Alabama State Department of Education

July 11, 2017

Audit Communication Plan

Review of Class Measures Audit Findings◦ District Report Summary

◦ Overview of School Level Results

MPS Strategic Plan Review

Questions/Comments

All audit reports (District and 27 School Reports) will be available to view on the following website immediately following today’s work session

http://www.alsde.edu/sec/comm/Pages/MPSintervention.aspx

Outstanding – Good – Requires Improvement – Inadequate

Rubric Ratings:

OUTSTANDING GOOD

Structures and systems are well established in all major and minor areas of the district/school and the district/school does not require support.

District/school leaders are highly effective and the quality of service delivery or teaching and learning is outstanding.

All students are making outstanding progress or are achieving grade level expectations in all content areas. Achievement gaps exists minimally if at all.

Structures and systems are established in all major areas and the district/school requires only minimal support. District/school leaders are effective and the quality of service delivery or teaching and learning is good.

Almost all students are making good progress in all content areas. Students demonstrate good levels of social maturity and almost all are achieving grade level expectations. Achievement gaps are closing steadily.

Requires Improvement Inadequate.

Major organizational structures and systems are poorly developed, or missing. Significant support and guidance is required since district/school leaders and instructional staff members are not meeting the learning needs of most students.

Expectations are generally low and progress is slow. Most students are achieving well below grade level in core content areas.

Achievement gaps are large and are growing wider

Structures and systems are broadly in place but are not being implemented with sufficient consistency. Support and guidance is required in specific areas for the district/school to continue its development.

Support is needed to ensure that the school consistently promotes the learning of all students in all content areas.

Expectations vary too much and achievement gaps are not closing fast enough.

Effectiveness of Leadership & Governance◦ Inadequate

Effectiveness of District Support for Learning◦ Inadequate

Effectiveness of Operational Systems ◦ Requires Improvement

Quality of School Outcomes◦ Inadequate

District staff are committed and work together as a team.

District staff have developed a wide range of curricular materials to support teachers in the planning and delivery of lessons and units of work that are aligned with the College and Career Readiness Standards in ELA and math. These materials direct teachers to recommended resources and model lessons.

District staff know the relative strengths and weaknesses of teaching and learning in the highest need schools and have provided professional development matched to their needs.

District staff have developed an induction and support package for new principals which provides them with essential information and guides them through their first year in school and beyond.

District staff have useful systems for identifying and developing staff with the capacity to be future school leaders. Many of the more effective school leaders in the district were developed in this way.

District staff have developed effective systems and procedures to collect and analyze student performance data so that they know exactly how well the students in each school are achieving against each element of the College and Career Readiness Standards for ELA and math.

• District leaders and staff should take quick and effective action to support and hold school principals accountable for implementing Data Driven Instruction (DDI) across their schools.

• District leaders and staff should enable and empower principals to ensure that teachers plan and deliver thoughtfully planned lessons that consistently engage and challenge students, and are adapted to meet the learning needs of all students.

• District leaders and staff should ensure that school leaders and instructional staff are meeting the specific learning needs of English language learners, students with disabilities and higher achieving students

• District leaders should transfer ownership of the high-quality curricular guidance materials they have developed to the school leaders and instructional staff. This will be achieved by shifting the emphasis from refining these resources to ensuring that they are being implemented with fidelity in all schools.

• District leaders should quickly identify, purchase and implement with fidelity a coherent reading program to engage and challenge students in grades K through 8 so that teachers are effectively supported to rapidly increase student progress and raise academic standards in reading.

• The school board should support and hold the superintendent and their staff accountable for ensuring that the recommendations detailed above are implemented quickly and effectively.

A review of the quality of education being provided by 27 ‘lower performing’ schools in the Montgomery School District:

13 Elementary Schools (including Int. School)

1 K through 8 School

7 Middle Schools

1 Alternative School

5 High Schools

Many school leaders and teachers are dealing with many significant challenges on a daily basis.

These challenges include: Minimal parental engagement and involvement;

Behavioral issues;

Poor attendance and tardiness;

High levels of transiency;

High levels of poverty/hunger.

Other significant contextual challenges include:

The polarizing impact of magnet schools;

Low staff attendance;

Resistant teachers;

Low expectations;

Inadequate (practical) district support and oversight;

Curricular gaps,

Inadequate professional development;

Insufficient administrative support.

