At our Convocation I shared some of the thoughts that I am going to reiterate in this Blog. I think it essential for the School District of Beloit and its staff to make a long term commitment, of at least 10 years, toward attaining the goal of becoming a model school district. First of all let me state that this district is an improving school district. The results of state tests indicate that we are improving, in some areas quite rapidly. Our parent survey indicates a high degree of satisfaction with the education that their children are receiving. Our graduation rate is almost 90%. We have the highest graduation rate of African-American and Hispanic-Students of districts with similar demographic compostition. We have graduates that attend prestigious universities such as Notre Dame and UW-Madison, just to name a few.
Along with all of this I believe that we have in place an excellent administrative team at the building level and district level. Dring the Summer all Administrators read the books
Tipping Point and
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. In the summer training of administrators the focus was creativity and finding those strategies within their building that would create a "tipping point" for student achievement. Quite a few administrators and lead teachers attended the national Professional Learning Communities Conference at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinoes. In all of this there was an emphasis on leadership and growing in leadership capacity. Finally, the job of every administrator is in process of being tied to the Strategic Plan. This will assure alignment of every leader with the goals and objectives that drive the district toward excellence. We have challenges as well. At convocation I mentioned two of them. The first was the declining ACT scores of the last five years. The second the overwhelming disproportionality of the expulsion of African-American males. We are a district of problem solvers and we will solve these issues. The positive changes that we are making are just the first steps toward developing leaders who can lead us to becoming a model district. This leads me to what I believe are the characteristics of a model district.
A Model District:
- Has a goal of MYP (Maximum Yearly Progress) because Adequate Yearly Progress is not good enough!
- Uses the state average on the ACT as the floor and not the ceiling for measuring the excellence at its high school.
- Has administrators, teachers and support staff who work as hard for the success of the children in the classrooms as they do for the success of the children in their own homes.
- Graduates students who have at least a C average (2.0 GPA)!
- Is a place where the color of a student's skin, the income of their families and the language spoken in their homes is not a determiner of school or future success. All Students Succeed!
This is my vision for the School District of Beloit. To do this we must change. We must restructure our school day so that those students who require more academic support can receive it immediately. We must examine our instruction, assessment and grading practices. We must eliminate the sorting and separating practices of the past. Some of those past practices were created for the purpose of insuring that there were winners and losers, the haves and the have nots. We must do this while not lowering any of our standards. In fact we must raise our standards to insure that our students can compete, contribute and thrive in a rapidly changing world. We must teach our students how to give more effort than they are accustomed to giving. Striving toward success needs to be a lifelong skill learned in school. As Superintendent I commit myself to this endeavor. Our leaders will model a leadership that leads with passion, vision and a growing expertise. Our teachers will be experts in effective instruction and assessments that inspire a hunger for learning, even in the most reticent student. Our support staff will provide the expertise in helping to oversee the infrastructure that supports the learning environments so that achievement occurs on a daily basis. If we all work together, committed to this end, we will not fall short.
