School Of Choice Clinton Dale

As I complete my seventh year as principal at Clintondale High School, it has become abundantly clear what our educational institution will have to do in order to create a thriving academic environment that is financially solvent. Since 1992, our school district has been open to school of choice. The policy was instituted in order to offset the transitioning amount of students who chose other schooling options. These options included private and newly formed charter schools, as well as, local area traditional public schools. These local schooling options forced our school district to compete and the competition is even fiercer under the state’s current economic condition. Since the acceptance and inception of a school of choice policy within our school district we continuously examined the pros and consof having such a policy. We have compared and analyzed data pertaining to grade point averages and discipline records of in-district and out-of-district students and have found that there have been some notable differences in culture, and preparedness among new students. Upon my analyzation of our school districts MEAP trend data, as well as, interviewing teachers and students my findings have reveal a profound pattern between school of choice and state scores. Below represents the current trends in social studies MEAP scores.

When examining the high school’s student enrollment for the 9th grade, the number of students who were enrolled in our 6th grade in 2005-06 that entered the high school is 54%. Therefore, producing a turn over (rotation of students) rate from this particular class of 2012 of 46%. In order to validate this trend the turn over rate of our students that enter the 9th grade and are going to take the MME test in the 11th grade in 2009 is 30% and the number of seniors who went K-12 from the class of 2009 is 12%. This data is significant because the numberof students did not change dramatically. The class of 2012 was expected to have approximately 190195 total students and it arrived at the high school on count day between 195-200 students. Therefore, giving the appearance that when looking at the scores that are released to the media that our school district is failing however, this movement of students provides us with a significant academic 1

challenge. Their educational backgrounds, socio economic status, family structure, distance traveling to school, did change the make up of 46 per 100 students. In addition, our school of choice families demographic make up were mostly African American families that came from the city of Detroit in which 26.8% live below the poverty line. Furthermore, according to city data.com ”Detroit has struggled mightily trying to maintain a quality level of education in the face of budget shortfalls within an educational system that is embedded into a largely impoverished city population.” In 2005, the average SS MEAP scores for Caucasian students was 83% and for African American students the scores were 57%, a 26% learning gap, with a large percentage residing in Detroit. The chart below represents the number of students entering the high school from are most recent school of choice marketing campaign. The total number of school of choice students enrolled from our campaign is 91 students, with 71 of the students being African American and from the city of Detroit.

This school enrollment data reveals that the majority of our new student population has the following socio-economic and learning characteristics: •

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Economically disadvantages; lacking basic physical and emotional needs Student lack of exposure to a rigorous curriculum Student learning gaps due to normal school differences Low level of mother’s education level

Historically, the above mentioned characteristics have a profound and negative effect on student achievement and can provide great educational challenges. The next chart below provides a general comparison of the

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background of a typical student who left and the student who replaced them.

City or Town

Income

% of Pop. With Degree

Detroit Clinton Township

$29,500 $48,000

11% 18%

69% 87%

26% 9.2%

$44,00 0

21%

83%

10%

State of MI

HS Grad

%Poverty

2000 US Census

Simply stated, we are educating a different student at the secondary level thus, validating many of our concerns and frustrations among our staff. When evaluating our current population trends and academic situations, it is increasingly apparent we need to address our entire student learning issues and our all of our student movement trends. We Are Not Built To Handle It Furthermore, when investigating thehuman learning processes, research will indicate that not all students learn at the same rate or the same way. For example, within our K-12 educational system that we have total control over student movement, we are going to have a normal bell shaped curve regarding student achievement. In other words, we are going to have some students who will be excelling, some students who maintaining and some who are falling behind. Thus, like all current school districts, we will react in a methodical way making sure that teachers are trained to deal with the K12 issues getting teams together to align our standards, enabling building principals communicate with each other about the current student learning 3

issues, evaluate data pertaining to students coming through the system, and adjust and align curriculum so that it provides a good foundation and support for learning. When comparing students graduating in 2007, students who entered our school system before second grade had an average ACT between 20-22, and a school of choice who entered in middle school student averaged 14-16. This indicates that the longer we have them in our system the better they will perform and that our K-12 system is solid from a traditional K-12 perspective. However, upon evaluating our movement trends this systematic approach only works for only 50% of our current student population. Upon looking at the other half of our new student population, what do you do with students in which we don’t have controls over their academic environment? Furthermore, how do we hande the economic and educational challenges of students who come from the poorest large city in America and make up roughly 50% of our population? Is our school system equipped to handle this type of student? What effect does it have on our scores? How do we become financially solvent and handle our educational issues at the same time? I ask these questions because I believe those are the most pressing questions facing us in the next few years. When addressing our academic and financial issues, I believe the most important things that need to be accounted for when dealing with student learning and finances are; exposure to a rigorous curriculum, student learning gaps and retention of K-12 students. I have had the good fortune of being able to sit on various committees and have seen a wide range of issues from different perspectives. I would like to now summarize how are system is built and provide some recommendations for long term financial and educational success. Providing Exposure to a Rigorous Curriculum and Dealing the Learning Gaps When dealing with global competition and expectations exposure to a rigorous curriculum is absolutely necessary. Our school district has taken the initial and necessary steps by increasing high school graduation requirements, providing dual enrollment opportunities, adjusting K-12 classes and curriculum, as well as, implementing Advance Placementclasses. Therefore, we have systematically improved our K-12 4

system to handle our traditional students (54%) and by providing rigorous educational opportunities for all. However, how do we deal with students who have not exposed to a rigorous program and bring them up to par, in order to get them on a level playing field for a chance at academic success? How will we handle students who have not been exposed thus causing large gaps in their learning foundation? Currently, we traditionally offer our community of students a systematic approach (Model A) which is illustrate by the picture below:

This model contains one teacher, exposing all of our students to one concept for an hour a day, for 180 days,which is equal to 180 hours per year of maximum exposure to a topic. Using only this delivery model does not account for learning gaps nor does it offer the opportunity to vastly differentiated instruction and content. In Model B, which is shown below we have occasionally provided our students the opportunity to work within computerized programs that allow for differentiated instruction and can address individual learning gaps. However, we still only expose them traditionally 180 days for an hour a day, equaling 180 hours of exposure and differentiated instructional services i.e.. Success maker.

