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December 2002
Many Providence schools tagged for oversight
Posted Friday, December 20, 2002
Every aspect of school operations -- academics, the budget and strategic plan -- will come under scrutiny.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A new citywide intervention plan for low-performing schools has targeted half the city's high schools, nearly all middle schools, and almost one-third of its elementary schools for an unprecedented degree of oversight.
Names have been released of the worst-performing schools, those that show tentative signs of turning around, as well as some that already have gathered momentum and appear headed out of the low-performing category altogether.
Central office administrators are meeting face-to-face with principals of the worst-performing schools to begin focusing on particular weaknesses that may be holding the schools back.
Next month, school officials say, administrators and teachers in each school will begin working together on specific remedies to address the problems.
The city plan, named Operation Smart!, is an aggressive program to improve the system's failing schools.
But the ultimate clout for demanding almost immediate improvement comes from the new federal "No Child Left Behind Act," which will impose sanctions on low-performing schools as early as the second semester of the current school year.
The worst-performing schools, dubbed "extreme priority schools," are those that are not only ranked as low-performing by the state but have not improved for the last two years and show flat or declining scores.
Hope High School, already under state mandate to break itself down into small learning communities and step up professional development for teachers, is on the extreme priority list.
So is Mount Pleasant High School, Feinstein High School, the Providence Place Academy, the business program with connections to the Providence Place mall; and the Hanley Career and Technical Center, an arm of Central High School.
In the extreme priority high schools, the average of students achieving standards in both math and English during the last two years ranged from about 5 percent to about 16 percent.
Almost all middle schools -- Greene, Bridgham, Bishop, Gilbert Stuart, Roger Williams, Hopkins, Perry, and Springfield 1 -- are on the extreme priority list.
Earlier this year, the district hired a specialist to begin middle school redesign.
Nathanael Greene was the highest scoring middle school, with an average of about 29 percent of students achieving or surpassing standards in both math and English for the last two years, according to calculations made by the school district.
Greene's scores include that of the program for gifted and talented students, which school officials say would qualify as a high-performing school if it were reported separately.
The latest two-year averages for students achieving proficiency in other middle schools ranged from about 7 percent to about 14 percent.
The seven worst-performing, or extreme priority elementary schools are Anthony Carnevale, Edmund Flynn, Alfred Lima, Veazie Street, George J. West, Windmill, and Charlotte Woods.
In these elementary schools, the two-year average of students achieving proficiency ranged from about 16 percent to about 31 percent.
Each extreme priority school will be assigned a support team of administrators from the central office, which will work with the school to devise strategies for improvement.
Every aspect of school operations -- academics, the budget and strategic plan -- will come under scrutiny.
Extreme priority schools will be required to submit a detailed improvement plan by the end of next month, according to Michael Sorum, the district's director of assessment.
Students at varying levels of proficiency in language arts and math will receive instruction tailored to their needs, whether they have basic reading skills or the skills of literary interpretation, according to Operation Smart!
Teachers will be required to work from lesson plans specifically designed to teach the reading, writing and mathematical standards that are tested on the state exams.
Instruction related to these standards will get extra time, either by rearranging student schedules, providing after-school activities, or holding Saturday classes, according to the plan.
In addition to those remedies, aimed at providing direct help for children, the extreme priority designation may signal the need for varying levels of change, up to a total overhaul, as is the case with the middle schools.
Or the label mean that a school that has only recently begun to turn itself around simply needs more time for the changes to show up in test scores.
At first glance, Sorum said, more time appears to be a key element in the remedy for Feinstein High School, which was reorganized only a year ago.
Last spring, Feinstein's sophomores showed a 23-point gain in proficiency in writing conventions, a 12-point gain in writing effectiveness, as well as increases in reading, math skills and math problem-solving.
But those one-time gains, rolled into an average for the last two years, were not strong enough to pull up Feinstein's performance in math or English when it was compared to scores for the previous three years, Sorum said.
Schools that, for the most part, are not improving but have positive signs, like reductions in suspension, tardiness, or the drop-out rate, have been named priority schools. In these schools, most of the intervention will focus on refining classroom instruction to make sure students are taught to do the work taught on the exams.
At the elementary level, the priority schools are William D'Abate.
Laurel Hill, Pleasant View, Reservoir, Webster, Cornel Young, and Mary Fogarty, with two-year proficiency averages that range from about 20 percent to 35 percent.
Central High School and the Alternate Learning Project, each of which has been designated improving in English, are also on the priority list.
