessments (CFA)
3. Predictive Assessments (PAs)
4. School Improvement Planning
5. Data Warehouse/Reports
6. Early Release Professional Development
7. High Yield Instructional Strategies (HYIS)
8. Instructional Facilitator Model (IF)
9. L to J (Lee Jenkins Resources)
10. PDSA
11. Classroom Walkthroughs (CWTs)
12. Professional Learning Communities (PLC)
13. Virtual PLCs
14. Curriculum Guides
15. Teamwork Matrix

The principal survey included all of the above items except High Yield Instructional Strategies and it also included the following items.

1. Budgeting Process
2. Hiring Process
3. Response to Intervention
4. Teacher Evaluation System
5. Corrective Reading
6. Read 180
7. Positive Behavior Support
8. The ISS Triangle Models: Raising Achievement and Closing the Gaps & Effective and Efficient Operations
9. School Improvement Plan Coaching
10. Leadership Academy Week
11. Quality Fair/RACG Day
12. Leadership Academy for Novice Principals
13. Leveled Principal’s Meetings
14. Mid and End of Year Review
15. Instructional Facilitator/Principal Meetings
16. Boot Camps
17. Curriculum Review Week
18. Assistant Principal Meetings
19. Quarterly Principal Coaching Sessions
20. Whole Group Principal Meeting

Granted, some of these additional items on the principal’s survey such as Assistant Principal Meetings and Whole Group Principal Meeting do not apply directly to teachers and would not need to be included on the teacher survey. However, a number of them do apply directly to teachers. For example, Teacher Evaluation System, Response to Intervention, The ISS Triangle Models, and Corrective Reading all have direct teacher involvement. Teachers should have been given the opportunity to rate these items as well.

I think that Mr. Johnson needs to have Pam Schiffman restructure the survey or at least give a valid explanation of why these items were not included on the teacher’s survey and why teachers were not given the direct opportunity to mark any items as needing to be abandoned.

WIHS Advisory Meeting

I attended the Advisory Meeting at West Iredell High School last night and I must say that I think that this one was much better than the one at Statesville High. The procedure was the same but the presentation was a little clearer. Of course, the presenters have now had the opportunity to go through the process several times and I had gone through it once before.

However, I think the biggest change was in the group of participants. At the first meeting, my wife was probably the only teacher in attendance and there were a significant number of Central Office administrators present. At this meeting that ratio seemed to be reversed. I did not know most of the people in attendance but from the comments of those present there did seem to be a significant number of teachers at this meeting. The comments seemed to be more related to students, teachers, and classrooms.

There were two School Board members in attendance as well. John Rogers was there and he told me that he had been to all of the advisory meetings except one. Charles Kelly was also there. He told me that he had attended a couple of the other Advisory Meetings.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Johnson stated that they hoped to have the reports from all of the meetings posted on the school web site in a few days. I am looking forward to seeing the overall report. Click on the link below to access the I-SS web site.

Iredell-Statesville Schools

Baldrige Program Grades On A Curve

Much fanfare has been associated with I-SS winning the 2008 Baldrige Award and much has been said about the costs associated with the process of implementing the Baldrige award and the costs of applying for the award. Now let’s talk about the award itself. I will describe some of what I have been able to learn about those processes by examining the feedback reports that I-SS received from the Baldrige Program.

The Baldrige National Quality Program (BNQP) uses a given set of criteria to evaluate those institutions that apply for the award. That set of criteria is available to institutions before they prepare their materials to submit to the BNQP. Apparently the bulk of the application is a narrative in which the institution itemizes its achievements related to each criteria item. In 2007, I-SS submitted a 58-page narrative and in 2008, I-SS submitted a 51-page narrative.

Each member of the BNQP Board of Examiners evaluates the narrative and assigns a percentage score to each category. The examiners then perform what is called a Consensus Review during which the team reaches a consensus on the score for the applicant. That review and score is then used to determine if the applicant warrants a site visit.