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In the third model; Model C, my suggested model, I find that we can address both issues that plague our educational learning systems. I feel strongly that by implementing a Web 2.0 / Web base learning and communication system and along with a traditional model will allow for greater exposure time and also provide for differentiated instruction, as well as, addressing the needs for personal relationships.

The following are examples in which we can provide students exposure to a rigorous curriculum and provide services for our student learning gaps. •

Teacher blogs and/or websites- Teachers can post assignments, videos, and slideshows and even hold on-line discussions exposing their students to their current and past classroom content. Also being web based it allows students to keep up academically is they are absent from school and parents can also track assignments and help homework assignments 24 hours/7 days a week.

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Study Island- Web based; enables parents and students to access it from their own home. It provides tutorial exercises that enable a student to work on their individual needs in and out of school. Furthermore, it allows staff and students to create reports on individual strengths and weaknesses which make for better decision 6

discussions with parents and parents have access to it 24 hours/7 days a week. With just the implementation of the blogs/websites and Study Island we could effectively increased our instructional capacity to provide exposure and per classroom to go from 180 hours to 6,720 hours per instructional year/per subject. In addition, we are also able to provide support to fill in the learning gaps and accommodated student’s individual concerns, as well as, provided parents a vehicle to help get involved in their child’s education. Education in School is Not Only for Students The following represents the educational responsibilities of a district. By going Web 2.0 I feel that we can better serve our students but also better service our teachers and parents as well.

Teacher Education Currently, we enable an individual or group of teachers go to a conference to learn about the most recent educational trends or programs that may benefit our students. Most often they return from the conference and they provide insight to the staff regarding what they learned through content area teams or school improvement. However, if we had them posttheir findings and information on a school improvement blog we would increase our teacher education exponentially as well. Our educational processes would not be limited to conferences and scheduled in-services. Education would be an on-going evolution, not limited to contractual obligations and financial burdens. Therefore, putting a well trained and well prepared teacher in front of our students every single day. Furthermore, the information would be available to not only our staff but to other buildings teaching staff and administrators. Furthermore, each building school improvement chair could use it as points of discussion in every 7

building and continue to provide content during their school improvement hour release time. School Improvement Websites / Blogs could do the following: • • • • • • •

Provide educational videos Educational podcasts Educational journal articles and links Discussion board to collaborate Helpful teaching hints from experienced staff Links to effective lessons Classroom management tips

With this change in communication procedures, this content would be available to staff 24 hours / 7 days a week. It would also enable us to increase the potential for staff educational services from 51 hours a year to 6720 hours thus improving teacher training by being able to expose them to more topics, new research, in a collaborative forum, while not increasing cost. Parent Education and Communication The expression that a village raises a child infers that educators and parents need to work together to educate a child. I do agree with this scenario, however, as district we have struggled with getting our parents to come to us. Current Model

Low turnouts at parent teacher conferences, financial aid nights, orientations, senior meetings have frustrated our school personnel. In addition, with the increase of school of choice parents traveling sometimes 20-25 miles, for a 10 minute meeting,during poor economic times will only exacerbate the situation even more. 8

Parent Education Blogs and Websites With a simple implementation of teacher and administrative blogs and web base attendance and grading programs I feel that parents can increase their opportunity to connect with our staff and administration outside the school day. By keeping them informed about their student, as well as, provide educational awareness forum enables us to truly partner with them without having to bring them to school. Parent Education Blogs and Web 2.0 services • •

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Administrative Blogs containing announcements, daily happens, video introductions, tours etc. On-line newsletters to provide recognition and school vision Twitter can provide daily reminders about events or happenings UStream.com can provide live coverage of a game or program on web Cover it Live.com provides an interactive discussion board within a teacher or a principal’s blog Gcast.com allows for school to post audio announcements Links to helpful tutorial sites and services that enable them to obtain educational services Web base grade and attendance verification service

This philosophy of using the web to deliver some of our educational services allows us to take our school to our parents and families and also enables us despite the distance, travel expenses and convenience increase our communication with our households and truly build a school community despite not being in close proximity of the school. Retention 9

Recently, families have more and more opted to use their option of school of choice.School can no longer afford to not offer top quality services for their students and families because of the competitive nature school market has become. By offering educational services that customer friendly and informative in a convenient and serviceable fashion I feel we will not hurt our efforts but only help. By increasing student retention it will not only add to our student counts but also solidify our academic scores because our system will begin to reap the rewards of our own efforts. Our teachers will finally build upon a solid academic foundation and will not have to continuously start over. The critics will say that not all families have computers and that is a true. But, if our district wants to compete, we will have to provide additional services to our customers as part of our “doing business” routines. For instance, our school district must open up their computer labs and staff it before and after school, as well as at lunch to help support students who don’t have a computer at home. Furthermore, we also can provide a list of local libraries in which computer services areavailable. These services only add to the value of our district. Finally, it is in my opinion that the answers are in front of us. There are more than a handful of talented people are quite willing to put the time and effort into the school district. It is going to take open minded approach to make this a unique and special place.

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