1. “Best Practices” districts have had far more leadership continuity and
generally develop their leaders from within.
The table below compares superintendent tenure at FUSD, GGUSD and LBUSD over the last twenty years. Next to the name of each superintendent is the number of years the superintendent was in the district before he or she was appointed to lead the District. It is no coincidence that high-performing schools grow their own leaders and thrive on stability. It takes time to build a durable culture, and that culture is best perpetuated through leaders who have grown up in it. FUSD’s next door neighbor, Clovis Unified, is an example that complements the examples of LBUSD and GGUSD, having had a total of 5 Superintendents and 4 Chief Business Officers in 44 years. Of those 9 people, 6 were “home-grown”.
Year |
FUSD |
GGUSD |
LBUSD |
1984 |
John Stremple (0) |
Ed Dundon (12) |
Tom Giugni (0)* |
1985 |
|
|
|
1986 |
|
|
|
1987 |
|
|
|
1988 |
Glen Rathwick (32) |
|
|
1989 |
ET Lon Luty (0) |
|
|
1990 |
Frank Abbott (8)** |
|
|
1991 |
|
|
|
1992 |
Charles McCully (1) |
|
Carl Cohn (25) |
1993 |
|
|
|
1994 |
|
Ron Walter (34) |
|
1995 |
|
|
|
1996 |
|
|
|
1997 |
Carlos Garcia (5)** |
|
|
1998 |
|
|
|
1999 |
|
Laura Schwalm (27) |
|
2000 |
Santiago Wood (0) |
|
|
2001 |
|
|
|
2002 |
|
|
Chris Steinhauser (23) |
2003 |
|
|
|
2004 |
Walt Buster (0) |
|
|
2005 |
Chuck McCully (1) |
|
|
*Tom Giugni was the first “outsider” to be named Superintendent for LBUSD in 40 years
** Break of service before becoming superintendent.
2. “Best Practices” districts define governance roles very clearly and respect
those roles rigorously.
The clarity with which roles and responsibilities are understood at GUSD and
LBUSD is enviable.
The Board understands that its role is to set policy, monitor district performance, adopt an annual budget, approve major capital expenditures, and to hire and evaluate the Superintendent. That’s it. It is a governance board, not a management board. It does not micro-manage; it does not engage in minutiae; it does not second-guess the Superintendent. Board meetings are short (30 to 60 minutes) because the Superintendent communicates extensively with the Board members between meetings and most matters are addressed by consent. None of this is to say that Board members are disengaged. In both districts, each Board member participates in at least two standing committees that are continuously looking for ways to improve the District. LBUSD holds three two-day workshops per year for all Board members.
The Superintendents also have a crystal-clear understanding of their role. Having grown up in the District, they are already imbued with the culture of the District. They know their role is to translate the Board’s goals and policies into operational goals, strategies and tactics and to focus the organization on superb execution. Superintendents in both Districts told the Task Force that the majority of their time is spent on communications and performance monitoring, both aimed at ensuring continuous alignment of the organization with the District’s overarching goals.
Principals are the CEO’s of their schools, but they realize that they play this role in the context of the District’s overarching goals. They sign up to the centralized policies of the District because they know they, their teachers, and most importantly their students, are the beneficiaries of those policies. Beyond that, they have an entrepreneurial role: to augment District strategies with their own tactics and programs suited to the specific mission of their school. Each school has its own demographics. There are traditional schools, magnet schools and charter schools. It is the role of each Principal to create the best possible environment for academic achievement, consistent with the District policies and goals of the Board. At LBUSD and GGUSD they do so in the knowledge that their personnel decisions will not be second-guessed by the Superintendent or the Board.
Teachers are the heart of the District. They are where “the rubber meets the road”. It is their personal contact with the students that will ultimately make the difference. At LBUSD and GGUSD, teachers are always looking for new and better ways to make a difference. The culture is one of continuous improvement. The relentless focus of the District on professional development is welcomed by the teachers. They know how big a challenge they have to deal with, and they are hungry for better ways to help address that challenge. The culture is also one of always putting the kids ahead of the adults. Schedules are set to fit the needs of the kids, not the adults. Every effort is made to match student needs with teacher skills. Most people who go into teaching do so because they have a passion for developing young people into successful adults. At LBUSD and GGUSD, that passion pervades decision-making.
Other certificated personnel provide valuable support to classroom teachers – as reading and math coaches, as curricular experts, as counselors, etc.
Classified employees are the glue that makes the system work.As office workers, or providers of facilities construction, repair and maintenance; as bus drivers, as food preparers and servers; they are all critical to supporting the ultimate goal of promoting student achievement.
3. “Best Practices” districts organize themselves around their overarching Academic Goals and relentlessly emphasize teamwork. Those with line responsibility for students and teachers drive the train while the role of other staff is to remove the obstacles in the way.