Central's average level of proficiency for both math and English was about 8.5 percent during the last two years. And slightly less than 7 percent of ALP students achieved standards in math and English over the same period.
Elementary schools showing gains, with some of them approaching the moderately performing category, merited a watch status.
Asa Messer had about 36 percent proficiency, on average, over the last two years, and 35 percent of its students showing little evidence of achievement.
When the proportion of low-scorers falls below 33 percent, Asa Messer will become a moderately performing school, a designation achieved by the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School this year.
The Lillian Feinstein Elementary School at Sackett Street is just about 2.5 percentage points away from the dividing line, with an average of 35.5 percent of students showing little evidence of achievement in the last two years.
At the Martin Luther King Elementary School, a little more than 36 percent of students showed little or no achievement over the last two years, putting it about three percentage points above the dividing line.
Meanwhile the average proportion of students achieving standards was 39 percent at King and almost 33 percent at Sackett Street.
Besides Messer, Sackett Street and King, other "watch" schools are West Broadway, Carl G. Lauro, Harry Kizirian, Alan Shawn Feinstein at Broad Street, Robert F. Kennedy, and Charles Fortes.
Schools on the watch list will be asked to fine tune their reforms with the aim of increasing the proportion of proficient students by 5 percent a year and at the same time moving 5 percent out of the lowest three levels of achievement on the state exams.
Several schools in the district are too new to be categorized. They include the Christopher DelSesto Middle School, and two fledgling theme high schools, one focused on international studies and another dedicated to science, health and technology. There is also insufficient data for categorizing the Robert F. Bailey Elementary School.
Students seeking busing solution
Posted Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Providence high school students will help school officials work out a transportation plan.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A group of high school students that has taken issue with the School Department transportation policy recently met with school officials to come up with a solution for change.
The group will meet with school officials again on Thursday.
At issue is a school policy that denies transportation to high school students who live within three miles of their school. The school system issues free Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority bus passes to about 2,900 students each month. The passes can be renewed each month if the student does not miss five days of school per month.
The students, who have organized a protest campaign under the auspices of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, say they believe that it is the School Department's responsibility to get students to school, particularly if it hopes to improve the system's dropout rate of 40 percent to 50 percent.
They reiterated that point at a meeting at the administration building with Robert DeRobbio, the director of transportation, and Schools Supt. Melody Johnson, DeRobbio said.
DeRobbio said the students plan to come up with a proposal that they can present to the School Board in February, when the board begins formulating next year's budget.
DeRobbio said any changes in the transportation policy would require money, and should be presented during budget discussions.
Jon Mahone, youth organizer for DARE, said the students have long been concerned about transportation. In June, they staged a demonstration, insisting that the three-mile policy is too broad and that more students need the free RIPTA passes.
Many of the district's 27,000 students come from low-income or working-poor families that cannot afford to pay $10.60 a week for a 10-pack of student tokens. Most elementary and middle school pupils receive bus service from First Student, the private contractor hired by the School Department; high school students are expected to ride a RIPTA bus or walk to school.
The students have suggested reducing the bus-pass eligibility walk zone from three miles to two miles or 1 1/2 miles, Mahone said. Because school officials did not have numbers showing how many more high school students would be affected by those changes, the DARE students plan to work with school officials to obtain those numbers and the resulting costs.
"There are kids on free lunch and facing real financial hardship that don't receive bus passes," Mahone said. He said a policy enables those students to receive a pass if they prove their hardship, even if they live less than three miles from school.
Mahone said the students plan to come up with a procedure to raise awareness about the availability of bus passes. He believes that some students who are eligible under the hardship policy do not realize it.
That problem could be solved by appointing student delegates at every high school to advise their peers on what to do if they need a bus pass, he said.
Students are also calling into question a policy that prohibits bus-pass students who are absent five times in one month to receive a free bus pass the next month.
While the policy might have been intended to encourage attendence, the students believe it actually makes it more difficult for some of them to stay in school.
Mahone said he sees transportation as a piece of the school reform or school improvement campaign.
If school officials hope to improve the dropout rate, Mahone said, they will make transportation a priority because students "have to have access to the education and a consistant way to get to school, in order to get an education."
"We're going to try to team up and work with them," Mahone said, adding that Johnson seemed sincerely interested in working with the students.
Mahone said the students will also work with school officials to determine how many pupils might unknowingly be eligible for bus passes through the RIteCare program, which could free passes for other students.
