Board Watch 9.12.22 (Pt 1)

Boardwatch
Written By KidsFirst RPS

Happy Tuesday, Board Watchers!

Confession: I only watched last night’s board meeting until 11:15PM, and only witnessed a single agenda item discussion in all that time. Still, 5 hours produced more than enough content to merit it’s own “Part 1” recap. Then I’ll have a nap, watch the rest of the meeting on double speed, and follow up later this week with “Part 2.” 

As expected, the curriculum dominated the evening’s conversation. 

  • It captured all media attention leading up to the evening.

  • It made up over 2 hours of public comment.

  • It made up 108 pages worth of presentation materials, assembled and presented by the district’s academic department. 

  • 4 hours and 10 minutes into the evening, at roughly 10:10PM, we saw the revival of last meeting’s failed motion to scrap the current curriculum in favor of one the district produces itself.

  • And after another hour of discussion, the motion failed a second time. The whole process led the Chairwoman to declare that she has no trust left in the superintendent.

So let’s break those down, starting with…

The Context

The context for “Curriculum: The Sequel” is of course the first iteration of this conversation at the August 23rd meeting. The Vice Chair’s motion came up out of the blue, and even though it failed, it raised a lot of questions. 

  • Parents asked “What were they thinking?” and “Does this even follow board policy?”

  • Teachers ask “How can we get leadership to guarantee teacher flexibility?” and  “If we didn’t consult on this motion, who did?”

  • And advocates from both groups asked “How do we know what curriculum is working? How can we build broader support to reform any parts that are not? ”

These discussions produced several requests of the administration, the Board, and the teacher’s union. 

  1. Separate the motion into parts. 

    1. Pass what has majority consensus now: like, a guarantee for teacher flexibility; then 

    2. Negotiate the remaining part(s): like, what curriculum reform ought to look like. 

  2. Collect data with a thorough curriculum survey. In her 8/23 public comment, president of Richmond Education Association (REA), Katina Harris, proposed a teacher survey to assess the curriculum. The teacher’s union has the respect of the Board, the administration, and the teachers - and advocates suggested the results of any curriculum survey would be most accepted if the union played a leading role in both crafting and disseminating the survey. We received confirmation in last night’s discussion that this admin+REA collaboration has taken place, and a survey is now active and has been broadly shared across the district.

  3. Realign the Vice Chair’s recommended curriculum development process with the district’s state-mandated curriculum adoption process (POLICY 5-2.2: New Course Proposals).

All across RPS, various parties mobilized to make sure that whatever the Board decides to do next re: curriculum, they have heard from the community their ambush proposal tried to silence just weeks earlier. The various pleas were most visible in last night’s….

Public Comment

  • 20+ teachers showed up to share their thoughts on the curriculum. 14 support the current curriculum; 6 did not.

  • The teacher’s union, REA, supports autonomy in implementing the curriculum. 3 other teachers echoed this request.

  • 5 Principals support the current curriculum: Angela Wright (Fairfield Elementary),  Riquita Jones (Woodville Elementary), Cordell Watkins (Chimborazo), Allison El Koubi (Westover Hills Elementary), Melissa Rickey (Binford Middle)

 

But the reality is muddled here. There were two, hardline positions: “keep it as is” and “pitch it and let teachers design the replacement.” But there was also a lot of gray area. To paraphrase a few of these sentiments… 

  • “This curriculum doesn’t do it for me - but it may work for other teachers;”

  • “The rollout and (pandemic/virtual instruction) timing made adjusting to this curriculum really challenging;” and

  • “We don’t have all the supports we need to implement this curriculum well, but maybe that’s the solution we should be striving for”

Rep. Liz Doerr later shared that these mid-line perspectives were consistent with the feedback she received from an informal advisory panel of ~20 first district teachers she consulted:

  • “The theory behind the curricula is excellent and well-intended, the problem is that it’s neither easy to implement nor do we provide much room for teacher agency.”

  • “We need at least one year before deciding”

  • “Time consuming to learn, time consuming to adapt to SOLs, and creates the need for additional coaches.” 

  • “We don’t have a curriculum issue, we have a control issue at some schools.”

She sums up the public comment experience well, saying there is a common concern around “time and autonomy” - both of which are a “system-wide issue that needs to be addressed” regardless of what curriculum the district uses.

