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In some ways, the Board’s goal setting has been replaced by the development of the District Improvement Plan.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.

Over the last month, a number of issues have clearly risen to the top of voters’ minds as they head to the polls:

• Central High School renovation – architects, engineers and cost estimators are currently working on detailed drawings and budgets for the proposed renovation of Central. Last summer, the project was estimated to cost $25 million, but when the cost estimates are presented later this month, some people are saying the total price tag will be closer to $40 million. The $15 million difference is roughly equal to the price tag for the new General Beadle Elementary, and some members of the Board are concerned that the wish list for the project has grown beyond what is needed.
• Facilities Master Planning – the renovation of Central High School is part of a 10-year master plan for facilities prepared for the Board last year by consultants. The plan calls for the closure of several schools (Horace Mann, Dakota, Canyon Lake, Wilson), the renovation of others (South Middle School), and changes in school attendance boundaries. All of these moves are designed to improve the learning environment for students and lower operating costs for the District. But they are likely to spark controversy and call for strong leadership on the part of the Board.
• Third High School – The consultant’s report suggested that within ten years Rapid City will need a third high school. They recommended that the District start with a smaller facility that could be expanded as demand grows. One option under consideration is the construction of a Technical High School next to Western Dakota Tech. Board members will have to evaluate this option in light of the District’s capital budget and with some eye to the continuing legislative battle over the future governance of the Technical Institutes.
• Student Achievement – The District has not met the state’s standards for student achievement in reading and math for the last several years. If No Child Left Behind test scores do not improve and the law itself stays on the books, the State and the District will be forced to take dramatic steps to fix the situation.
• Budget Cuts – For the last two years the Board has cut staff to deal with an ongoing structural deficit. The cutting is likely to continue next year given current economic conditions and the condition of the state budget. Board members will have to decide whether to keep cutting existing programs or eliminate services altogether.
• Opt Out – As an alternative to continued cuts, the Board could choose to “opt out” of the property tax cap. Previous discussions of the opt out option have been in the range of $50 a year per $100,000 of a homeowner’s assessed value. If the Board chooses to opt out, it can either impose the opt out on taxpayers or put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.
• Indian Education – As Indian students account for an increasing percentage of all students in Rapid City and as test scores show the gap between Indian and non-Indian student achievement holding steady or widening in reading and math, this issue will continue to be a priority for the Board.
• Compulsory Attendance until 18 — This fall a new law takes effect compelling students to attend high school until graduation or age 18. The new law is likely to add several hundred students to Rapid City’s already crowded high schools. The Board will have to approve programs designed to meet the educational needs of these students.
• Superintendent — After ten years at the helm of the Rapid City Area Schools, Dr. Peter Wharton has indicated that he will be retiring soon. In all likelihood, Board members elected tomorrow will be faced with the challenge of recruiting and hiring a new superintendent sometime in the next three years. At that time, the Board will have to decide how it wants to involve the community and staff in the process and agree on what it’s looking for in a new leader.
• Technology — In 2005 the District chose to replace nearly all of its school computers. Expected to last five years, these machines will be approaching the end of their useful life next year and it will be time for the District to make an equally significant capital investment in new technology.

To read where the candidates stand on some of these issues, check out the profiles submitted by some of the candidates under the “Election” heading to the right. (Note: candidates Heather Gosch, Arnie Laubach and Doug Kinniburgh did not respond to invitations to submit profiles.) The Rapid City Journal also featured Q&As with the candidates in the paper last week. The candidates also offered opinions at the DIA forum last week.

Addressing the needs of American Indian students is critical to the District's educational program.

Nearly one in five children enrolled in the Rapid City Area Schools is Indian. Meeting the educational needs of these students poses special challenges to teachers and administrators in the District, as well as to the community as a whole. The data suggests that we are not doing very well when it comes to meeting these challenges. On the annual Dakota STEP test, the gap between the achievement of Indian students and all others is substantial and, in some cases, growing. Truancy and absenteeism are high, and Indian students continue to drop out of high school at an alarming rate.

Over the last several years, the District, with financial support from the Bush and Vucurevich Foundations, has endeavored to deepen its understanding of the issues facing Indian students and to develop programs that will lead to increases in student achievement within this important community. A new strategic plan for American Indian Education ratified last year by the Board of Education articulates eight key goals that aim to erase the gap between Indian and non-Indian students on standardized tests and in graduation rates.

Eight Goals for Indian Education*

• Improve student achievement and address cultural awareness.
• Strengthen data collection and analysis for programming and evaluation and increase student and parent access to technology.
• Hire and retain American Indian staff at all levels.
• Increase Indian participation in all extra-curricular activities and strengthen extra-curriculars that appeal to Indian students.
• Work with parents and the community to improve attendance.
• Increase graduation rates among Indian students by enhancing opportunities for relevant, real-life learning.
• Address the emotional and spiritual needs of Indian students by developing mentoring and wellness programs

* These goals have been paraphrased for our readers.

