VIDEO: Racine Unified Administrators Unveil District Improvement Plan

Racine Unified School District administrators laid out a plan to improve the school district in a Board of Education work session held Tuesday.

The plan, which is really the district’s North Star Vision, will be sent to state officials Friday because the district did not meet federal “adequate yearly progress” objectives for the second consecutive year for standardized math tests.

RUSD was required to have at least 68.5 percent of its students scoring at a proficient or advanced level on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts (WKCE) math exam – up from 58 percent in 2009-10.

In June, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday reported that 18 of 33 Racine Unified schools made AYP as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Law.

The plan had been in the works for a year, said James Shaw, the outgoing superintendent. While the plan isn’t perfect, Shaw said it does bring in “a shared sense of accountability” to central office.

“It really was difficult to have a shared sense of accountability in central office when schools failed,” Shaw said. “When schools failed, I think we thought our job at central office was just to scold them for not doing better.

“But with this school improvement plan we’re taking a step away from scolding and we are focused on planning strategies that help the schools, and hold central office staff accountable for achievement.”

The plan specifically addressed an overarching problem: a disconnection between staff at the schools and administrators in the central office. This plan creates goals for achievement in the classroom, but also puts student data into the hands of school principals, and administrators, Shaw said.

Steve Miller, director of Standards, Assessment, and Accountability explained how the district goals would be aligned with what is happening in the classroom. Key initiatives include: a coherent governance, the North Start Vision, the North Star Scorecard, a guiding coalition of achievable results, a data retreat process where data are measured against those goals, and a district and school improvement plan.

“We understand that the overarching policy for the district is coherent governance and you as a board have embraced a mega result to educate all students to success and specifically the North Star vision is to graduate career and/or college ready students,” Miller said. “

The plan emphasized that:

All Schools will achieve at least a 3 percent gain for all students and at least a 6 percent gain for minority, low socio-economic students, students with disabilities at all school levels.

Increase ACT test scores by at least .2 of a point for all students and .4 of a point for minority students.

Increase the percentage of students overall taking the ACT test by 2 percent and 4 percent for minority students.

To accomplish the goals, the district emphasizes the use of test data. By using data collected from the Measures of Academic Progress (MAPs) tests students take at the beginning and at the end of the school year, teachers are better equipped to understand what instructional level students are operating at and teachers can then adapt their instructional plans to meet the students’ needs, Miller said.

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Board members praised the plan saying that the specific and quantifiable goals would help focus the district on achieving federal standards.

Dennis Wiser, a school board member, said he liked the “real world activities” in the plan, but he criticized the plan for not having enough numerical quantifications.

“The ones that say, we will support, we will expand, we will grow… these are nice notions, but I don’t know what to watch for over the next year to see if it’s actually taking place,” Wiser said. “…If you give people a target, you’ll be able to tell people what is going to be different in their life.”

Wiser also encouraged administrators to work on training staff on the expectations.

“Dwight Eisenhower on D-Day didn’t say call me if you have problems. He trained people ahead of time for months and months about what he was going to be getting into,” Wiser said.