June 2010 Personnel Report

I am including a copy of the June 2010 personnel report that was presented to School Board during the meeting on June 14th. Most of the report is the standard sections of resignations, retirements, new hires, administrative appointments, and administrative transfers. Many of the appointments and transfers have already been announced on this blog or in the media.

The report does mention that Billy Thompson is being named principal of Statesville Middle School and that Kelly Cooper is being named Exec. Director of Middle School/RTL/504 but it does not mention Bobbie Ellis. Ms. Ellis was the principal of Statesville Middle. The May Personnel Report indicated that Bobbie's contract was being renewed but her location was listed as TBD. I have not heard what position Ms. Ellis will have for the upcoming school year.

Pages 1 and 2: (Click to enlarge.)

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Renewed Vision Meeting

Materials related to last night’s meeting are now available on the I-SS web site. You can find information for each of the system’s key processes as well as issue bins for each. The reports of the principal and teacher surveys as well as the reports of the various advisory meetings are also available. The video of the meeting is not yet available. I want to thank Mr. Johnson for making sure this information was available in a timely manner. You can access the information by clicking on the link below.

Renewed Vision Information

There was a lot of information shared at the meeting but it seemed to be mostly this is what we are doing and don’t you think it’s wonderful. There was some talk of a few changes being made but the bulk of the information was simply a reiteration of the processes that have been in place for some time. Yes, it was mentioned that there would be more flexibility in some of the processes, and yes it was mentioned that changes were made based on input from teachers and others. However those changes were minor changes compared to the feedback given in the principal and teacher surveys as well as in the reports of the various advisory meetings.

There were several initiatives that the principals and teachers said needed major tweaking that did not seem to receive any tweaking. Or, if they were tweaked, they were minor tweaks. Was this a true response to the feedback received from the various groups? I don’t think so. Was it an effort to encourage everyone to be content with the way things are? I think so.

What do you think? Remember, all comments are welcome. Some comments about the meeting have already been given after the previous post.

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?

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.

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.