Providence schools in violation of state fire code
Posted Wednesday, December 11, 2002
An assistant deputy state fire marshal says the School Department should be taken to court to force compliance at Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School and Central High School, where violations have continued for at least two years.
BY TATIANA PINA
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Nearly 40 percent of the city's public schools are in violation of the state fire code, according to Fire Department reports obtained by The Journal.
At least two schools have been in violation for two years and a fire inspector has recommended that the School Department be taken to court to make the repairs.
The reports show that 21 of 55 schools violate the code. That includes 12 elementary schools, 6 middle schools and 3 high schools.
Violations range from nonfunctioning emergency generators, hundreds of broken fire doors, broken exit signs, blocked corridors and other egresses, to uninspected sprinkler systems, missing fire extinguishers or extinguishers that are out of reach.
Of the 17 emergency generators at different schools, 10 don't work, according to city Fire Marshal David Costa. Five of those generators reported as not working are in schools designated as emergency shelters in case of a citywide emergency, such as a hurricane, according to the Fire Department.
School officials say they are working to make repairs.
Lt. Charles Lawrence, an assistant deputy state fire marshal, who works for the Fire Department and has been inspecting the schools for the past three years, has recommended that the School Department be taken to court to force fire-code compliance at Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School and Central High School, where inspection reports show that violations have continued for at least two years.
Lawrence contacted the enforcement division of the State Fire Marshal's office, which is authorized to take the schools to court for noncompliance, according to Costa. Lawrence is working with the State Fire Marshal to complete paper work for prosecution, Costa said. Lawrence declined to be interviewed by The Journal.
He reinspected Perry and Central on Oct. 16, after being notified that the fire-code violations had been repaired. His report concludes that not only have deficiencies cited in inspection reports for Perry on Sept. 5, 2000, and Sept. 5, 2001, and for Central on Oct. 1, 2000 and Oct. 25, 2001, not been corrected, but that new deficiencies have been discovered.
"This school has been and remains in violation of the State of Rhode Island Fire Safety Code," Lawrence wrote in reports for Central and Perry dated Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, respectively. The reports were sent to Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of public property and forwarded to Robert DeRobbio, executive director of transportation and facilities for the School Department. Lawrence returned to Central High School after being informed of some repairs.
Sepe said fire-code violations at Central and Perry that could be repaired by department maintenance workers have been corrected.
He said that at least 13 of the 17 generators system-wide are in working order.
Asked why it has taken as long as two years to repair the violations, Sepe replied: "We didn't have the money to do everything. We started on important things." Over the summer the city replaced fire alarms at a cost of $2.2 million, he said.
Fire Chief James F. Rattigan said that the overall safety of the schools is good. "The alarm system is in operating order. There are regular fire drills," he said.
Costa said that neither Lawrence nor any other inspector have filed reports that indicate that Central or any of the other 20 schools in violation of the fire code have corrected the violations according to state standards.
Fire-code violations at Central include: a dismantled emergency power generator; two empty fire extinguishers; six broken door closers; a blocked rear exit in the auditorium; four exit doors to the cafeteria chained shut during lunch; six missing door closers and no door to the mechanical drawing room, according Lawrence's report.
At Perry, the emergency power generator is inoperable, meaning emergency lighting is not available; exit signs don't work in the boys and the girls gyms; two extinguishers are missing and one is empty; material blocks a stairway; and a dozen doors need repairs, the report says.
Other schools in violation of the fire code are: Windmill Elementary School, Vartan Gregorian Elementary, George J. West Elementary School, Camden Elementary School, Feinstein Elementary School, Robert F. Kennedy Elementary, Asa Messer Elementary, Sackett Street Elementary, Laurel Hill Elementary, West Broadway Elementary, Carl G. Lauro Elementary, Windmill Annex, Esek Hopkins Middle School, Roger Williams Middle, Bridgham Middle, Nathanael Green Middle, Nathan Bishop Middle, Hope High School, and Mount Pleasant High.
State Fire Marshal Irving Owens said that a large school system such as Providence is apt to have a lot of fire violations especially in older schools.
"It's a constant maintenance problem because so many kids use the buildings and there is a lot of wear and tear but somebody in maintenance needs to keep up with it," he said.
Since The Journal started asking about the violations several weeks ago, there has been a flurry of activity by the School Department and city to make repairs.
Mark V. Dunham, the School Department's financial officer, and DeRobbio said school officials have spent the last three or four weeks working to correct the problems. .
