Background
The Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation (PLCSF) is a group of parents, teachers, and principals from the Point Loma community who convened around the central goal of advancing the cluster into an outstanding, cohesive K-12 environment for the children of Point Loma and San Diego. Grounded in a strategic plan, the PLCSF and the cluster community engaged in a year-long dialogue to consider options for an innovative system of public school governance to better serve the goal of student achievement across all student populations.
From this dialogue, key elements emerged that suggest a framework that builds on a charter-school like concept of site-based management, aligns resources within the cluster, and enables schools to tailor core decisions to the needs of the community. These key elements align with research that points to a dramatic relationship between real decentralization, or the bottom-up organizational model in which individual schools are empowered to make core decisions, and the success of students.
Key elements of empowered schools FRAMEWORK - Four FREEDOMS
Our next step in the dialogue process is to craft a revolutionary new Empowered Schools Agreement that includes a significant level of decision-making at the cluster level. This agreement will take the district-led Community-Based School Reform Model to the next level and outline the key elements necessary to support a cluster-led Empowered Schools Framework—an innovative, adaptive, sustainable, and accountable learning environment.
The Point Loma Cluster will work collaboratively to craft an Empowered Schools Agreement based on four essential freedoms which include the discretion to control the school budget, curriculum, staffing, and scheduling, as well as the cornerstones of accountability and leadership. Over the next month, cluster stakeholders will provide input into the agreement development as we work to delineate both cluster-level autonomy and increased site-level principal authority.
For more background, see Governance on the Point Loma Cluster web site.
What do you think?
13 comments:
Over and over again I see the word freedom in these blogs. Freedom over budget, freedom over staffing, freedom over curriculum, etc. Some one has to be the one who dictates where these funds go and how they are used. My question is are we trading in one type of 'I say where the money goes' dictatorship with another one that has an even more narrow vision?
I want to see change in the way funds are being used in our school system my own child would benefit form better staffing (and by that I mean more teachers), but I'm not willing to gamble or risk the livelihood or access to education of another family to see my will accomplished.
I like the empowered schools general framework - most important is hiring flexibility at school sites - to ensure that the teachers meet the needs of students, not seniority. Also believe that the accountability (students, parents and teachers) component is critical.
The teacher evaluation system is broken (in fact it is essentially non-existent) - we have 6,000 teachers in SDUSD - and we have no way of knowing who the most effective (to scale best practices) or least effective (to remediate and support).
Flexible scheduling could enable teacher greater collaboration and professional development to occur school sites to better support learning environments.
Where to start....I have questions about this:
Do we get more money per site if we go Charter?
Do better performing schools finally get more money?
Will busing go away?
Will the busing union have a say in future bell times?
Who leads the curriculum and if we do something different, who pays for it?
Do teachers have to be reviewed yearly?
How do we measure success every year?
Who comes up the teacher review process?
Will job insecurity cause good teachers to leave?
Who sets the calendar - will we still be on the same schedule as the rest of the district?
There are too many generalities in this proposal. We need specifics.
As a native Point Loman, PLHS alum, and father of students that attend both PLHS and the HTH charter shools, I applaud the efforts to return a sense of community to our local schools. Years of what I'll call "urban scatter" of students throughout the district, initially in the name of "integration", and now through "magnets", "choice", VEEP and other programs have led to student feelings of anonymity, invisibility and apathy that ultimately undermine the goals of engagement and accountability. We've lost a sense of belonging.
The charter system, at least with HTH, has been able to break down this culture of ambivalence to some extent and fosters a sense of inclusiveness that seems to transcend the geographical as well as the multi-cultural challenges. There is a true ethos created by the unique talents and experiences that each student and teacher brings to weave this rich, diverse, and stimulating environment for learning. I believe this "culture of achievement", with its high expectations of student performance is what the PL cluster schools should emulate.
I would like to see accountability for teachers. I have seen Teachers taking advantage of Teacher's aides, and showing up hour + late, leaving early, etc. This is disruptive and very unprofessional. Point Loma is a great community, with parents getting involved, but this doesn't give some teachers a reason to slack off and still get paid. Let the Aids help the teachers that really need the help. I think because we have so many amazing teachers that the very few bad ones get over looked.