The Curriculum Presentation

I cannot possibly do justice to the 2 hour long presentation the academic team put on. Their breakdown of academic terminology and data trends spanned 67 pages. 

The first academic presentation explains how RPS monitors proficiency levels (students that pass SOLs), as well as student growth (improved SOL scores, regardless pass/fail status), because both metrics are important to understanding school quality. 

“Leaning too heavily on proficiency rates can unfairly target schools, especially those that serve disadvantaged students, while ignoring schools who may have a higher proficiency rate but demonstrate significantly lower overall growth.”

These are not just internal (RPS) metrics of school success. The state uses a “combined rate” of growth and proficiency, and extends accreditation based on that number. 

This data helps the academic team know where to concentrate resources, and which schools have a winning formula that can be replicated elsewhere. Resources include targeted professional learning (SPARK), coaching to implement curriculum, subject-specific interventionists, and a new “master teacher program” that leverages the skills and proven methods of exemplary teachers to aid peer teachers across the district.

4th District Rep, Jonathan Young, believes “growth is important” - but suggests the focus on growth does a disservice to RPS students who are competing against students across the globe. He offers a football metaphor: “If we were able to achieve a first down - great! That’s something to celebrate!... But we still lost 70-0.” He adds that it’s “convenient” to focus on growth when the district trails the state in proficiency.

The superintendent responds: “Our goal is proficiency and beyond - to win the game.” But the district is committed to learn from, and celebrate, schools where student growth shows us how to “get the ball down the field faster.”

5th District Rep, Stephanie Rizzi, says this is the kind of data she expected “years ago,” and thanks the team for their preparation; adding: “you gave us the respect to give us the details.”

A 41 page curriculum presentation follows. This is another dense presentation that explains the studies supporting the current curricula selection, the ways the district has adapted it to align with the state’s SOLs, as well as the various tools and “curriculum guide” supports the academic team developed in-house to supplement the curriculum and address teacher feedback. A large focus of the district’s curriculum is catered to the advancement of economically disadvantaged students - a majority in RPS. (This is perhaps why the evening included such vehement support from the district’s highest-poverty elementary schools.) 

This presentation ends with the following three statements, delivered by the superintendent:

  1. Curricula are the floor, not the ceiling. Teachers are free to make adjustments to the curricula as necessary to meet the unique needs of their students.

  2. No RPS teacher will be disciplined for making adjustments that they feel are necessary to meet the needs of their students.

  3. Curricula are living things. They need to continue to evolve based on student and teacher needs. RPS is committed to that process.

The Vice Chairwoman is the first to weigh in. Nothing in these presentations suggests RPS teachers could not develop their own in-house curriculum. She offers a lengthy criticism for big-box curriculum developed by “multi-million dollar corporations,” and the district’s use of studies by groups like WestEd who are “funded by the federal charter school program” and are essentially propaganda pieces for “privatized, corporate curriculum” who are in the industry “to make money.”  She likens the district’s expensive selection of instructional aids to those prefered by Florida Republicans like Jeb Bush. (Ironically, her dismissal of the admins use of a West Ed trial because it didn’t utilize a randomized trial is, itself, a Bush-era talking point that raises numerous complex ethical and methodological concerns in education studies.) Without buying into the corporate curriculum system, she hopes schools will have more money to go towards hiring more professionals to be present at the school-level.

Quick KFRPS fact check: this Board majority cut the district’s needs-based budget by $6 million. This meant the loss of many “boots on the ground” staff like family liaisons addressing chronic absenteeism in RPS, and others, which the Board got to distance themselves from accountability for because they failed to tell the superintendent which budget items to cut. 

We are later assured that, because much of the curriculum currently utilized is open-source (AKA, free), initial investments in instructional aides have already been made, and because the task of designing and hiring for an in-house curriculum design team is expected to come at quite a cost to the district - there will be little cost savings at all.

Rizzi - whose two comments in this discussion came 30 minutes apart and, seemingly from two different people - later echoes the privatization concerns of her colleague. Her limited investigation suggests that Great Minds curriculum ought to be dismissed because it is designed by people with “charter school backgrounds” and “limited teaching experience.” Our limited investigation reveals a diverse cast of 30-year educators, teacher award recipients, textbook authors, and repeated commitments to uplifting marginalized students. This appears to be another example of “see what you want to see” - espousing privatization fears that her largest campaign donors have imprinted on a superintendent they believe is too close to the Mayor. (The Vice Chair is also co-founder of this special interest group.) 