Progress on Implementation

ACADEMICS — Implementation of the new strategic plan began this year. In the academic arena, advanced classes in Lakota have been developed. Parents were invited to review curriculum materials and recommend ways to make these materials more culturally sensitive. This summer, Indian Education staff and teachers will begin looking at the State’s content standards with an eye to making the benchmarks more culturally relevant to Indian students. For next fall, lesson plans will be developed for the social studies curriculum that integrate American Indian history and the contributions of American Indians to the overall history of the United States and the world. The District will also expand cultural training programs for non-Indian staff to help them understand issues affecting Indian students.

DATA & TECHNOLOGY — Good data collection and analysis is critical to improving Indian education and increasing the overall accountability of the system. This year, the District has been working to develop a catalog of reports that analyze student test scores, attendance rates and graduation trends. The District is also striving to provide more opportunities for Indian students and parents to have access to technology by installing community access computers at North Middle School and General Beadle Elementary. The District is also disseminating information to Indian parents about the District’s overall Technology Plan.

NATIVE STAFF — Recognizing that Indian students need Indian role models at school, the District is working to not only recruit and retain Indian staff, but also to encourage more people in the Indian community to enter the profession of education. The District has an onoing partnership with Oglala Lakota College (OLC) to recruit and train American Indian teachers and staff.  This year, six teacher candidates from OLC have interned and student taught in the Rapid City Area Schools.

SCHOOL & CULTURAL ACTIVITIES — By increasing Indian student participation in extra-curricular and cultural activities, the District hopes to deepen the connection between Indian students and the school community. With increased promotion, American Indian participation in sports at Stevens and Central High Schools this year has increased, particulary in football, basketball and gymnastics.

ATTENDANCE — Students can’t learn if they are not in class. To improve attendance among Indian students, the District has been recruiting parents as partners in the learning process. North Middle School, along with Knollwood, General Beadle and Horace Mann Elementary schools, has hosted family and cultural events during the day and evening along with math and literacy programs. The District also tried to survey parents this year to assess transportation issues with an eye to helping more students get to school. Unfortunately, the response to the survey was minimal. The District has been more successful in its collaboration with community organizations and other government agencies concerned with keeping the community’s youth in school. A coalition of organizations, including SANI-T, the Center for Restorative Justice, court services and other community members have been collaborating with the States Attorney’s office to reduce truancy. The District is also working to provide after school programs for students.

RELEVANT, REAL-LIFE LEARNING – Launched several years ago, the Partnership Rapid City program seeks to provide all students with real-life opportunities to apply what they learn in school in the community. This initiative is especially important for at-risk students who are often turned off to traditional academics. With support from the Vucurevich Foundation, Partnership Rapid City provided internships and apprenticeships to a number of Indian high school students this year to help set them on a career path after graduation. With support from the Minneapolis-based Bush Foundation, the District also hired four graduation coaches and a coordinator at Central High School to keep students working towards their diploma. These coaches have also begun working with eighth grade students to smooth their transition to high school and help them develop academic goals.

MENTORING & WELLNESS - Recognizing that children are less able to learn if they are hungry or distracted by other physical or emotional problems, the District has developed programs to try and focus on the whole child. This year, Central High School created a Health Cluster cohort with funding from the State of South Dakota. The elementary schools have also leveraged the State’s Nutritional fruit and vegetable program to try and give students greater access to healthy foods. Along with the Rural American Initiative organization, the District has also recruited American Indian mentors to work with students in the classroom.

Evaluation Strategies Missing

At a recent school board meeting, the District’s Director of Indian Education (Title VII) Dolores Riley presented an update on the progress on the Strategic Plan for American Indian Education. The report included data highlighting the gaps between Indian and non-Indian student achievement on the Dakota STEP test in the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years. While there was some improvement in elementary and middle school scores in reading and math, there was a dramatic decline in student achievement among Indian high school students (11th graders). School board members expressed some concerns about this drop-off. Board members Leah Lutheran and Bret Swanson said they would have liked to see a deeper analysis of the data to understand why the scores had fallen so dramatically at the high school level. Riley replied that the Administrative staff has not had a chance to do this deeper analysis, despite having the test results for nearly nine months.  

Since 2001 American Indian students as a percent of all children attending Rapid City Area Schools has increased from 15.9% to 18.5% in September 2008.