Out of the twenty seven schools reviewed, nine were judged to be ‘requiring improvement’while the remaining eighteen were judged to be providing an ‘inadequate’ level of education.

All twenty seven schools need help, and as a result of this project we now know what the two main priorities are in each of the buildings.

Generally most of the elementary schools are in better shape than the middle and high schools.

The nine schools judged to be stronger overall and designated as ‘requiring improvement’ are:

Brewbaker Intermediate; Brewbaker Middle; Chisholm Elementary; Dannelly Elementary; Davis Elementary; Dunbar Ramer K-8;

Martin Luther King Jr Elementary;

Morris Elementary and Southlawn Elementary.

Although none of them were judged as good overall, fourteen schools had one or more Performance Indicator (PI) for Leadership and Management that were judged as being good. These schools were:

Bellingrath Middle; Brewbaker Middle; Capitol Heights Middle; Chisholm Elementary; Dannelly Elementary; Davis Elementary; Dunbar Ramer K-8; Highland Avenue Elementary; Martin Luther King Jr Elementary; McKee Middle; Morris Elementary; Nixon Elementary; Robert E Lee High and The Fews School.

Teaching and Assessment:

Many teachers establish and maintain a safe, clean and supportive learning environment with an inclusive culture of understanding and mutual respect for all students.

Many teachers establish and maintain behavior management strategies that promote alternatives to exclusion through positive reinforcement, constructive feedback and redirection strategies that are sensitive to individual academic need and are respectful of personal dignity.

6 District Priorities

2 School Level Priorities ◦ Leadership/ Management: appropriate balance

between mgmt. & instructional leadership within context

◦ Teaching & Assessment: planning & delivering rigorous and engaging lessons aligned to the standards

All priorities will be addressed under the umbrella of ACCOUNTABILITY

Intervention Strategic Plan –Phase I

The major goal of the state’s intervention into MPS is to transform the organization into a HRO (an organization preoccupied with avoiding failure of its chief mission) and an HPO (an organization that achieves rigorous outcomes over five years through a disciplined focus on a few key priorities). MPS will be fiscally and operationally sound, function coherently, and will significantly improve internal and external stakeholder satisfaction and perception.

Students and families thrive when they have high-quality educational choices. MPS will dramatically increase the quality of schools available in our neighborhoods, to ensure that all students in every MPS community, has access to great schools. This supports our primary goal to have at least 80% of MPS students attending a high-performing school by 2022. This will be measured by region (or feeder pattern) using the Alabama A-F Report Card. (High quality in low performing schools will initially be defined as achieving a minimum state accountability grade of a C or better.)

Students who are reading and writing proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to graduate and we know that there is a strong connection between literacy and mathematical reasoning and ability. The goal is that by 2022, at least 80% of MPS third-graders will be at or above grade level in reading and writing and 80% of 5th graders will be at or above grade level in math and science. MPS will focus significantly on expanding access to high-quality preschool (school readiness), will focus on early literacy in kindergarten through 2nd grade, and will better prepare educators for mathematics instruction in the elementary grades to achieve this goal.

MPS will ensure our students graduate college-and career-ready. Our MPS graduates will take many paths to pursue their dreams, and our schools must prepare them for their future. MPS plans to re-envision and re-design career and college interest pathways (from elementary to high school) that will inspire, challenge and empower our students to embrace education as a tool to forge their own destination to a bright future. These multiple pathways will contribute to a graduation rate of at least 90% and a College and Career Readiness Rate (CCRR) of at least 85% by 2022.

In MPS, we are committed to providing equitable and inclusive environments where we ensure students are Healthy (Physically and Mentally), Supported, Engaged, Challenged, and Safe. We know – and research shows – that providing whole child supports will not only improve academic outcomes, but is critical to removing barriers interfering with access and opportunity for many of the students and families we serve. Our goal is to raise the status of and increase the number of whole child supports available which will equip our schools to more effectively meet the needs of children.

Phase I - Strategies & Outcomes◦ Foundational and

designed to anchor the district and set it on a path to achieve the five goals in 2022

◦ Will provide baseline data used to track and monitor progress over 5 years

Phases II-V Strategies & Outcomes ◦ Will be informed by

multiple community stakeholder groups beginning in the fall of 2017