State board unveils plan for troubled districts

Education officials unveiled their plan for dealing with troubled districts and schools at a state school board meeting Tuesday. The plan would establish performance contracts between provisionally accredited districts and the state board with annual targets and specific interventions and consequences.

The board also moved to take control of the finances of the unaccredited Normandy school district, which has asked the Missouri Legislature for $5 million to help it get through the end of the school year.

"This plan reflects the best information we can put together at this time, the best recommendations we can make at this time," Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro told the board.

The plan would retain the current accreditation classifications, but overlay a five-tier system with a sliding scale of state intervention and mandated district accountability.

For accredited districts, if any individual school scored below 70 percent on annual assessments, the district had a significant achievement gap or was trending downward on districtwide assessments; the local board would be required to submit a comprehensive improvement plan to the state. The local board would still retain oversight of implementing the plan with optional assistance from the state.

"Early intervention is critical, and we need to pay attention early on," deputy commissioner Margie Vandeven said.

For provisionally accredited districts, a review team of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education staff would complete an audit of the district, analyzing the district's teacher and leader effectiveness, quality of instruction and governance and financial status. A regional improvement team of local stakeholders would be formed and would include the district superintendent, board members, teachers, parents and others.

The improvement team would provide the guidance to create the district's accountability plan, which would form the outline of a contract between the local school board and the state board. The contracts would include annual targets, showing the district was improving annual proficiency scores and could include a timeline for improvement or loss of accreditation.

"At tier three, you either win or go home, and by the time you get to tier four you are out of business ... so your last opportunity to be in control is right here," board vice president Mike Jones said of provisionally accredited districts in contract with the state board.

Jones added that districts would not "get a chance to stay here for 20 years ... Either the change works or we become the change - I want to be very clear about that."

When districts did become unaccredited, the department and state board would assume even greater control and could choose to retain the elected board or replace it with a special administrative board or a special administrator that reported directly to the commissioner. Students would be able to transfer to neighboring accredited districts. The department would also appoint a fiscal monitor who would "hold the checkbook" of the district and oversee its finances.

The department had yet to run a financial analysis of the potential costs of the plan, Nicastro said, and it would likely require more staff and funding for the department to carry out.

"In order to implement, it would likely require additional staff, additional resources, or new ways of allocating resources," Nicastro said.

Board president Peter Herschend said the plan was intended to help all districts across the state and further discussion about how to address the state's three unaccredited districts was still needed. The three unaccredited districts are Normandy and Riverview Gardens in St. Louis and Kansas City Public Schools. Eleven other districts across the state are provisionally accredited. The unaccredited and provisionally accredited districts account for about 62,000 students.

"We also need to separate in our mind the impact of transfer and the issue of how we deal with the education of kids in unaccredited schools - that is the 600-pound gorilla in the room," Herschend said.

The state board considered a variety of plans submitted from districts and education organizations at a work session last week, with consensus building around the negotiated contracts approach. During that work session, the board also dismissed the idea of a statewide achievement district or a governor-appointed board to oversee struggling schools, which has been a part of some bills introduced in the Legislature.

Meanwhile, the state Senate has made a transfers fix a top priority this legislative session. Last week, Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, asked the state board "to keep in mind the Legislature's prerogative to set public policy, as well as its own statutory limitations, before making a decision to change our accreditation system."

The Senate Education Committee has held public hearings on nine bills already this session, and chair David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, has said he hopes to move one or two bills to the Senate floor for debate before the legislative spring break beginning March 17.

After the Tuesday board meeting, Herschend said it would be at least 60 days for comments and public hearings and additional work from department staff before the board would vote on a finalized version of the plan. He also said he did not want the board to get out ahead of the Legislature as it worked through possible statutory changes.

"It's very important the Legislature has their vote," he said. "We should not get in front of the Legislature - it's not our job."

Herschend said he hopes the Legislature would be comforted by the department taking control of Normandy's finances and feel more confident about appropriating the requested funds.

The board's next meeting is scheduled for March 21.