Back in February, TUSD convened its first district-wide Strategic Planning meeting, to begin the process of creating a 5 year plan. I was invited to participate in the all-day meeting as a member of the community, not as a blogger, and I wrote about my experiences that day from the point of view of a participant. I gave the meeting reasonably high marks, and that from someone who generally hates meetings of this kind.
At the end of that first day, people were asked if they wanted to continue the process. Those of us who expressed interest gathered the last two Saturday mornings. I was among them.
My impression so far is, the process continues to be worthwhile, both for the participants and the district. But it’s only a process. What really matters is the quality of the product and how well it’s implemented.
The people who are participating include community members like myself, parents and staff (mainly administrative staff). Too often in meetings like this, the leaders, meaning the administrators, take a dominant role and guide the other participants toward foregone conclusions. Here, the “leaders” worked hard to assume the role of moderators, making sure the group stayed on task and that its ideas made it onto paper, but not directing the rest of us toward a pre-determined goal.
Each of us chose one of five subcommittees. I chose the Diversity committee. It’s genuinely diverse, which is encouraging. Parents and community members made up a large part of the group, including key members of community groups which advocate for minority rights. It’s ethnically diverse as well. The mix helps to provide internal checks and balances. Parents made sure the role of parents was kept front and center. People who are long-time advocates for certain groups made sure their concerns were heard. A number of the administrators in the Diversity subcommittee have jobs which focus on diversity, and they added their expertise to the mix without being overbearing.
Superintendent H.T. Sanchez says he’s determined the 5 year plan will be a concrete set of objectives — “Here’s what we need to do, and here’s when we want it done by” — rather than a feel-good, aspirational document — “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if . . .” Our task this past Saturday was to create concrete goals. I was in a small group that looked at ways to increase equity in student access to accelerated programs. We knew some schools are missing accelerated programs — for instance, some high schools don’t have the full complement of AP programs, which robs some students of an opportunity to participate. One of our goals was to have all those gaps filled by the end of the five year period, with established markers each year. We also knew some ethnic and economic groups are underrepresented in the accelerated program, so another goal was to increase participation in a measurable way — have more members of the underrepresented groups in accelerated programs each year.
We had a lot of discussion on various ways to make the goals happen, but our primary task was to describe the change we want to see and establish clear ways to measure progress.
OK. So far, so good. But the question is, after we finish all this, will it be just another set of folders filed away in some obscure niche of the Admin Building? Could be, I don’t know. I hope not. Will Sanchez bail on us before the 5 year process is finished, and we get yet another superintendent with a whole new agenda? Could be, I don’t know. I hope not.
I’m cautiously optimistic. The process is good, and the commitment I sense from Sanchez and other administrators feels genuine. Anyone who expects miracles, in the short or the long term, is sure to be disappointed. But I’m hoping that year by year, the ocean liner which is TUSD can be steered in an increasingly more positive and productive direction. Maybe “flotilla” is a better metaphor for the district than “ocean liner.” A district is more like a fleet of ships moving more-or-less in the same direction than a single vessel. Each ship has its specific missions and is led by a different captain, and each needs to improve in its own way. One person oversees the overall speed and direction of the group, but each part of the fleet needs to be responsible for its own success. If the process works, each ship will be swifter and more seaworthy, and the entire flotilla and all those aboard will benefit.
This article appears in May 8-14, 2014.
Your comments echo the sentiments of many educators who sacrifice valuable time in “strategic planning” meetings which are exercises in wheel-spinning, oftentimes because they are planned and conducted by highly-paid administrators who love nothing more than the sound of their own voices. I noticed that perhaps the most important component in the formula for student success – teachers – was missing in your blog. We are so overworked, scrambling to make do without the most basic resources, time-strangled with grading and planning for 150+ student loads, that our voices from the front lines are rarely heard. Thus, the vicious cycle of administrative bloat and bluster becomes just another misallocation of funds.
Hope can be a fleeting Chimera – but TUSD certainly needs a big share of it. Good to hear there are people trying to better this sometimes sinking ship. 2 of my daughters (now in their 40’s ) went through the TUSD system. They learned much in the sphere of “Life Lessons” but little in the educational sphere. One persevered and got her bachelor’s degree. The other went on to excel in her chosen field of HR and is the high earning breadwinner of her family. My third daughter, now in her late 30’s, went to the Amphi System – she excelled in all areas and went directly to the U of A earning a dual degree from the U and Eler School of Business and continued to excel by completing her MBA. The 2 systems directed my daughters in 2 different ways. The first two had to struggle to excel; the third excelled in a natural progression of encouragement from the school system. All three had the same encouragement from family the only difference was the school system they were in. Kudos to Amphi. Not so much to TUSD. MAKE IT BETTER – FOR THE SAKE OF OUR FUTURE!
