Community to Help Pick Next Superintendent

Students, parents, staff and community members will all be involved in the selection of the next superintendent to lead the Rapid City Area Schools under a plan outlined by the Board of Education today. Beginning this week, the District will post an online survey that asks respondents to identify the most important characteristics of a good superintendent.

The Board will also establish seven stakeholder committees to provide input to the Board and meet with finalists. According to Board President Wes Storm separate committees will be created for each of the following groups: community, parents, business, teachers, principals, classified staff, and CSAC executive staff.

People interested in serving on the community committee are invited to submit their names to Shirley Fletcher in the Superintendent’s Office at Shirley.Fletcher@k12.sd.us or by calling 394-4031. Committee members must be available to meet on January 7 for an orientation and conversation about what the District is looking for in a new superintendent. They must also be available from March 9-16 to interview candidates.

Dr. Richard Christie from Ray and Associates, the search consultants hired to work with the Board, presented a timeline for the search process. Highlights include:

• January 7 – Meetings with constituent and stakeholder committees.
• January 18 – Finalize job announcement to reflect the District’s desires and priorities.
• January 19 – Consultants begin active recruitment.
• February 11 – American Assoc. of School Administrators convention, Phoenix, AZ.
• February 16 – Deadline for all application materials.
• March 6 – Consultant presents semi-finalists to the Board. Board selects finalists for interviews.
• March 9-16 – Board and committees interview candidates.
• Mid-March – Selection of top candidate and offer.

After collecting advice from the community at large and from the stakeholder committees, the ultimate hiring decision will be made by the seven members of the Board of Education. Storm said that the Board hopes to have a new superintendent chosen by the end of March. Responding to a question by Board Member Suzan Nolan, Dr. Christie said that if the applicant pool does not satisfy the Board, Ray and Associates will continue the search process.

Superintendent’s Salary Likely to Increase

After emerging from an executive session to discuss compensation issues, Storm provided an overview of the consultant’s recommendations regarding the superintendent’s salary. He noted that district’s in the northern Great Plains with comparable student populations and staffs are paying between $162,000 and $202,000 plus fringe benefits to their superintendents. Given Rapid City’s size, the Board believes it will have to advertise the superintendent’s job to start at $173,000 plus fringe benefits. This salary represents an approximately 35 percent increase over the salary paid to current superintendent Dr. Peter Wharton. For more on the salary issue, see Kayla Gahagan’s article in the Rapid City Journal.

Board to Set Schedule for Superintendent Search

The search for a new superintendent for the Rapid City Area Schools gets underway tomorrow (Saturday, 12/19) at 8:00 a.m. The Board will meet with representatives of the search firm to discuss the recruiting process; ways to solicit citizen input; the establishment of committees of staff, parents, administrators and community members; and the overall schedule for screening candidates and interviews.

The consulting team has already prepared a survey designed to elicit some sense of the skills and qualities that the District and the community are looking for in a superintendent. The public may also be asked to comment on which qualities are most important right now given the many issues facing the District.

Framing the Search Process

In selecting a new superintendent, school districts are often faced with a chicken and egg question when it comes to strategic planning. Should the Board develop a strategic plan and then hire a superintendent with specific skills that fit with the District’s priorities? Or, should the Board hire a new superintendent with the skills needed to lead the strategic planning process and then hope that this person will also have what it takes to implement the plan once its developed? The Board in Rapid City will benefit from a number of long-range planning efforts that have been completed in recent years under Superintendent Peter Wharton, including a facilities plan, a strategic plan for Native American education, and a well-developed District Improvement Plan. But the existing overarching strategic plan is out-of-date and is not likely to provide guidance to candidates for the position.

When it gets down to recruiting and selecting candidates, the Board will also have to think about whether they want to promote from within or hire from outside the District. Often this kind of decision is influenced by the current challenges facing a school district or any organization. If a board feels that the organizational culture is strong, the vision is sharp and trust levels are high, it makes sense to promote from within to keep the plan on track. If there are problems in the culture, trust levels are low and change is needed, many organizations will look for a fresh face to lead the process of change.

