When students at some of the Mission District schools arrived at school this fall, they may have noticed a few changes — new equipment, new after-school programs, new faces in tutors and teaching coaches.
It’s all part of a multimillion dollar challenge. Can grants that average $1.6 million a year, for three years, vastly improve the education and outcomes at six struggling district schools?
The setup for the wager began in 2009, when the state announced a list of more than 100 low-performing schools and demanded change. The lure from the federal government was cash, but with a catch.
To get the Student Improvement Grant (SIG) money and survive as public schools, the districts had to agree to close schools, turn them into charter schools or opt for one of two options: a turnaround or transformation model.
A turnaround model meant replacing the principal, evaluating the staff and rehiring no more than half the teachers. With the transformation model, principals who had been in place for less than two years could remain.
In both situations, the plan was to improve the school through such strategies as comprehensive curriculum reform, professional development and extending learning time.
The demands were not always positive, said Guadalupe Guerrero, assistant superintendent for the school district’s Mission Zone. “It was certainly destructive in a lot of communities that were forced to make decisions about getting rid of teachers and, in some cases, principals.”
In the Mission, four schools underwent the transformation model, two the more drastic turnaround model.
The district made changes as well. San Francisco established one special superintendent zone to oversee the district’s 15 worst schools. (One of the schools, Willie L. Brown Jr. College Preparatory Academy in the Bayview, has since closed, bringing the number to 14.)
This zone was divided into two area teams: The Mission Zone, which operates out of Mission High School and is run by Guerrero, and the Bayview Zone, led by Assistant Superintendent Dr. Patricia Gray, which operates out of the Metropolitan Arts and Technology High School in the Bayview.
The Mission Zone includes six schools: Bryant Elementary, Cesar Chavez Elementary, Everett Middle School, Horace Mann (now Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8), John O’Connell High School of Technology and Mission High. Guerrero also supervises John Muir Elementary in the Western Addition and Leonard R. Flynn Elementary in Bernal Heights, because they too are classified as underperforming schools, even though Flynn receives no grant money.
The Bayview Zone includes five schools in that district: Bret Harte Elementary, Dr. Charles Drew Elementary, Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary, Malcolm X Elementary and Thurgood Marshall Academic High. Paul Revere College Preparatory School K-8, another under Gray’s supervision, is in Bernal Heights. Of these, only Dr. George Washington Carver and Paul Revere are receiving the grant.
The first distribution of the award money was midway through last school year and, if progress is made, two more waves of money will arrive over the next two years: the second this December and the third in December of 2012.
The framework for the Mission’s overhaul is based on a strategic plan of five factors, including improving family and community ties, professional capacity and instructional guidance and coherence.
“A few key elements needed to be focused on — for example, paying attention to leadership, how you create school communities where teacher leadership is supported and cultivated,” said Guerrero. “It’s no surprise that with failing schools, sometimes they don’t have a clear academic agenda.”
The solution here has been to integrate a common core curriculum, using national and state standards for what students should know and be able to do. This will provide a set of guidelines to teachers who lacked instructional direction.
The district’s application for the grant money promised “intensive coaching in data-driven instructional planning.”
As for family and community involvement, the district said that schools were committed, but lacked the resources to follow through.
Part of the solution was hiring community school coordinators for each school to act as liaisons between the community, including parents, and schools.
The position entails arranging partnerships with the city’s community-based organizations to provide services to students and their families, coordinating school “climate” surveys, and convening an advisory committee of partners and community members to provide input on school support services.
For Guerrero, these issues aren’t new. “Some of these schools have received quite a bit of money in the past that hasn’t been used effectively.”
So what will be different this time around?
An area team observing every investment made by the schools, said Guerrero. Principals who want to take the same approach in their leadership, such as hiring instructional coaches.
“When you move as a cohort in a tight, similar fashion, you can make your dollars go a lot farther, and that’s more impactful. We know we have to provide immediate relief right now, but it’s also about the long term.”
Part of that will come through reform plans across the seven schools, including federal monitoring visits, coming up with strategies to address truancy, providing mental health services for students and partnering with professional development services for teacher training in literacy, math and dual immersion.
“I think this year is going to be our year when we see the biggest dent in those achievement gaps,” said Guerrero.
In the following months, Mission Loc@l will be following the schools’ progress — including tracking where grant money is going.
So they fire at least half the teachers and bring in “coaches”? Or are the teachers replaced by Teach for America people for half the cost? Or does the money pay for the people who are going to monitor and audit where the money is spent? Mental health providers? I think we’re all likely to be needing more of the latter.