DeRobbio said repairs include fixing broken bulbs in exit lights and broken windows on doors. A company is working to replace fire extinguishers that need service. .
Dunham said school officials have tried to package similar repairs -- the generators, for example -- and hire a contractor to repair all of them at the same time. He said the generators and fire-door repairs are the priority.
"I don't think they are fire traps," Dunham said of the schools. "I mean, we have an awful lot of buildings and only so many people" to work on them.
"We will try to stay on top of things. There will always be a maintenance issue. Sometimes things get broken as quick as we repair them, " Dunham said. Sepe said that in January the city will sell bonds of between $1.5 million and $2 million to repair the doors and the generators.
Debra Lyle, a parent of a 12-year-old girl who attends Perry Middle School said although the fire-code violations worried her, she was not surprised so many schools have them, given the unkempt conditions she has seen at Perry.
"We pay taxes. The schools get all kinds of grants and money. Money should be spent on the safety of the kids. Parents have to speak out," said.
With staff reports by Karen Davis
School rally aims to inspire
Posted Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Schools Supt. Melody Johnson implores teachers not to accept mediocrity.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
PROVIDENCE -- To the casual observer, yesterday's gathering in the ballroom of the Rhode Island Convention Center might have resembled a union pep rally.
There were cheers for union leaders, praise for a recently settled three-year teachers contract and standing ovations for education goals and ideals.
But the event, sponsored by the Providence School Department and the Providence Teachers' Union, was more than just an inspirational rally.
The three-hour event, "A Celebration of Teaching and Learning," also signaled a "new beginning," said Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson, a time for teachers, administrators, parents and students to beginning working together to make sure that schools fulfill their mission.
The School Department closed schools and made yesterday a professional development day for teachers. Teachers, principals and school clerks were bused to the Convention Center.
"I asked for today . . . . [in part] because I thought it was very important for us to come together as professionals," Johnson told the standing-room-only crowd.
Johnson, who took over the helm of the school system with the August departure of former Supt. Diana Lam, has received high marks for her willingness to communicate with union leaders, city officials, parents and community members.
Yesterday, she decried the negative images that have plagued the public school system, and she urged educators to no longer tolerate the mediocrity and negativity that others have tried to cast upon them.
In reality, Johnson said, examples of great teachers and creative programs abound throughout the system.
She urged the audience to reject outsiders' labeling of public school children as "those kids," creating a culture of low expectation.
Citing several studies, Johnson said, children from poor communities are able to achieve the same success as their more affluent peers if they have qualified and well-trained teachers leading their classrooms.
"I won't ask you to work harder," Johnson told the audience. "But I can ask you to work differently . . . to work together. We are up to this task."
Johnson said Providence educators should not be intimidated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which next year aims to fix failing or low-performing schools by holding them accountable. Rather, she said, even with its majority low-performing schools, the school system can find success, as did the Vartan Gregorian School at Fox Point, a public school that met all state standards of success for two years in a row.
Last week, the School Department unveiled an intervention program called Operation SMART!, which requires administrators and principals from the low-performing schools to meet regularly to come up with strategies for success. Johnson said she believes such success requires a collaborative effort.
Acting Mayor John J. Lombardi, who was instrumental in salvaging a pact between the teacher's union and the City Council in August, praised Johnson for doing a better job of communicating than her predecessor.
"For three years, the 'c-word' was a bad word, but now it's not . . . it's communication," Lombardi said. Along with her experience and intelligence, Johnson also brought a heavy dose of understanding, Lombardi said.
"She gets it, let me tell you," Lombardi said. "She gets it, not only for the students of Providence, but also for the teachers."
The event, which was emceed by school chief academic officer Cheryl King, also featured remarks by Mayor-elect David Cicilline, whose sister is a public school teacher and who has proposed making schools more community-oriented by staying open evenings.
Phil DeCecco, president of the teacher's union, urged educators to "walk proud and be proud" for working to meet the needs of a diverse student population. He paid tribute to Joseph Almagno, who will retire as a union administrator this month; Almagno will stay on part-time until his replacement is found.
The celebration was highlighted by a rousing presentation by Samuel Betances, a biracial, bicultural, bilingual motivational speaker, and a high school dropout who earned a doctorate from Harvard University.
Betances, who is Puerto Rican and grew up in New York City, referred to learning institutions as "that middle-class place called school" that has historically not been able to "unleash the potential of children in poverty."
