SMS teachers will not be fired

USD 480 Board chooses plan to restructure South Middle School

Teachers at South Middle School and Liberal High School can breathe a bit easier. No one will be replaced, at least not yet, as a result of the USD 480 administration and board's plan to restructure both schools.

Both schools were recently identified as among the lowest performing schools in the state and offered millions of dollars in assistance from the Kansas State Department of Education in exchange for restructuring. Deputy Superintendent Lance Stout told the Board of Education the district had the capacity to only handle one school at a time.

"The challenge of implementing two intervention models into a school district at the same time is nearly impossible," Stout said. "It has taken a good deal of many people's time this year to focus on South Middle School. Now to add that in Liberal High School in addition to (SMS), that's an extreme challenge. That's a capacity question mark."

Julie Ford, Kansas State Department of Education director of title programs and services, and Lance Stout, USD 480 deputy superintendent, gave the Board of Education their recomendations about South Middle School and Liberal High School’s need for improvement and restructure. The board chose Monday to move forward with SMS’s restructuring and delay LHS’ by one school year. Photo by Tony Hernandez

The Board of Education chose Monday afternoon a restructuring model for SMS that will give the district time to evaluate each teacher's performance. The board also chose to delay restructuring LHS, for one school year, to allow for enough time to develop an improvement plan.

With those two decisions, the district will receive anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million to support SMS student testing improvement, but it will miss out on the potential same amount of funds for LHS.

"We would be making a plan (for LHS) without doing a lot of research behind it to find out exactly where we want to go," Lana Evan, director of curriculum and staff development, said Tuesday morning as the administration's reason to delay restructuring LHS.

Because SMS had not met student testing goals in the four years prior to beginning 2009-10 school year, the district had already been working on a restructuring model. New federal guidelines regarding financial assistance to schools have caused both the state and the district to adjust the restructuring of SMS.

In order to receive the funds for SMS, the district had to choose one-of-four improvement models that included closing the school down, converting it into a charter school, replacing at least 50 percent of the teachers and principal, or the "transformation" model.

In choosing the "transformation" model, the district commits itself to developing a teacher-evaluation tool that ties in with student testing performance. The district will have the choice to implement financial incentives and increase opportunities for promotion and career growth. The evaluations will give underperforming teachers time to improve and resources from the district to help teachers improve instructional strategies.

"A lot of that will depend on what type of evaluations we'll use," Evans said. "Almost all evaluation systems have some type of plan of assistance. There are some timelines a teacher would follow."

The exact details how teachers will be evaluated in compliance with the "transformational" model have not been created. Teacher evaluations are currently done according to their tenure with the school district, Evans said. The longer the tenure, the less evaluations. New teachers get evaluated more, Evans said, and principals have the authority to evaluate any teacher as often as he/she would like.

"We do have an (evaluation) cycle just to ensure that they do receive certain evaluations in a timely process so that you don't leave a teacher out," said Evans.

Julie Ford, KSDE's director of title programs and services, told the board the state will soon develop an evaluation template for districts to choose, though each district has the freedom to chose its own evaluation tool. The district will not have to replace first-year SMS principal Gilberto Rito.

"Mr. Rito is in his first year at South Middle School," Stout said. "He has not had any impact whatsoever with their performance in the previous four years. By adopting the tranformational model, it allows the school district to retain him at his current position."

Since the school has been working all year with SMS's restructuring plan, the district is ahead of the game compared to other districts, Ford said. Since the district is almost done with its restructuring plans, USD 480 could see the SMS's improvement funds as early as May. Board member Reid Petty asked Ford if she agreed with the district's recommendation to pursue the "transformation" model.

For full story please see Wednesday's Times

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