I think that you are somewhat naïve and a little star-struck by the TUSD big wigs. Top level administration is handing us their work at the beginning of each strategic session. We are to work off of the work we are handed, which does not inspire high level cognitive processing and creativity. A TUSD person records the “in-put” but actually only writes down comments with which they agree. Several of us who serve on the Strategic Planning committee and work for TUSD compare notes after the meetings and the same thing is happening in all groups. What you have to realize is that the best strategy being used is in how to process us- like sheep- so that Sanchez can say he involved the community. What he has done is “played” TUSD employees and community members.
H.T. Sanchez has gotten the nick-name Hot to Talk (HTT) in our teacher group because more than anything he likes to listen to himself and be listened to by his adoring TUSD groupies. However, most of us in TUSD are not impressed.
I think that nationwide, it is about 61.4% of each education dollar is spent in the classroom, in Arizona it is below this at 54%, BUT TUSD is even worse, at 49.2% of the education dollar goes to the classroom. This is a big deal as this drop means TUSD often can’t buy books for the students, happened when I was in TUSD, the teachers told students to go home and ask their parents to get the schools more money.
Even back then, TUSD students were being used as bargaining chips.
The situation isn’t that bad today as kids can (thank goodness!) go to other school districts, we’ll probably pull out our kid out of TUSD when he gets to middle school age. Yeah, TUSD is awful at the middle school level. In the next five years, it doesn’t matter what TUSD does as the school district has for decades nurtured a disregard for students, and I agree that the emphasis is not on learning “concepts”, but just on kinda understanding what you have read.
Reasons for leaving TUSD:
1. TUSD is top-heavy with overpaid administrators and it will take a very long time to fix this problem, seems H.T. might be the guy to do some cutting, but I wouldn’t count on this problem getting fixed anytime soon.
2. TUSD will have to close more schools. TUSD loses something like 1,800 students per school year for the past couple years, probably will get worse with the closings, so TUSD will probably see thousands more students go.
3. TUSD students are pawns. Same thing when I went to TUSD, MAS certainly seems to promote resentment and discord among students of different races, if your child is not Latino, then it makes very little sense to keep them in TUSD. If you child is Latino, but has aspirations for college and a better job, why allow Latino teachers to push on him/her a distorted version of the world where racism explains everything, why not tell them that hard work and perseverance are really key?
4. TUSD has a tainted reputation for being this corrupt school district that pays administrators way too much, short changes the classroom, and is now engaged in these bizarre fights over MAS. Students come behind overpaid administrators, and board members with political agendas.
How was it that David Safier was invited to join these meetings, as he said, “as a member of the community, not as a blogger.”
So, it was not Safier’s well known position as a writer for the Tucson Weekly that garnered him an invitation? Just saying that Safier is probably best known at 1010 (TUSD headquarters), first and foremost as a Tucson Weekly writer. Does Safier do something else in the community, such as volunteering with TUSD, that somehow got the attention of the event organizers?
For all appearances, seems like Safier was invited in order to get the local media on H.T.’s side.
Safier wrote,
“We had a lot of discussion on various ways to make the goals happen, but our primary task was to describe the change we want to see and establish clear ways to measure progress.”
Well, the voters and parents of children in TUSD have, and are, taking the decision process out of TUSD’s hands. H.T. can have all the of the pr/brainstorming events he wants, pay all the outside consults he wants, but TUSD has kinda forfeited the right to make major decisions as students have left, and are leaving.
The school closures were painful, but there are D rated elementary schools that are half-full, and were kept open as favors to political big whigs, such as Danny Eckstrom.
TUSD students were used as a political puppet by MAS supporters, even gaining a brief amount of national attention, perhaps until media folks back east realized that, ‘oh’, the MAS courses really do encourage mistrust among different races of students. TUSD has used it’s students as pawns for a while, in one way or another, and the word is out that TUSD just plain doesn’t care about the students.
Decades of indifference to students, decades of a bloated bureaucracy and incompetence in managing fiscal matters, and, yes, for TUSD it is time to pay the piper.