Trustees are closely monitoring two struggling middle schools in
an effort to improve academic performance without resorting to
drastic options, such as replacing the schools’ staffs or
converting the schools to charter schools.
Trustees are closely monitoring two struggling middle schools in an effort to improve academic performance without resorting to drastic options, such as replacing the schools’ staffs or converting the schools to charter schools.
Instead, the school board asked for regular progress reports from principals and detailed plans for how South Valley and Brownell middle school administrators will turn their schools around. In the meantime, district staff will research the pros and cons of charter schools and look into the legal ramifications of halting student transfers to the district’s third middle school, Ascencion Solorsano Middle School.
In support of their chosen course, trustees emphasized the need for stability at South Valley and Brownell and voiced their support for the current administrations.
“You couldn’t get two more dedicated principals and vice principals,” trustee Denise Apuzzo said, gesturing to South Valley Principal Greg Kapaku and Brownell Principal Greg Camacho-Light, who were seated in the audience at a board meeting Thursday. “They put their heart and soul into their schools. Changing staff around is not going to do good. I think the answer is to shore people up. Throw out the stuff that’s not working. Go forward with people that are absolutely committed to making change at the school.”
While South Valley and Brownell are both in their fifth year of Program Improvement – a designation given to schools that fail to make federal achievement goals – Solorsano is not a PI school and has steadily grown thanks to transfers from the other two schools. By law, districts must accommodate students who wish to leave a PI school for a school that does meet federal requirements. Solorsano, a school built for about 750 children, now holds more than 1,100.
Schools in their fifth year of PI face stiff sanctions, such as having to convert to a charter school, replace the entire staff or contract with an outside agency to run the school.
“Every single one of those options takes you back to zero,” Camacho-Light said.
Only the option that trustees leaned toward – to implement major reforms in the school’s operations – allows the schools to maintain autonomy and stability, he said.
“Last year’s eighth graders went through three different administrations, three different ways of doing things” he said. “That’s confusing. Consistency is so important.”
During his first year at Brownell, Camacho-Light set a new direction for the school. An open-door policy combined with clear expectations and a safe learning environment created a new culture, he said.
Although Brownell did not meet federal growth targets last year, it scored 12 points higher on state standardized tests, exceeding its goal of a five-point increase.
As students migrated to Solorsano, Tomasello added 10 portables to the campus, a second assistant principal and a second lunch period. Just this year, Tomasello hired 10 new teachers. Trustees recently voted to build $500,000 worth of additional restrooms at the school to accommodate the huge student population. This additional – and expensive – support from the district helps keep what could become an unwieldy situation under control, Tomasello said. Thankfully, the larger population has not led to increased discipline problems, he said.
Still, “with all respect to Solorsano, if I was a parent, I would much rather have my child in a school of 700 than 1,200,” Kapaku said. “That’s just a lot of kids.”
Solorsano has received PI students from its fellow middle schools for five years. In the first three years, about 130 student transferred to Solorsano. During that time, the district was only allowing the lowest achieving students to make the move, Tomasello said. When Superintendent Deborah Flores took over, the district began “interpreting” federal law differently, allowing any student who requested a transfer to do so. The last two years saw about 125 students at all academic levels moving to Solorsano each year, Tomasello said.
Despite its changing population, Solorsano met federal growth targets – which increase annually – every year except for last. This attests to the success of particular programs, not the proficiency of the children transferring over, Tomasello said. Solorsano’s Hispanic students did not make math targets last year. Schools must miss its progress targets two years in a row to be labeled PI.
In the last two years, the majority of students transferring from Brownell have been at grade level or above, Camacho-Light said, which negatively affects Brownell – a school of about 640 – more than it positively affects Solorsano.
“But that doesn’t excuse us from meeting the needs of students who aren’t excelling,” Camacho-Light said. “If there’s a blame, it’s on the institution.”
Tomasello attributed his school’s success to a number of components.
When the school opened several years ago, it started with only one grade of about 220 students, he said.
“We were able to establish an academic culture of very high expectations and collaboration among teachers,” he said. “If I had to pick out one reason why our school is successful, it’s our strong teacher leadership. The classroom teacher is key to everything.”
The school’s opening also attracted experienced teachers from the other middle schools. By contrast, five of Brownell’s seven math teachers have been at Brownell for two years or less, Camacho-Light said.
Losing teachers to Solorsano “was a blow to Brownell,” he said. “We have plenty of good teachers still here, but when you take some of those more experienced teachers out of a school, it does a lot of damage.”
Solorsano’s implementation of Accelerated Reader, a language arts program that requires students to read and be tested for comprehension on books at their reading level, is another key to success, Tomasello said. Brownell does not have this program.
The exodus of students from Brownell and South Valley before they’ve even given the schools a shot is “not good for those two schools, not good for the community,” Tomasello said.
When parents do make the effort to explore what South Valley has to offer – such as a the Dual Immersion language program, which is not offered at Solorsano – they find that “they love it here,” Kapaku said.
With a stronger emphasis on targeting its failing subgroups – poor children, English language learners and Hispanic students – both Brownell and South Valley expect to see growth this year.
However, “to reach (federal targets) in every area would be a miracle because the bar just keeps going up,” Camacho-Light said.
Though some trustees expressed interest in the chartering option, most opposed replacing the schools’ staffs.
Trustee Tom Bundros agreed that “it makes no sense to me to demolish what’s there.” Still, something’s not working, he said.
“We’re not talking about learning six languages, folks,” Bundros said. “We’re talking about being 50 percent proficient in math and English.”
Some charter schools have found the formula for doing that, he said.
Trustee Javier Aguirre also suggested halting the flow of students from the two lagging middle schools to Solorsano. Although trustee Mark Good supported Aguirre’s suggestion, he reminded board members that could be illegal.
Trustees concluded by asking school staff at the district’s six PI schools – three elementary schools and the continuation high school have also fallen short of federal growth targets – to answer specific questions about alternative governance at their schools. Trustees asked school staff to research the pros and cons of implementing charter schools and to provide monthly updates on academic progress.
District staff will also identify the resources needed to introduce a program called Successmaker – which helped Eliot Elementary School shed its PI status – at all PI schools and look at the legal ramifications of halting transfers to Solorsano.
