GCS Special Friday Notes from the Superintendent

February 6, 2007

GCS Intervention Teams

This is to advise you of the formation of Guilford County Schools’ Intervention Teams that will provide additional support to schools not meeting academic standards, several not making Adequate Yearly Progress for four years in a row.  To staff these teams, we are strategically redeploying 84 Central Office staff members and 20 school Curriculum Facilitators.  They will work in 18 schools two to three days per week until the administration of the state End-of-Course and End-of-Grade exams.  The balance of their time will be spent back in their departments or home schools.  They will begin their work this week.  We will also offer “targeted” resources to eight other schools.

This short-term strategy does not come without a price.  First, while some will embrace the move of central office staff to the schools for support, others will charge that if we can place that number of central office staff in the schools, then we didn’t need them in the first place.  Nothing could be further from the truth and we should not lose sight of their importance to our long-term goal of academic excellence.  For example, there is no question that we need our curriculum department to further develop the district’s math and reading curriculum and the formative assessment division is critical to helping teachers identify which objectives have been mastered by their students. 

Over the years, GCS has had one of the lowest student-to-central office staff ratios among the large school districts in the state.  According to an audit called for by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners several years ago, GCS could double its central office student to staff ratio and still be below the state average.  Still, critics claim we are “top heavy” with central office administrators and that we spend too much money on staff development, trainers, etc. 

Simply stated, we do not have adequate central office staff to provide the support needed by our new teachers and principals.  Yet, if our students are going to make the academic gains called for in state and national accountability models, we must find ways to maximize the resources we have. 

Second, every school in the district benefits from the services of Curriculum Facilitators.  However, the need varies greatly from school-to-school.  One of our impacted middle schools has 29 teachers new to their building (18 new to the profession) out of a faculty of 50 this year.  Many are lateral entry teachers that come from the business world and have no previous teaching experience.  Like many district’s, our ‘Baby Boomer” teachers and administrators are retiring in large numbers.  That trend will continue.  We have employed over 500 new teachers per year during the past four years.  While most have tremendous talent, like new employees in any profession, they need support and time to reach their potential.   However, we must be cautious that our attempts to provide much needed assistance for impacted schools do not negatively affect others.

Please know that the district did not make the decision to re-deploy these positions without a great deal of thought.  During the past several years, we have implemented strategies such as one teacher to 15 student class size, allocating funds to schools using a “weighted student formula,” implementing a program—Mission Possible—to pay teachers more who teach in our most impacted schools and implementing—Home Field Advantage—a program to reduce student mobility in 10 of our elementary schools with the highest student mobility rates to help address low student performance in these schools; however, they are not producing enough results fast enough.   

We recognize that implementing Intervention Teams will reduce the access to full-time Curriculum Facilitators to some schools and will further stretch an already lean central office staff.  Frankly, I’m worried that many of these dedicated educators will work evenings and weekends to maintain their normal work loads.  I would also like to be clear that we recognize that this is not a long-term solution to low performing schools and that not everyone will be pleased with this decision, as change is discomforting for many. 

As we focus on improving the working conditions in our schools, we must not forget the learning conditions of our students.  It’s a very difficult balance.  We are a school system, not a system of schools and therefore we must allocate our resources where they are needed the most.

Click here to view a list of schools receiving Local Assistance Teams and the names of the team members.  We deeply appreciate everyone’s willingness to work together to serve all of our children.  Please call me at 370-8992, should you have questions.