This brings us to…

The Repeat Motion

The Vice Chair repeats her motion.

“Effective immediately, RPS teachers will not be disciplined for veering from curriculum to meet the unique needs of their students; and, the administration will document this in policy. 

Beginning with the 2023-24 school year, RPS will leverage SOL-aligned, teacher-developed curriculum frameworks using teacher-selected materials. This process will begin immediately by establishing working groups by subject and levels. 

Furthermore, the Board will receive initial recommendations and budgets by Nov. 30th 2022, to allow phasing all existing off-the-shelf curriculums by the end of this school year.”

Yes, the minority board was still kept in the dark about the details of this motion.

Yes, this motion still violates the district’s curriculum policy - which clearly states “The Chief Academic Officer is responsible for convening the RPS Curriculum Task Force.” We do not have a CAO. The wording of this motion suggests an attempt to bypass this requirement, convening “working groups by subject and level” immediately. 

Just like the $500k Schools Build Schools initiative, the district’s (Board Majority shrunken) budget allocates no funds for this initiative, and will require the district to further cut budgets from other academic and staffing priorities. 

Just like Schools Build Schools, this motion lays an enormous and consequential task at the feet of professionals with no expertise in the given subject. 

Just like Schools Build Schools, this motion was kept secret, brought up after having privately secured the vote of other members of the Board Majority, and voted on the same night it was introduced.

Just like Schools Build Schools, this motion imposes a burden for staff that doesn’t exist. Rep White announced in this meeting that the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Autumn Nabors, has resigned. The Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, Tyra Harrison, is on extended leave. And a staffing report from July identifies 30-some vacancies in central office, including several in the Academic office.

Just like Schools Build Schools, this motion inspired a dire warning from the superintendent:

Unlike Schools Build Schools, this motion had the attention of the whole city. Unlike Schools Build Schools, this initiative failed (for now.)

And while it is each of the above parties that ought to feel let down by the evening’s events, it was the Board Chair who declared…

No Trust in the Administration

Remember that community effort described above? The one to initiate a robust teacher survey about curriculum? To provide the data the board was prepared to vote without on 8/23? A collaborative effort between the administration and REA?

The Chairwoman perceived this survey as an intentional slight to embarrass and/or undermine her Majority’s ambush effort to reform the district curriculum.

She didn’t know about it until this board meeting - a standard place/time where the administration would deliver such updates. The agenda item was also a discussion (not an action item). There was no (Majority-disclosed) reason to expect a vote on this topic, much less an indication that a survey announcement was pressing business the Board would need to consider ahead of this meeting.

KFRPS Note: earlier in this same meeting, the Chair paradoxically dismissed Rep Doerr’s request that Majority Board share information with their Minority colleagues ahead of meetings/votes. This is a theme of the Chair’s leadership: the bar of appropriate engagement is high for everyone else, and absent for her favored colleagues on the Majority.

She had evidently made peace with throwing out two hours worth of feedback from district teachers, principals, and stakeholders - but ultimately withheld her support for this motion in order to review the results of this teacher survey. She abstained, despite how “professionally upset” and suspicious she was towards the superintendent, who became an unfortunate scapegoat for legitimate, teacher-and-community advocacy, and vilified for this effort to improve conditions his staff signaled were barriers to teacher retention.

Now, both events (the discarding of testimony presented tonight, and the bias against the “superintendent’s” survey intentions) - may be used to invalidate the results of this survey. Members of the Vice Chair’s special interest group are already casting a shadow of doubt on the public comment feedback supporting the curriculum - suggesting they were part of an effort to undermine the Vice Chair’s (hidden-until-11PM) motion. They also allege that the length of the academic presentations are part of some filibuster-esque subversion campaign waged by the superintendent.

The concern now is that the results of the curriculum survey will only be accepted if they validate the position of the Board Majority. Or, in the words of another former Republican president when asked if he’d accept unfavorable results: “only if I win.”

KidsFirst RPS
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Board Watch 9.12.22 (Pt 2)
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Board Watch 8.23.22