At tomorrow’s meeting the Board will attempt to wrestle with these issues and more.  A copy of the agenda for the meeting is here: Board agenda 121909. Read Kayla Gahagan’s story in the Rapid City Journal.  The meeting will be held in the Community Room at CSAC at 300 Sixth Street.

Board to Consider Options for Central HS Fiasco

State law does not permit the construction of schools in land designated for parks, except by permission of the voters. School and city officials, consulting engineers and architects all missed this issue for months while plans were being developed for the expansion of Central High School. Now the District apparently has four options:

• ask the Legislature to change the law to add schools to the list of facilities allowed in park land;
• ask the voters of Rapid City to approve the construction;
• redesign the planned renovation to build on the North side of the campus; or
• abandon the expansion altogether and redirect the investment to a new high school.

The Board of Education will meet Wednesday, November 19 at 4:30 p.m. to consider these and perhaps other options. For the moment, the District has asked the architects to stop work on the project until a decision is made. Already the District has invested $400,000 – $500,000 in the current plan. The money came from the District’s capital outlay budget, and not from the general fund which covers salaries and operations. Capital outlay money is used for building construction and repair, equipment and computer purchases as well as durable items like text books and even band uniforms.

Resolution of the land issue is already heating up with Friends of Rapid City Parks who organized several years ago to resist the continued loss of park land to construction projects. If the issue is brought to the voters in Rapid City, they are talking about opposing the measure. But avoiding the voters in Rapid City by going to the Legislature to seek a special change in the law could also be difficult. The Board is likely to consider these issues and more in its discussion.

Kayla Gahagan has tracked this issue since it became public last Friday in a series of stories in the Rapid City Journal:

• Wednesday, 11/18 – Central expansion plot both flood zone and park land
• Monday, 11/16 – Board faces tough choice with Central expansion options
• Saturday, 11/14 – Land oversight could derail Central High Project

The Board meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at the City/School Administration Center at 300 Sixth Street. The public discussion of Central may be delayed, however, as the Board will meet first in Executive Session to consider a student suspension and then hear a presentation from the District’s attorneys on the legal options related to the Central issue.

To read the Rapid City Journal’s editorial on the issue, click here: RCJ editorial.

Board Meets to Finalize 2009-2010 Goals

The Rapid City Board of Education will meet tonight to discuss and finalize its goals for the 2009-2010 academic year. Once adopted, the goals are supposed to drive the goal-setting process for the superintendent, the administrative team and building principals so that the entire staff is focused on the same outcomes and working together. The goals are also supposed to serve as a framework for the board’s self-evaluation and the evaluation of the superintendent.

In practice, the Board’s goal-setting process rarely works as it’s supposed to. For the last four years at least, the Board has failed to adopt its goals until well into the school year — sometimes it is as late as January. Once adopted, the goals are rarely referred to again. They are not posted on the District’s website, and there is no end-of-the-year evaluation by the Board of how well the District did. The process also provides no consequences if the District and the Board fail to meet their goals.

District Improvement Plan Provides Alternative Process

In some ways, the Board’s goal setting has been replaced by the development of the District Improvement Plan. Required by the State of South Dakota under No Child Left Behind, the District Improvement Plan articulates goals for student achievement based on the annual Dakota STEP test. The plan is developed by the staff in the fall after a deep analysis of the previous year’s Dakota STEP scores. It identifies strategies for raising student scores in reading and math. The draft plan is reviewed by a committee of staff and community members and approved by the Board in January.

In reality, however, the District is already far along in its implementation of the District Improvement Plan by January. When the Dakota STEP scores first become available in late August, principals and teachers pore over the data to discern strengths and weaknesses in the educational program. Building teams then develop strategies to address areas where students seem to be struggling. The Board is generally not involved and often unaware of the results of this process until January.

Different Approaches to Board Goal Setting

Over the years, the Board of Education has wrestled with its approach to goal setting. In 2001-2002, for example, the Board’s goals were broad and progress generally unmeasurable: “expand upon past efforts and increase connections” with the community or “continue to emphasize improvements in student learning/achievement.” Sometimes, the Board’s goals have included “to do” list items. In 2003-2004, the Board resolved to “Implement the RCAS multi-year strategic plan.” In 2004-2005, the Board established a goal to “Conduct a study and develop an updated inventory of all District real estate holdings to determine present and future District needs.”