I would like to see the PL Cluster return to the tasks in their Strategic Plan. The goals in the plan would probably achieve so many of the things that we would like to accomplish. The five areas were:
1. Finance
2. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy
3. Learning Environment
4. Learning Communities
5. Marketing
I don't understand how or why we moved away from the this original document. Everyone worked very hard to identify what needed to be done in this cluster to improve education, and so far there have been some great strides. But how did we lose sight and why? I encourage everyone to go to the cluster sight and read the Strategic Plan:
http://pointlomacluster.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=44780&type=d
After reading the opinions of the bloggers on the story of bell times from 2008, I'm further convinced that if the PLCSF gets their hands on the budget money the first thing they will do is cut bussing. This serves to eliminate the 'diversity' that was so highly talked about.
Lip service, get real tell us what you're really planning and maybe I'll get behind you.
I have a couple of questions, but seeing that noone elses questions are being answered these probably won't be answered either. If this proposed framework that a small minority are seeking to secure is passed by the school board and the PLCSF gains control of the budget:
1. Does SENTRE stand to gain financially by contracts awarded for new E-Learing labs or any other form of services.
2. Do any of the other current volunteer board members stand to benefit financially via a permanent paying job?
If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then this would present a giant conflict of interest. Given the blogs about schools of the future looking like Starbucks, it's my suspicion that the answer to at least one of these questions is yes.
1. The framework has not been created by a small minority. It was based on outreach to school sites, community input. Surveys went out to over 6,000 community stakeholders (teachers, parents and staff) - over 400 stakeholders provided input to the online survey - which over 70% of those responding supporting each area of the basic framework - yet there is still a lot of work to make sure that every voice is heard. The framework is going back to each school site for input. As a side note, the basic framework contents are being implemented in Districts throughout the US - and communities are tackling issues and having hard conversations.
2. Neither SENTRE, Matt Spathas or any company Matt is affiliated with has any special interest or financial gain from any contract or other at the cluster or district level. I am a passionate advocate and frequent speaker on transforming education and engaging, empowering, educating and preparing ALL students for the 21st Century and global economy. To learn more, see my web site (yes, not for profit) www.ibrary.com.
3. No PLCSF board member has any financial interest - other interest - other than working hard on a "kids first" agenda.
I read the article on seniority, teacher layoffs and metrics designed to assess teacher quality called "The Case Against Quality Blind Layoffs". Every staff, ours included, fears that we may lose some wonderful, talented teachers if the layoff process is completed - and we all hope layoffs will not be necessary. However, there seems to be difficulty in designing a system that is truly indicative of the quality of a teacher. I have enclosed a recent NY Times article that discusses the problems that can occur with these complex metrics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/education/07winerip.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Please clarify for me how this small group of parents have banded together, called themselves the cluster foundation and basically put themselves in charge of our cluster? So many parents, teachers and administrators have no in depth knowledge of what is going on. The so call self appointed "Cluster Foundation" is pushing a June dead line on, forcing us to make this very critical decision, a decision that will affect all of our children and educators with nothing more than an explanation of "if you want to know, you should be at the meetings" Feels like they are trying to slip something by us. What is the rush - do this right! Let the Point Loma cluster community vote on this issue, instead of having it be the decision of a few self picked individuals.
The framework has not been created by a small minority. It was based on outreach to school sites, community input. Surveys went out to over 6,000 community stakeholders (teachers, parents and staff) - over 400 stakeholders provided input to the online survey - which over 70% of those responding supporting each area of the basic framework - yet there is still a lot of work to make sure that every voice is heard. The framework is going back to each school site for input.
As a side note, the basic framework contents are being implemented in Districts throughout the US - and communities are tackling issues and having hard conversations.
The survey is only valid when the persons completing the survey are informed first.
There has only been one small meeting at the schools that my children attend, with only 10-15 persons present. I completed the survey and now that I know more - I would like to change my responses.
A survey and community outreach is only valid if a majority of the persons that this affects are in attendance at the meetings, and if both the pro's and the con's are addressed. At the meetings that I attended, only the pros were discussed, and no information regarding de-tracking was provided at all.
Also it appeared that the survey was worded such that it lead persons to respond favorably to your agenda.
You have a long way to go if you feel that this has been based on school outreach and community input. The survey should have been conducted by an independent and unbiased group.
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