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?

More Baldrige Expenditures

This past Wednesday (7/15/09) I had another appointment to view school records. Of course I had to arrange the appointment with the I-SS attorney in Raleigh. It is a hassle to schedule appointments this way, but at least I am getting a better response to my requests to inspect school records. There was no observer in the room with me this time. Again, I spent much of the time reviewing invoices from Jim Shipley and Associates (JSA). I inspected some other documents as well and I will write about those in a later post.

Last time I looked at the JSA invoices dated from August 2003 to June 2005. In that two-year period, I-SS paid JSA $90,739.97 for Baldrige materials and training. This time I inspected the JSA invoices dated from July 2005 to May 2007. In this two-year period, I-SS paid JSA $114,008.40 for Baldrige materials and training.

Included this time were payments to have Brenda Clark provide training and consulting for a total of 14 days at $2,050.00 per day and payments to have Marty Moore provide training and consulting for a total of 22 days at $1,800.00 per day. There was even a payment to have Jim Shipley provide training and consulting for 2 days at $2,050.00 per day. Of course these individuals had to travel to Iredell County in order to provide this training. Thus, in addition to these daily rates, I-SS paid the travel expenses for Ms. Clark to make 7 round trips, for Ms. Clark to make 9 round trips, and for Mr. Shipley to make 1 round trip.

As in the previous two years, a number of I-SS administrators also traveled to Florida for Baldrige training. There was a registration payment of $1625.00 to JSA in May 2006 for five administrators to attend a two-day training session. And, there was a registration payment of $600.00 to JSA in April 2007 for three administrators to attend a different two-day training session. Since the travel expenses were not paid to JSA there was no invoice indicating the cost to send these administrators to Florida for the training.

I-SS is in the process of firing 65 teacher assistants. I think that these expenditures show that most, if not all, of these positions could have been saved if the school system was not spending an extraordinary amount of money to force students to endure the consequences of continuing the I-SS implementation of the Baldrige plan. As I mentioned before, there are thousands of school systems in this country achieving significant successes without using the Baldrige method.