In recent years, the Board’s goals have been lifted from the District Improvement Plan, identifying specific targets for student achievement on the Dakota STEP test. By relying solely on the District Improvement Plan process to develop District goals, however, the Board tends to define success in education too narrowly, measuring student achievement only in terms of reading and math on a single high-stakes test. Moreover, the benefits of the specificity of the goals are lost because the budgeting process rarely looks at how resources will be shifted to accomplish the District’s goals. As a result, at the Board level, the goals represent little more than good intentions, and not the basis upon which to plan.

Tonight will hardly offer the opportunity for the Board to fix a process that has lost its focus, but as the Board continues to address its planning and budgeting processes, timely goal-setting should become an integral part of a more coherent process of strategic planning.

Editorial by Eric Abrahamson

Tonight’s special Board Study Session begins at 5:00 p.m. in the East Conference room on the Third Floor of the City/School Administration Center at 300 Sixth Street in Rapid City. The meeting is open to the public.

Board Moves Closer to Decisions on Central High, Dakota’s Future and New Valley Middle School

Board President Wes Storm presided over a sometimes tense discussion of the future of Central High School.

At a board of education study session this morning administrators from the Rapid City Area Schools presented an $87 million ten-year facility plan that would reduce the cost of renovating Central High School, budget for the construction of a new middle school in Rapid Valley, allow for the consolidation of alternative high school programs at Dakota and provide for the erection of a new middle school and elementary school on the site of South Middle School. Board members agreed in principle to the administration’s plan, but they were deeply divided over the scope and scale of the Central High School renovation project. Despite these divisions, the board was unanimous in its desire to get started at Central and agreed to bring the proposal to a vote at its next regular meeting scheduled for September 3.

The $87 million plan reflects many of the priorities articulated in the facilities study commissioned by the board in 2007 and delivered in the spring of 2008. That report, prepared by MGT of America, identified $203 million in facilities needs and building improvements in the Rapid City Area Schools based on an analysis of the condition of current buildings, demographic trends and changes in teaching strategies. As consultant Dr. Ed Humble told the board today, “No district gets to fulfill its entire wish list.” The spending plan presented today reflects the administration’s best efforts to balance competing demands for capital dollars and with expected capital tax revenues. In addition, the district plans to spend roughly $50 million dollars during this ten year period on the maintenance and upkeep of existing facilities.

New Middle School in Rapid Valley, Alternative High School at Dakota

The board began the meeting by looking at middle schools. Mike Kenton, director of Support Services, presented an analysis of projected changes in enrollment at the district’s middle schools. He noted that if attendance boundaries are not changed and demographic patterns remain the same, enrollments will continue to grow at Dakota and North Middle Schools over the next six years while enrollments at South, Southwest, and West will decline. These imbalances would lead to inefficient staffing and diminish the quality of education in the overcrowded schools. The administration evaluated MGT’s proposal to consolidate the existing five middle schools into four, but found that the District would not save significant money with the closure of a middle school. Instead, the administration is recommending the construction of a new middle school at the site of Valley View Elementary and redrawing boundaries to diminish the need for busing.

With the construction of a new middle school in Rapid Valley, the administration wants to renovate Dakota and consolidate its various alternative high school programs on the historic downtown campus. With more space, the alternative high school program could accommodate an estimated 645 students at the Dakota campus. Many of these students are either currently enrolled in the academy programs or on the waiting list to enroll.

Central’s Future Divides the Board

The board was mostly deeply divided when it came to a discussion of the proposed renovation of Central High School. Plans presented this spring outlined a $42 million project that would add a new Ninth Grade wing, science classrooms for grades 10-12, new gyms, a weight room, new lockers, a new theater for performing arts and a new main entrance to the school. Advocates for various sports programs and the fine arts have been pushing for these improvements for years. New state requirements for science education make the science classrooms a necessity. Meanwhile, the addition of a new Ninth Grade wing is intended to address a serious problem at Central — the high rate of failure and drop-outs during the first year of high school.