Site visits are conducted for the highest-scoring applicants to clarify any uncertainty or confusion the Examiners may have regarding the written application and to verify that the information in the application is correct. Based on the site visit the percentage scores for each criteria item may change. The final individual item scores, along with a weighted value for each category item, are used to determine overall score called the Band Score. The Band Score ranges from 1 to 8 with 8 being the best score.

Listed below are the I-SS scores for each category in 2007 and 2008. The scores are given as a percentage range rather than a specific percentage value. The percentage range is based on the Scoring Guidelines, which describe the characteristics typically associated with specific percentage ranges. The given scores are the final scores after any adjustments based on the site visits.

Baldrige Education Criteria

Category	Value	I-SS Score ‘07	I-SS Score ‘08
1 Leadership
1.1Senior Leadership: How do your senior leaders lead?	70 Points	70 – 85%	70 – 85%
1.2Governance and Social Responsibilities: How do you govern and address your social responsibilities?	50 Points	70 – 85%	50 – 65%
2 Strategic Planning
2.1Strategy Development: How do you develop your strategy?	40 Points	70 – 85%	50 – 65%
2.2 Strategy Deployment: How do you deploy your strategy?	45 Points	50 – 65%	30 – 45%
3 Student, Stakeholder, and Market Focus
3.1 Student, Stakeholder, and Market Knowledge: How do you obtain and use student, stakeholder, and market knowledge?	40 Points	70 – 85%	50 – 65%
3.2 Student and Stakeholder Relationships and Satisfaction: How do you build relationships and grow student and stakeholder satisfaction and loyalty?	45 Points	70 – 85%	50 – 65%
4 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
4.1 Measurement, Analysis, and Improvement of Organizational Performance: How do you measure, analyze, and then improve organizational performance?	45 Points	50 – 65%	50 – 65%
4.2 Management of Information, Information Technology, and Knowledge: How do you manage your information, information technology, and organizational knowledge?	45 Points	50 – 65%	30 – 45%
5 Workforce Focus
5.1 Workforce Engagement: How do you engage your workforce to achieve organizational and personal success?	45 Points	70 – 85%	50 – 65%
5.2 Workforce Environment: How do you build an effective and supportive workforce environment?	40 Points	50 – 65%	70 – 85%
6 Process Management
6.1 Work Systems Design: How do you design your work systems?	35 Points	50 – 65%	50 – 65%
6.2 Work Process Management and Improvement: How do you manage and improve your key organizational work processes?	50 Points	50 – 65%	50 – 65%
7 Results
7.1 Student Learning Outcomes: What are your student learning results?	100 Points	30 – 45%	50 – 65%
7.2 Student- and Stakeholder-Focused Outcomes: What are your student- and stakeholder-focused performance results?	70 Points	30 – 45%	30 – 45%
7.3 Budgetary, Financial, and Market Outcomes: What are your budgetary, financial, and market performance results?	70 Points	50 – 65%	30 – 45%
7.4 Workforce-Focused Outcomes: What are your workforce-focused performance results?	70 Points	50 – 65%	50 – 65%
7.5 Process Effectiveness Outcomes: What are your process effectiveness results?	70 Points	50 – 65%	30 – 45%
7.6 Leadership Outcomes: What are your leadership results?	70 Points	50 – 65%	30 – 45%

As mentioned before, these scores are used to determine an overall score called the Band Score. In 2007, I-SS received a Band Score of 5 out of a possible 8. The descriptors for the 2007 Band Scores of 1, 5, and 8 are given below.

