Duval schools get grant, expand efforts to improve, face falling grades

Times-Union

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-03-10/story/duval-schools-get-grant-expand-efforts-improve-face-falling-grades

By Denise Smith Amos

Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti announced in his first official State of the Schools address Tuesday new efforts to help struggling students, a desire to expand existing efforts, and a warning about school grades.

Among the new endeavors, Vitti said he will announce a plan to put “intervention specialists” trained in social work or psychology into every middle school, thanks to a new grant.

He said he wouldn’t discuss the grant’s details, but he said the money will pay salaries for interventionists for the next three to five years. Interventionist help students with behavior issues or other problems.

They will supplement the deans of discipline Vitti instituted in schools and his recently announced plans to expand mental health training to all instructional personnel to better identify and help students in crisis.

Discipline issues, fighting and misconduct are frequent complaints at Duval schools that have struggled to maintain enrollment. Vitti said he’d rather get at the root of students’ problems than rely on suspensions and expulsions, he said.

“We cannot arrest or suspend our way out of these challenges,” he said.

Also on Vitti’s to-do list: expanding academic initiatives currently underway at schools in the Raines, Ribault and Jackson high school feeder patterns.

Those 36 so-called transformation schools are among the lowest performing and highest poverty schools in the region. The district in recent years partnered with local donors for the Quality Education for All initiative, which is directing $40 million to several programs, including one that rewards teachers and principals working at those schools whose students show higher than expected academic growth.

The program has begun paying off, Vitti said; of the 200 teachers recruited or who volunteered to work at the transformation schools, 70 received $17,000 bonuses, and 50 received $20,000 bonuses.

Vitti said some Westside schools that are not in those feeder patterns also struggle; he is seeking ways to pay for similar efforts there.

Middle schools are undergoing their own, district-wide reforms after poor or lackluster performance. Vitti said they will get new, science and engineering lab equipment.

Among the high schools, he announced that Vistakon has donated $200,000 to build an advanced manufacturing lab at Englewood High. Some Englewood freshmen will intern at Vistakon’s Jacksonville plant over the summer and visit it during the school year, part of a program that will result in college credit toward an associate’s degree by the time the students graduate from high school.

Similar programs involve other students at Englewood and Andrew Jackson high schools who are taking cyber security courses through Florida State College Jacksonville, he said.

Vitti acknowledged being challenged in two areas in Duval, affecting teachers and student literacy.

Vitti said some teachers have not been happy in their jobs, but he vowed to change that as principals undergo training to become better instructional coaches and problem-solvers.

“We didn’t do a very good job my first year; with my focus being on the classroom, we missed the connection between the leader and the teacher,” Vitti said. “The number one way to keep strong teachers in a school is to have a great leader in that school.”

Although Duval gets credit for higher graduation rates, especially among African-American students, it still needs to turn around its elementary reading scores, Vitti said.

Reading proficiency is highest in sixth and eighth grades but it has declined in the elementary grades. He vowed to strike more partnerships with organizations and with the city to promote literacy and to expand “blended learning,” involving computer-enhanced instruction.

“We have to do things differently,” he said.

Vitti also warned that even if students improve academically, their school grades may not this year.

In the past three year years, under the FCATs, the number of Duval schools graded D and F grew by 109 percent, Vitti said, while schools with those grades around the state grew by 123 percent. Much of that has to do with changing rules affecting state tests, he said, not necessarily student failures.

“The bulls-eye has shifted or moved for public education 40 different times in four years,” he said.

Students now began taking new state exams designed to measure critical thinking and college readiness. So far, eighth through 10th grade students taking the writing portion of the English Language Arts test last week had computer problems and twice the district halted testing, saying the problems were from state computer systems.

State officials said that last Thursday’s problems were probably caused by hackers and law enforcement is investigating. Meanwhile, 73 percent of the Duval’s testing students, and 69 percent in the state were able to finish it. The deadline is Friday.

Denise Amos: (904) 359-4083