Community reaction to the cost of the Central renovation and the plan to expand the school to accommodate up to 2,400 students has been mixed. The Parent Advisory Committee of Indian Education presented a letter at the board meeting today stating that it did “not believe that expanding Central High School would be in the best interest of our students.” The group noted the already high drop out rate from Central and suggested that a third high school with smaller class sizes and more teacher support would improve student achievement.

Several members of the board have also expressed concerns about the cost of the Central project. They point out that the $42 million price tag will consume nearly half of the roughly $87 million the district can afford to spend on new building projects over the next ten years and could jeopardize or postpone the construction of the middle school in the Valley, the renovation of Dakota or the construction of new facilities to replace the aging and inefficient buildings at South Middle School and Robbinsdale Elementary. They asked the district’s design team to present another option for Central that was more tightly focused on academic needs with a budget closer to $28 million. 

The $28 million option presented by the administration today reduces the size of the Ninth Grade wing from 23 classrooms to 18. It reduces the new Science Wing from ten classroom/labs to eight. The big savings, however, come from reducing the planned expenditures for sports and fine arts. A planned competition gym would be replaced by a practice gym. The size of the new weight room would be reduced by 23 percent. New lockers would be reduced from 1100 to 900. Most important in terms of the overall cost of the project, $6.6 million would be saved by remodeling the existing performing arts theater and adding rehearsal space rather than constructing a new theater.

As the end of the meeting approached, Board President Wes Storm tried to identify areas of agreement and find room for compromise. There seemed to be some consensus around the idea that compromise could be reached on the size of the Ninth Grade wing, the number of new science classrooms, and the number of new practice gyms. The board agreed that a final discussion on the plan to add a new theater could be postponed until later this fall. In the meantime, Storm asked the administration to provide a recommendation to the board based on the study session conversation for a vote at the board’s upcoming September 3 meeting. Administrators are hopeful that the vote will provide a greenlight for final design, construction bids and groundbreaking at Central later this fall.

For more details on the study session, read Kayla Gahagan’s story in the Rapid City Journal.

Will Board Study Session Move District Forward?

With major facilities issues on the front burner, the Rapid City Board of Education will meet Saturday morning, August 22 at General Beadle Elementary to talk about the future of Central High School, the possible construction of a new middle school in Rapid Valley and a plan to convert Dakota Middle School to a special use high school. The board will also talk about changing school attendance boundaries in an effort to get more efficient use of the district’s existing facilities.

The conversation tomorrow has been billed as a “Ten Year Comprehensive Facilities Plan Discussion.” More than a year after releasing a consultant’s report describing the condition and suitability of all of the district’s schools, the district has yet to release a timetable or a spending plan for the projects delineated in the report. According to board members and administrators, Business Manager Dave Janak will present an analysis of the district’s capital financing capability at the meeting tomorrow. With an overview of what the district can afford, the board can begin to establish some priorities.

In the meantime, despite the lack of a five- or ten-year budget, the district has moved forward with plans to renovate Central High School for an estimated $42 million. Many community members have expressed concerns about the price of the renovation, particularly if it leads to an even larger student population at Central. Advocates for a third high school would like to see a more modest plan for renovation coupled with a strategy for reducing the overall population at the district’s two main high schools. Some board members are likely to press for reducing the scope of the project at tomorrow’s meeting.

The board is also scheduled to discuss its goals and priorities for the 2009 – 2010 academic year. For the past several years, the board’s main goals have been tied to student achievement as measured by scores on the Dakota STEP test. Year after year, however, the district has failed to achieve the board’s goals, leaving some to wonder how meaningful the goal-setting process really is. In fact, it appears that the District’s goal setting has simply become a process for internalizing the State Department of Education’s expectations under No Child Left Behind. Many parents and community members may wonder whether there ought to be goals that reflect the concerns of the community as well.

The community is welcome to attend the board study session in the Multi-Purpose Room at General Beadle Elementary (10 Van Buren Street) from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. The agenda is available here: 08-22-09 Special Meeting agenda.

