Fifth South Carolina school signs on for comprehensive redesign project

BEAUFORT COUNTY – July 21, 2010 – A fifth high-poverty South Carolina school that has struggled to improve student achievement has volunteered for a comprehensive makeover that will begin this year.
 
State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and Beaufort County Superintendent Valerie Truesdale announced Tuesday that Whale Branch Elementary would become part of a “Turnaround Schools” initiative that includes performance pay for teachers, data-driven decisions on instruction and more robust community and business partnerships. 

Whale Branch joins four other schools already in the initiative: Cleveland Elementary School in Spartanburg District 7, Gibbes Middle School in Richland District 1, Scott’s Branch Middle School in Clarendon District 1 and North Charleston High School in Charleston County.

Rex described the Turnaround Schools intervention project as a focused extension of the Palmetto Priority Schools Initiative, which comprises 39 schools that have not met student learning goals mandated in the South Carolina Education Accountability Act and the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

“The Palmetto Priority Schools project directs additional help to high-poverty schools,” Rex said, noting that half of the first 16 Palmetto Priority Schools improved their absolute ratings on annual report cards.  “With this designation as a Turnaround School, Whale Branch and its staff will get even more help so they can keep moving in the right direction.”

Whale Branch, Cleveland and Gibbes will work closely with teams from the South Carolina Department of Education, while Scott’s Branch Middle is working with a private-sector company that specializes in turnaround school projects.  North Charleston High’s reform efforts are being led by a team from the local school district.

“There are three different approaches here, with three types of teams sharing ideas and comparing results,” Rex said.  “But the there’s just one overall goal – developing strategies to help these five schools as well as others with extremely high poverty rates and low student achievement.”

All five pilot schools have poverty index ratings higher than 94 percent.

“The leadership in Beaufort County understands that the status quo isn’t acceptable – that a major transformation is required,” Rex said.  “Parents can expect to see a fundamentally different school when Whale Branch opens for the 2011-12 school year.”

This fall will begin a ‘redesign year’ at Whale Branch, with the school getting the services of a four-person Education Department team providing support with curriculum, data analysis and key subjects like math, reading, science and social studies.  A key goal, Rex said, will be to use up-to-the-minute data to intervene effectively – and quickly – with individual students.

“Teachers are critical to this process, and they will have unprecedented input,” Rex said.  “Their performance will be closely evaluated each year.  Teachers who perform well, whose students improve academically, will be invited to stay.  Teachers who don’t perform well, whose students don’t improve, won’t be asked to return.”

All five schools also have flexibility in meeting state regulations and policies that deal with hiring, budget, curriculum and teaching. 

Rex invited Whale Branch parents and community members to share their suggestions on how the school can be more effective in meeting the needs of students.

The Turnaround Schools Project is based upon the work of Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, an independent non-profit group funded primarily by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and devoted to student achievement.

“The challenge of developing successful schools in high-poverty neighborhoods is a national issue, not just a South Carolina issue,” Rex said.  “We can’t tolerate failure in any community, and we’re learning more every day about how we can achieve success.”

Background

    Under NCLB, schools that do not meet annual achievement goals (“Adequate Yearly Progress” or AYP) enter into a series of categories that trigger increasingly intensive forms of intervention, hence, school turnaround.  Included in the South Carolina’s initiative is a state-funded model, a district-funded model, and a private partnership model.  Each turnaround site will participate in collaboration meetings to share success strategies.

• State-funded pilot – A Turnaround Team consisting of a curriculum specialist/team leader, a data specialist, a math/science specialist, and an English language arts/social studies specialist, have been hired to work with the faculty and staff of selected schools.  This team of experts will focus on analysis of school and student data, coaching and lesson planning with teachers, mentoring the building leadership, modeling effective lessons, providing instructional guidance to the school leadership team, observing classrooms, conducting intensive staff development on best instructional practices, troubleshooting schoolwide target areas of concern (absenteeism, student behavior, etc.) as well as assisting with the drafting and implementation of an action plan. The school receives additional technical assistance funding to implement creative and innovative research-based strategies for school improvement to include a total redesign of the school at the opening of academic year 2 in the turnaround process.  At this time, decisions will be made concerning reconstitution of the school faculty and staff.  These state-led turnaround schools may choose to use technical assistance funding to provide performance-based incentives for recruiting and retaining teachers. Monthly learning community collaboration meetings will be held for district and school administrative staff. Assistance will be given from the SCDE in recruitment and retention of teachers and development of university and corporate partnerships for the school. 
• District-funded pilot – Consists of the identified school submitting a school turnaround plan of action to the SCDE that is supported and monitored by the local district. The school and district work together to develop a plan that includes a summary of how technical assistance is spent to enhance the total school program. Periodic learning community collaboration meetings will be held for district and school administrative staff as well as members of the school board.
• Private partnership model – The school district, with support and funding from the SCDE, enters into a private partnership to address the school’s needs.  The private partner provides a comprehensive program for school turnaround that includes a diagnostic assessment for the school, an expert who will work in a full-time capacity with the school to implement needed changes, and intensive work with teachers and the administrative staff to improve teaching and learning.  In addition, supplementary materials are provided to teachers for added assistance in teaching the South Carolina curriculum standards. Monthly learning community collaboration meetings will be held with the Turnaround Team, district and school administrative staff.