2007 Scoring Band Descriptors

Band Number	Descriptor
1	The organization demonstrates the early stages of developing and implementing approaches to Item requirements, with deployment lagging and inhibiting progress. Improvement efforts focus on problem solving. A few important results are reported, but they generally lack trend and comparative data.
5 I-SS Score	The organization demonstrates effective, systematic, well-deployed approaches responsive to the overall requirements of the Items. The organization demonstrates a fact-based, systematic evaluation and improvement process and organizational learning that result in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of key processes. Results address most key customer/stakeholder, market, and process requirements, and they demonstrate areas of strength against relevant comparisons and/or benchmarks. Improvement trends and/or good performance are reported for most areas of importance to the organization’s key requirements.
8	The organization demonstrates outstanding approaches focused on innovation, full deployment, and excellent, sustained performance results. There is excellent integration of approaches with organizational needs. Organizational analysis, learning, and sharing of best practices are pervasive. National and world leadership is demonstrated in results that fully address key customer/stakeholder, market, process, and action plan requirements.

In 2008, the BNQP used a system of two Band Scores one for Processes and the other for Results. I-SS received a Band Score of 5 for Processes and a Band Score of 4 for Results. Again, that is out of a possible 8. That yields an overall percentage score of 62.5% for processes and 50% for results. The descriptors for the 2008 Process Band Scores of 1, 5, and 8, and for the 2008 Process Band Scores of 1, 4, and 8 are given below.

2008 Scoring Band Descriptors

Band Number	Process Descriptor
1	The organization demonstrates early stages of developing and implementing approaches to the basic Criteria requirements, with deployment lagging and inhibiting progress. Improvement efforts are a combination of problem solving and an early general improvement orientation.
5 I-SS Score	The organization demonstrates effective, systematic, well-deployed approaches responsive to the overall requirements of most Criteria Items. The organization demonstrates a fact-based, systematic evaluation and improvement process and organizational learning, including innovation, that result in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of key processes.
8	The organization demonstrates outstanding approaches focused on innovation. Approaches are fully deployed and demonstrate excellent, sustained use of measures. There is excellent integration of approaches with organizational needs. Organizational analysis, learning through innovation, and sharing of best practices are pervasive.

Band Number	Results Descriptor
1	Results are reported for a few areas of importance to the accomplishment of the organization’s mission, but they generally lack trend and comparative data.
4 I-SS Score	Results address some key customer/stakeholder, market, and process requirements, and they demonstrate good relative performance against relevant comparisons. There are no patterns of adverse trends or poor performance in areas of importance to the Criteria requirements and the accomplishment of the organization’s mission.
8	Results fully address key customer/stakeholder, market, process, and action plan requirements and include projections of future performance. Results demonstrate excellent organizational performance levels, as well as national and world leadership. Results demonstrate sustained beneficial trends in all areas of importance to the Criteria requirements and the accomplishment of the organization’s mission.

The BNQP does not give a percentage based on the Band Score but the I-SS score of 5 out of 8 yields an overall percentage score for 2007 of 62.5%. And for 2008, I-SS received a Process Band Score of 5 out of 8, which is another 62.5% and a Results Band Score of 4 out of 8, which yields a percentage score of 50%. Weighting these scores equally, I-SS received an overall score of 56.25% for 2008 and that is the year they received the Baldrige Award. The scores for the individual categories verify this lower score for 2008. I-SS scores went down in 10 categories from ’07 to ’08 and only went up in 2 categories from ’07 to ’08.

What does all of this prove? It proves that, as many have thought, the whole Baldrige Award is a sham. How is it that I-SS had such terrible scores and still received the award? Did the BNQP committee just figure that it was I-SS’s turn to get the award? What would I-SS administrators say if they found out that students in a given class were receiving A’s while averaging 50% to 62.5%? Do you think that a high school student would be selected valedictorian or salutatorian with these averages? I don’t think so. It would be interesting to know how many man-hours and how much money was wasted pursuing this award.

Click on the link below to access the I-SS 2008 Baldrige Application, the I-SS 2007 Feedback Report and the I-SS 2008 Baldrige Feedback Report. I-SS provided me with a digital copy of the 2007 Baldrige Application, as it is not available on the school web site. I recommend that you look at these documents. They certainly provide some interesting reading material.

I-SS Baldrige Information