Board Considers New Policies at Meeting Tonight

Members of the Board of Education for the Rapid City Area Schools will consider changes to District policies on attendance, nondiscrimination, dual enrollment and emergency evacuation plans for handicapped students tonight. The board switched is regular board meeting from Thursday to Tuesday this week to allow board members to attend the annual Associated School Boards of South Dakota convention in Sioux Falls.

The policy changes on attendance reflect the new state law that requires students to remain in school until they are 18 or graduate. The policy outlines the responsibilities of parents and school officials when it comes to enforcing the state’s mandatory attendance law.  New language also highlight’s the District’s ability to initiate truancy proceedings if students and parents fail to comply with the law.

Changes to the policy on nondiscrimination make it clear that students cannot be discriminated against because they are pregnant or married. Meanwhile, a new policy on emergency evacuation of handicapped students calls on the school officials to prepare an emergency evacuation plan at the beginning of each school year for handicapped students.

In addition to policy changes, the Administration will also present the schedule for the development of next year’s budget. Business manager Dave Janak has prepared budget assumptions for the board that call for a 12 percent fund balance. The plan also assumes that if any further budget cuts are needed they wil come first from support functions, rather than instruction. Within instruction, priority is given to programs that 1) support core graduation requirements; 2) provide the greatest impact on student achievement, and 3) align with the district’s mission and philosophy. The Administration also suggests that capital spending will revolve around the Master Facilities Plan developed last year by a nationally recognized consulting team.

The board meeting starts at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, August 4 in the Council Chambers in the City/School Administration Building at 300 Sixth Street. A copy of the agenda is available here: Board agenda 8409

Dakota STEP Scores Disappoint and Confuse

Rapid City teachers and administrators received disappointing news from the South Dakota Department of Education today. Results from this spring’s Dakota STEP tests did not meet the District’s goals. The District has fallen to Level 3 school improvement in reading and remains on Level 3 school improvement in math which means the District will be forced to take steps to improve instruction. Eleven schools failed to earn passing grades from the state. Despite the disappointments, however, there were some hints of good news in the District’s report card, especially with regard to math and reading scores for American Indian high school students.

At the District level, the scores for all students who took the tests were essentially flat in math, with 69 percent scoring proficient or better, including 13 percent who rated as “advanced.” In reading, the overall percentage of students who met the mark dropped from 81 percent last year to 72 percent. Although this meant that those who scored basic or below basic increased from 19 to 28 percent, the number of students rated advanced also increased from 18 to 22.

Looking more closely at the performance of students in particular age groups and schools, the test scores offer a mixed picture of student achievement in Rapid City. Elementary students in grades 3-5 exceeded the district’s goal in math, but the number of students who scored proficient or advanced fell from 73 percent last year to 72 percent in 2009. Again there was good news in the slight increase in the percentage of students in the advanced category, as this group rose from 13 to 15 percent of all students. Meanwhile, reading scores dropped dramatically as the District fell from 85 percent scoring proficient or better in 2008 to 74 percent in 2009. Here also, the percentage of students in the advanced category rose from 20 to 26 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

Storm Elected President; Swanson, Nolan VPs

Wes Storm was elected president of the Board of Education of the Rapid City Area Schools tonight, defeating Sheryl Kirkeby by a 4 to 3 vote. Storm’s victory was followed by the elections of Brett Swanson and Suzan Nolan as first and second vice presidents by similarly split votes. 

The new slate of officers may signal a new era in the board’s approach to a wide variety of issues. Storm, Swanson and Nolan have all had extensive experience in education. Storm’s 40-year association with the District has included time spent as a teacher, coach, principal, and athletic director. In addition, he has previously served as school board president and was on the board the last time the district had to hire a new superintendent.

Swanson taught for a number of years in the District before moving on to teach at the university level. His wife, Jackie, a former districtwide teacher of the year, teaches at North Middle School. Dr. Suzan Nolan was a teacher and a counselor and over the course of a 33-year career in the District worked with students of all ages.

Storm, Swanson and Nolan were supported in their run for the officer positions by board member Daphne Richards Cook. Richards Cook attended the meeting by phone from California where her husband Robert is attending a meeting of the National Indian Education Association, an organization he serves as president.

