Flash back in time with me to 2003 at the Issaquah (WA) Public Schools. At that moment in time, this typically high performing school district wasn’t so full of wonderful things for students. Trust among teachers, administrators, parents and the community was very low after a labor union dispute resulted in a teacher’s strike that cancelled school for three weeks in the fall of 2002.
In early 2003, the district engaged PSG to do a “thorough, objective, and independent” analysis of the district’s resource management, and to prepare the School Board to make difficult budget decisions ahead. Since stakeholders from inside and outside of the District were claiming different sets of numbers as ‘truth, ’ the general citizenry didn’t know whom to believe. Fingers were pointing in every direction. The Board wanted a sound fiscal assessment. They hired us.
We did look at fiscal effectiveness. We particularly looked at central administrative system costs, benchmarked against all other Washington state districts with similar-sized student populations and similar levels of poverty. But, in consultation with the Board and Superintendent, we asked to also look at performance effectiveness – and how they were doing with their mission of All Students Learning.
We supplemented the hard fiscal analysis with input from more than 300 people via focus groups and interviews. The focus groups and interviews included, but went beyond the usual cast of characters: parents and staff. The focus groups included business leaders, taxpayers, and the two I’ll personally always remember – a focus group of elementary students and a focus group of high school students talking about what they would want to see from the school district. They were very clear!
Both analyses pointed out that budget management was not the issue. Rather, the district and its operations were struggling with the lack of alignment to their educational mission. We encouraged the District to take a new path – focused around shared purpose, results, and a District Improvement Agenda.
I participated on this PSG team, but the reason I am writing about it years later – is because it is now possible to see the long-term results of this work. I recently learned of an article written by School Board Member Connie Fletcher about our work together and its effects. Here an excerpt from her article:
RISING FROM THE ASHES A School District Recovers from a Strike By Connie Fletcher The unthinkable happened in our community of high performing students and higher priced housing: our teachers went on strike in the fall of 2002. As a school board and administration, we could see the strike coming months in advance, but, like a freight train heading straight for us, we could do nothing to stop it. Years of rapid growth, leadership changes and pressure filled mandates to meet new state and federal standards left our district vulnerable to legitimate complaints of lagging teacher salaries. While laudable in intent, a uniform state funding formula and salary schedule, which ensured that each child in the state would generate the same educational resources, ignored the challenges teachers faced when trying to find housing in high cost urban areas. To compound the problem, a long time statutorial disparity, grandfathering of higher local levy authority among our neighboring districts, left us a poor district in the midst of affluence. Neither our teachers nor our community grasped the impact of this financial disadvantage that placed us at the bottom of the pack in total revenue per pupil. While their community backers demanded, “Give the teachers what they want,” the Board and Superintendent agonized over how to avoid bankrupting the District. Situated in the middle of the state’s largest media market, our district became the poster child for what was wrong with the State educational finance system and a highly visible target for a labor action. The strike lasted three weeks and ended only when a court ordered injunction was granted. We were warned that the bitterness and acrimony generated by the strike would last for six years. After our own anger and hurt subsided a bit, the Board and Superintendent set about to do what we could to shorten the recovery period. The Management Review Where could we trim our operation to make more money available for teacher salaries? The Board and Superintendent agreed that if there were any ways to operate more efficiently or effectively, we needed to know about it. After looking to the business community for advice, the Board chose Peter Hutchinson, and the Public Strategies Group, to conduct a complete review of our management practices in the months following the strike. Hutchinson and PSG had just completed an innovative Priorities of Government study for the State of Washington and came with stellar credentials. The study, which examined data on District performance, as well as stakeholder perceptions of the job we were doing, included a random sample of citizen opinions, a rare gift to the Board accustomed to hearing only from the usual suspects. PSG found that the District, while very high performing and giving good value for its money, operated at a fiscal disadvantage, and was suffering from relentless growth, change, and pressure to perform. The Public Strategies Group challenged the Board and administration to adopt a District Improvement Agenda (DIA), an ambitious series of recommendations that focused on:
Improving student achievement for all children
Strengthening leadership and accountability, and
Increasing trust throughout the school community.
The Public Strategies Group advised the Board to:
- Decide what it is accountable for and what it expects from other leaders
- Negotiate a performance agreement that includes the results for which the superintendent will be accountable and specifying the methods used to assess progress at least twice throughout the year.
- Refocus the budget process on buying educational results, ranking every budget activity in terms of its contribution to student achievement, and using the budget to buy those activities that matter most, from the top of the list until the resources are expended.
This challenge made business as usual not an option for either the Board or Superintendent. The structure of the District’s operations would need to be focused around results, rather than around process and programs. What would be examples of the changes we have made?
- The board adopted The Carver Model of Policy Governance®, which made the recommended Board-level reforms possible:
- Re-connecting the board with the public, and establishing the educational outcomes that are most important to the community became a priority. Moving beyond the parents and staff whose opinions are more easily accessible to those in the community who have a stake in the schools, but have little contact with them, meant that new engagement strategies would have to be employed. Among the many strategies used are Study Circles, a means for engaging communities in in-depth conversations about what children must learn and be able to do, linkage meetings with the business community around what preparation students needed for success in a global economy, and an on-line survey that gave all residents the opportunity to share in the hard prioritization decisions for the coming budget.
- Expectations were set and accountability strengthened, both for student achievement and for District operations. These expectations serve as the Board’s up-front directions to the Superintendent regarding strategic planning, budget development and contract negotiation. They also serve as the foundation for on-going monitoring of the Superintendent’s performance.
-
Our District’s new focus on results for individual students has led to changes that have permeated the organization, from the Boardroom to the classroom.
- The Curriculum Department became the Department of Teaching and Learning, focusing services on clear, high priority needs of the classroom.
- The Continuous Improvement Plans of the individual school buildings were re-focused around improving individual student gains and tied to professional development plans.
-
The Human Resources department was restructured to increase emphasis on labor-management relations and fostering ongoing, collaborative problem solving.
-
A stakeholder group, called the District Advisory Team, was chartered to foster communications and confront issues that concerned the ability of the District to achieve its mission and implement the District Improvement Agenda. Participation in the development and implementation of a transparent budgeting process has been a primary focus.
-
A legislative advocacy team, made up of leadership from the School Board, PTA and Education Association works together year ‘round to increase resources for public education and address the unique financial disparities faced by the District.
The volume of work required to restructure both board and administrative operations seemed overwhelming, but now, nearly all of the work outlined in the DIA has been accomplished, a three year contract has been signed with the teachers and there are visible signs that the district has healed, well ahead of the six years projected as the strike recovery time frame. Rather than staring each other down from across the negotiating table, the leadership of our teacher’s association, the board and administration are on the same side of the table, working to improve student achievement and school funding. End of excerpt |
I really thank author Connie Fletcher for her permission to use this excerpt. I think it is very valuable to hear directly from those of our clients who have first-hand knowledge of what the hard work of change agendas mean. Connie is a twelve-year member of the Issaquah school board and past president of the Washington State School Directors Association. She also consults herself on the important issue of Board Governance.
Issaquah still uses and is proud of its District Improvement Agenda. If you would like to see the original, click here. Inside this agenda of improvement, Superintendent Janet Barry, Board member Connie Fletcher, and many others from both inside and outside of this District deserve the real praise for turning a volatile situation into one where student learning is once again the primary focus!
“Where will this madness end?
(I’m not sure, but I am sure my essay ends here.)”
Student “Quips and Quotes”
Issaquah Public Schools
5th and 8th grade writing assessment
|