Poor students or students who grow up speaking Spanish or ebonics fail not because they lack intelligence, but because they were never given the framework for learning in "the middle-class place called school," Betances said.
"You can't fail people for knowing what they haven't been taught," Betances said, noting that he developed the framework for learning after dropping out of high school and being advised to "read, read, read."
After enrolling at a Christian boarding school in Illinois, he studied the speeches of ministers, philosophers and President John F. Kennedy.
Betances also told the audience that "our imbalanced [or biased] view of each other compromises our ability to bring out the best in our students."
Educators should not consider themselves dictators to the next generation, but gatekeepers empowered to help them "unleash their potential."
Providence: Hard work pays off at Gregorian
Posted Wednesday, December 4, 2002
The Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Fox Point is the only school in the state to meet targets for improvement for two consecutive years in all 16 categories of the state's New Standards Reference Exams.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The spotlight cast on the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School at Fox Point yesterday was at least eight years coming.
During that time, principal Mary Brennan and her staff adopted a plan for reform and stuck to it, with private grants paying for continuous teacher training -- summer and winter, year after year, well outside the limelight.
With last spring's scores on statewide exams factored into its efforts for the last several years, Vartan Gregorian lifted itself out of the low-performing group and into the moderately performing category.
Peter McWalters, the commissioner of elementary and secondary education, highlighted Gregorian's achievements when he held a news conference there yesterday to announce the second annual ranking of each public school in Rhode Island.
And the fact that Gregorian raised scores with children of color living below the poverty line made the success all the sweeter. For Gregorian disproved the common wisdom that the have-nots of society can't compete academically.
"It doesn't matter what social and economic capital a student brings to school," said Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson. "Equity begins at the schoolhouse door."
She said she was thrilled to learn that Gregorian was the only school in the state to meet targets for improvement for two consecutive years in all 16 categories of the state's New Standards Reference Exams.
But even as Johnson took the podium at the school, principals of low-performing city schools that had failed to improve two years in a row began getting the news that the central office will intervene in the next few weeks.
The names of the schools were not available late yesterday. The district's director of assessment, Michael Sorum, said he was still finalizing the list.
But there is likely to be some correlation between the district's priority list and a list McWalters released yesterday of low-performing schools.
Of nearly three dozen Rhode Island schools on McWalters's list, Providence accounted for about one-third.
All the schools on McWalters's list will be required to give him detailed plans for improvement and make periodic progress reports.
Hope High School, where McWalters intervened last June, remains on the intervention list. Mount Pleasant High School and Feinstein High School also are on the list.
For the most part, Feinstein's scores reflect a failing school that was reorganized under new leadership a year ago to raise the academic bar.
The Hanley Career and Technical Center, an arm of Central High School, appeared on McWalters's intervention list, but Central did not.
Once widely regarded as the city's worst high school, Central posted improvements in reading and writing in the latest rankings.
And Classical High School, the city's only high-performing school, has made solid gains since McWalters announced the first rankings last February.
The middle schools on McWalters's intervention list are Esek Hopkins, Nathanael Greene, Oliver Hazard Perry, Roger Williams and Samuel W. Bridgham.
Two charter schools, the Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy and Times2 Academy, appear on the intervention list. They are answerable directly to McWalters, not to the school district.
McWalters said the progress made by the charter schools will eventually figure into any decisions made by the state Board of Regents on the renewal of their charters.
Sorum, the district's assessment director, said about one-third of the city's elementary schools figure in the local administration's intervention plan, called "Operation SMART!"
But Sorum's calculations show several other elementary schools, especially Asa Messer and Martin Luther King, have steadily reduced the number of low-performers.
Since the standards-based exams were introduced in 1998, they have come within a few percentage points of crossing the dividing line into the moderately performing category.
Schools are ranked as moderately performing when less than 33 percent of students show little or no evidence of achievement.
Sorum said the schools following in Gregorian's path simply need more time before they too achieve the milestones that attract the limelight.
Providence targets low-performing schools
Posted Tuesday, December 3, 2002
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The School Department is ready to hit the ground running with the most aggressive plan ever to fix failing schools, using the clout of the federal "No Child Left Behind Act" to get results.
The starting pistol will sound today when Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Peter McWalters travels to the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School at Fox Point to announce the latest list of high, moderate, and low-performing schools.
Except for Gregorian and the high-performing Classical High School, all the city schools are expected to be named low-performing -- becoming targets for sanctions under "No Child Left Behind."