The election of leadership with deep and intimate knowledge of the day-to-day operations of the District suggests that the administration will be challenged much more frequently than it has been in the past. This may prove to be a good thing, leading to better planning and decision-making overall. Board members with natural sympathies and a greater understanding of students and teachers may also help to raise the morale among the staff in  the District.

But there is also the danger that Board members with such deep knowledge will want to get into too much of the day-to-day decision-making that should properly be the responsibility of the administration. If they do, this could heighten tensions between the board and the administration and do no one any good in the long run.

The new alignment on the board also now casts the board members in new roles. The new majority will no longer have to struggle to influence the direction of the District — they have the votes. Instead, they will face the challenge of listening to and honoring the perspectives of the new minority even as they move forward with changes they feel are long overdue.

Similarly, long-time board members Sheryl Kirkeby, Doug Kinniburgh and Leah Lutheran, accustomed to being in the majority and in leadership will find themselves in a new position. Over the last several years they have been supportive of the status quo within the District and deferential to the administration. They now face the challenge that Storm, Swanson and Richards-Cook have faced over the last year — to continue to articulate their points of view at a time when the majority chooses to move in a different direction.

All of these tensions will be played out against the backdrop of the last year of Superintendent Peter Wharton’s service to the District. Knowing all of these board members, it’s clear that they will try to find ways to reach consensus, but there will also be times when they disagree. And it will get uncomfortable at times.

Superintendent Wharton has often remarked that the tragedy of many school districts is that attention becomes too focused on the concerns of the adults in the system and the children get lost in the equation. Lets hope that regardless of the realignment of perspectives on the board, the education of Rapid City’s children remains at the top of everyone’s agenda.

Annual Meeting Tonight Will Seat New Board Member and Elect New Officers

A new member and potentially new officers will be installed when the Board of Education for the Rapid City Area Schools holds its annual meeting tonight, Thursday, July 16 at 5:30 p.m. Following tradition, the “old” board will meet for the first half of the meeting and conclude the business of the 2008-2009 school year. Then the old board will step down and the new members of the board will be sworn in and seated. With this transition, Arnie Laubach will complete his three-year term. Suzan Nolan will be sworn in to represent Area 1 on the board. Doug Kinniburgh and Sheryl Kirkeby will be sworn in to new three-year terms.

The agenda for the “old” board tonight includes a number of important items, including final approval of the proposed 2009-2010 budget. The Rapid City Journal, however, posted news on Wednesday that the District will receive an additional $7 million from the federal government as part of the stimulus program. It remains to be seen whether the board will give the public a chance to see and comment on how the District plans to spend this money before the board approves the budget. Currently, this item is on the “consent calendar,” which means that the board will vote on it without discussion. However, any board member may ask that the item be removed from the consent calendar.

The old board is also slated to approve a number of revisions to district policies relating to attendance, nondiscrimination, dual enrollment in high school and post-secondary institutions (e.g. WDT and SDSMT), and emergency evacuation plans for handicapped students.  

There may be some controversy over the presentation of a proposed new high school activities handbook. Some board members have concerns about some of the language in the handbook and rules that seem to set different standards for student academic performance based on which activity the student is involved with.

The old board is also being asked to approve a partial payment to a consultant hired to develop a new budget format for the District. In a July 5 editorial, the Rapid City Journal echoed the sentiments of some board members who expressed concerns about paying a consultant to do work that should be done by the District’s administrative staff.

When the new board is seated midway through the overall meeting, the first order of business will be to elect officers for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Current Board President Sheryl Kirkeby has expressed her willingness to continue to serve as an officer, but she is likely to be challenged for the president’s position by Wes Storm. The board will also elect a first and second vice president to fill out the officer slots.

As it does every year, the new board will set the schedule for board meetings for the coming year and designate various officials to represent the District, including the District’s lawyers. Before the annual meeting adjourns, the board is expected to set a date for a special study session to discuss the proposed plans for renovating Central High School.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting. A copy of the agenda is on the District’s website. Click on the meeting link in the calendar box.