The discussion between Riley and the Board highlighted a missing element in the District’s strategic plan — the lack of data-driven criteria for evaluating success or failure for the various initiatives outlined by the plan and the absence of measurable goals. Data-driven program evaluation has long been a systematic weakness within the District: as strategic plans come and go, the District’s activities are reported, but there is little effort to tie expenditures and activities to outcomes or real changes in student achievement. For years, the Board has repeatedly asked the Administration to provide a cost-benefit analysis of its various educational initiatives, including the adoption of the Middle School concept, block scheduling at Central High School, literacy programs, and professional development, but these studies have not been completed. The lack of measurable objectives and evaluation critieria in the American Indian Education Strategic Plan suggests that several years from now the District may still be struggling to understand what has worked and what hasn’t and why.

Read the Rapid City Journal’s coverage of the presentation on Indian Education. Also, check out the recent editorial by the Journal on the subject. For more information on Indian Education programs or to contact the director, Dolores Riley, visit the program’s webpage.

At one point in his talk, Hickenlooper talked about the importance of having the mayor and the superintendent of schools in a community working together. According to the traditional wisdom, he said, mayors have nothing to gain by working with school superintendents. “If the schools improve, the superintendent and the school board will get the credit. If they don’t improve, the mayor will get tarnished with the blame.”

Hickenlooper dismissed that logic. When he was first elected in 2003, after the first political campaign of his life, he decided to join with the superintendent in an effort to promote the passage of a new school bond initiative. His political advisors asked if he was crazy: “You’ve just been elected,” they said. “Why would you go out and support a bond measure for the schools.” In this instance, however, Hickenlooper said, “We’ve looked at the numbers, the aging buildings and we know what our kids need. Why wouldn’t I go out and help?”  With the superintendent of schools he attended coffees and restaurants all over town and helped pass the bond issue.

Rapid City Mayor Alan Hanks and several members of the City Council meet once a month with the officers of the  Board of Education and the superintendent to talk about collaborative projects and issues that concern both entities. In the past, these conversations have focused on joint construction projects (gyms at West and South Middle Schools or planned construction of the new Parkview tennis courts). They have also covered a possible collaboration with the Black Hills Community Theater and issues affecting the management of the City/School Administration Building. The City and the School District also frequently work together with other organizations, such as Strengthening Families, to address issues that affect youth in the community.

Hickenlooper, however, seemed to be talking about a different level of cooperation. In his mind, the cultural and economic vitality of the community seemed to depend on the quality of the schools. City government and the school board should be working together to develop a shared vision for the future of the community. It’s worth asking ourselves, our City Council and our School Board, as well as the Superintendent and the Mayor, if there’s more that the City of Rapid City and the District could be doing to work together to enhance our ability to compete in a knowledge-driven global economy.

The existing Rapid City Area Schools Strategic Plan was developed six years ago to “serve as a guiding force for the energies and efforts of the Rapid City school community in the coming years.” Crafted by a task force of 40 District employees and community members, it outlines six goals for the District:

1. “Build a shared understanding among policy makers and other community members about the value, the role and the cost of education in the Rapid City Area Schools in order to achieve increased support and funding.

2. Improve communication with the community so that more public support for the Rapid City Area Schools is realized.

3. Improve the health and safety of students by reducing the level of substance abuse and other at-risk behaviors.

4. Increase the percentage of Native American students who graduate from the Rapid City Area Schools.

5. Build understanding of Community Development to increase collaborative efforts to support education in the Rapid City Area Schools.

6. Increase the clarity of roles, rules, and responsibilities within the district to improve organizational effectiveness.”

The plan includes “action steps” to achieve these six goals, but it doesn’t say how progress or success should be measured. In the absence of benchmarks, the District’s strategic plan is more of a “to do” list than a strategy. When the Administration provided the Board of Education with an update on the plan in the spring of 2007, there was no data to demonstrate whether the tasks completed had helped the District accomplish its six goals.

The six goals in the plan highlight a more fundamental deficiency in the strategy. None of the goals address the most important and expensive day-to-day activity of the District: educating all of the children attending Rapid City’s public schools. In fact, of the six goals in the strategic plan, only one addresses teaching, and that goal focuses on only one segment of the student population. Since most of the District’s annual budget is dedicated to teaching and supporting the instructional process, no wonder Board members and administrators haven’t referred to the strategic plan as they contemplated budget cuts.

In this era of economic crisis, the Rapid City Area School District desperately needs an up-to-date and meaningful strategic plan to help us stay focused on what’s most important. The goals in the new strategic plan should be tied to the fundamental vision and mission of the District: that “all Rapid City Area School students will achieve to their full potential” and that we will build “a community of lifelong learners, one student at a time.” The new plan should align action steps to this vision and mission and give us a road map for five years. It should serve as a critical tool in the allocation of resources, and it should include performance measures so we can hold the Board, the Administration and ourselves accountable for success or failure.

Fortunately, much of the work that needs to be done to create a meaningful strategic plan has been done over the last few years. It just needs to be pulled together and offered to the public for comment, development and support.  Then it needs to be ratified by a board committed to seeing it through.

More on putting the pieces together later.