Even though the state and federal governments have not yet worked out the timelines or details of the penalties, the School Department has taken the new federal law to heart as an immediate call to action.
Within the next week, Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson will launch the intervention plan, "Operation SMART!" The plan will begin with face-to-face meetings among key administrators and principals of the worst-performing schools, those with flat or declining test scores.
The meetings will help lay the groundwork for the interventions, which will begin taking shape as early as next month.
The face-to-face meetings will give principals the first shot at laying out what they need to improve their schools, according to Michael Sorum, the district's point man on test scores and a member of the visiting delegation from the central office.
Depending on the need, some principals may be assigned mentors who would help them with specific tasks, such as arranging student schedules, he said.
He said he and other administrators will make highly scripted school tours called "learning walks," in which visitors look for specific kinds of classroom activities to help determine how well the school is implementing literacy and math reforms.
The information from the visits will be combined with a detailed analysis of state test scores at grades 4, 8 and 10 as well as break-outs on annual district exams to keep closer track of students' performances.
The information should expose specific skills that need the most attention, Sorum said.
When those targets are identified, specially trained teachers will devise specific lesson plans to address them. Classroom teachers will get help, right in their own rooms, to carry out the special lessons.
And every two weeks, informal assessments will monitor students' progress toward the standards.
Even short-term interventions can help children who are nearly proficient achieve the standards in mathematics and literacy by the time the next round of state exams are administered in the spring, according to Sorum.
Cheryl King, the district's new chief academic officer and architect of "Operation SMART!," says targeted lesson plans will challenge students at every level of achievement -- including those who are already meeting or exceeding standards.
Proficient students will get lessons intended to develop higher-order thinking skills that are tested by questions on literary analysis and interpretation, writing effectiveness, and mathematical concepts and problem-solving.
Those who fall more than two years below grade level will get instruction in basic skills, with extra time on task.
In the city's high schools, for example, students reading two or more years below the ninth-grade level will get a reading course they may have to take instead of an elective during the second semester of the school year, King said.
Or the remedial instruction may come after school or on Saturdays, King said, depending on the specific need determined by the analysis that begins in the next few weeks.
Changes in schedules can only occur within the provisions of the district's teachers' contract, historically regarded by many as an impediment to reform.
King, however, had nothing but praise for the union.
"They've been tremendously supportive" in offering suggestions that went into the planning of "Operation SMART!" she said.
"It's definitely a high priority to involve them every step of the way as things become clearer," she said. "They have been at the table since early fall."
At its most fundamental level, "Operation SMART!" aims to build on a foundation of earlier reforms -- particularly the success that has occurred over the last several years at the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, according to King.
Gregorian is expected to move up from low to moderately performing when McWalters makes his announcement today.
In 1998, when the results of the first-ever standards-based exams came back to the school, the teachers picked them apart to get a finer bead on deficiencies. They used the data as a starting point to devise strategies for improvement, according to Mary Brennan, principal at Gregorian.
With fledgling reforms in teaching reading and writing already in place, the initial conversation over the 1998 test scores led to a focus on math.
Brennan said she and the faculty devised a plan that sent a math specialist into regular math classes to work specifically with those children they thought could attain the standards with a little extra help. That became the prototype for the targeted lesson plans that will be on the drawing boards in January.
Since Vartan Gregorian first used test scores to shape teaching, the diagnostic approach has become greatly refined, Brennan said.
And since 1998, the proportion of fourth graders at Gregorian achieving standards in math and literacy has more than doubled, from 20 percent to at least 42 percent.
The sector showing little or no evidence of progress has shrunk, from 48 percent to about 28.5 percent, according to preliminary calculations made by Sorum.
At Vartan Gregorian and elsewhere in the district, the backbone of reform has been teacher training on a continuing basis.
Former Schools Supt. Diana Lam introduced resident teacher-coaches as a vehicle for making training available in manageable daily doses to colleagues right in their own classrooms.
The targeted lesson plans prescribed by "Operation SMART!" will come from these coaches, working with lead teams of classroom teachers who are ahead of the curve in their daily teaching practices.
Sorum said the district will rely on teams of coaches, lead teachers and others in individual schools to come up with specific intervention plans that will tell the central administration how it can help.
"If it's Michael and Cheryl's plan," Sorum said, referring to himself and King, the chief academic officer, "it's just as good as the paper it's written on.
"We know the teachers are overwhelmed and working their hearts out," he said.
"Sometimes we can help them focus to save their sanity," he said.
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