The members of the Task Force who come from the business sector recognized great similarities between good corporate cultures and the cultures of GGUSD and LBUSD. Good cultures focus relentlessly on the customer; they give priority to training those in the organization who have direct contact with the customer; they excel at creating positive customer-provider environments; they have a commitment to constant improvement of the products they offer to serve the needs of the customer.
That’s what we saw at GGUSD and LBUSD. The customers are the students. The teachers are the providers. The schools are the environment; and the product is academic achievement. The Superintendent, the Principals and the classified personnel are there to make it all come together and make it better every day, and everything is organized around that understanding.
Organizations in both Districts are flat (see Appendix “I”). At FUSD, the last permanent Superintendent had 3 direct reports, while at GGUSD it’s 7 and at LBUSD it’s a mind-boggling 20. In both of the latter, there are Assistant Superintendents for elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, and they all report directly to the Superintendent. Keeping the lines of communications as short as possible from students to teachers to principals to the Superintendent is a priority at these “best practices” districts. Grouping each of the three school categories under one Assistant Superintendent assures common goals and strategies and sharing of internal best practices.
Although the organization charts may not clearly show this, both districts effectively work in “matrix” organizations, with the vertical dimension of the matrix being the “line” organization, from Superintendent to Principal to Teacher, and the horizontal dimension being the “support staffs” (Facilities, Evaluation/Research, Business Services, etc.). “Matrix” organizations are designed to encourage teamwork. The roles are clear. It is intended that the “line” organization drive the train, while the “support staff” is there to remove the obstacles on the track and make sure the train is as good as it can be.
4. “Best Practices” districts understand the value of direct communications and strive to house all administrative personnel in the same physical facility.
Effective “matrix” organizations require frequent, direct communications. They are almost impossible to run effectively when personnel are spread out in multiple facilities, which is the case at FUSD, where administration personnel are housed in seven different buildings. By contrast, the administrative staffs of both GGUSD and LBUSD are virtually all housed in single facilities.
5. “Best Practices” districts know what to centralize and what to decentralize.
As is discussed more fully in Appendix “G”, high-performing districts know which functions to centralize and which to decentralize. At FUSD, some of those decisions appear to have been made backwards. There has been little direction from the central office on “core” curriculum, textbooks, English language development programs and intervention programs. In a district with as much transiency as FUSD, there must be a uniform and consistent “core” educational approach that individual schools can supplement to meet their needs. This educational approach must be supported with extensive, mandatory professional development. It is the only way to build the durable culture and educational philosophy that is so lacking at FUSD.
Readers will find other comments about centralization and decentralization of functions in the recommendations section of this report and in Appendix “G.” For example, character education should be uniformly implemented across the District; a uniform code of conduct should be uniformly and consistently applied; certain services, such as food services, must be and are already managed centrally to ensure uniform quality and economies of scale. In short, if uniform and consistent implementation is important to the achievement of the District’s goals, or if economies of scale can be obtained, then it should be managed centrally. Beyond that, principals should be given maximum flexibility and budget authority to manage everything else.
6. The Human Resource policies of “Best Practices” districts are aligned to the Academic Goals of the district.
Following are some examples of human resource policies at LBUSD and GGUSD that demonstrate their commitment to academic achievement over all other considerations.
Priority is given to matching student needs to teacher skills. The more troubled schools get priority in teacher hiring. This may be an inconvenience to teachers who would rather not go to the more troubled schools, but the culture is that the kids always come first.
Class Scheduling is designed around the needs of the kids. If a school needs seven periods, including a double-math period, that’s what it gets. If a school needs seven periods to accommodate vocational training, that’s what it gets.
The adults in the system must be the role models. LBUSD has a dress code for all personnel. GGUSD does not, but professional dress is a subject of constant emphasis by the Superintendent. All personnel hired by both districts must undergo pre-hire drug testing.
Practices that restrict civic volunteering, particularly where parents are involved, are studiously avoided.
7. “Best Practices” districts have excellent union-management relation-ships, focused on a shared agenda of providing the best possible education to the children.
Resolution of the fiscal and academic problems at FUSD will be highly dependent on FUSD’s ability to emulate this characteristic of “best practices” districts. The Task Force believes that the pursuit of a shared agenda at FUSD is not only possible, but indispensable to the successful turn-around of FUSD.
8. “Best Practices” districts have engrained practices of stakeholder engagement.
More will be said on this topic later in this report. In this section, the Task Force wants to emphasize the aspect of employee involvement. Both GGUSD and LBUSD place a high value on soliciting employee input into their decision-making. This applies to both certificated and classified employees. The belief is that the best decisions are made by listening to the people who actually teach the kids, deliver services to them and provide an environment that is conducive to learning.
9. “Best Practices” schools have a culture of continuous improvement.
The Task Force discussions with the Superintendent’s at both GGUSD and LBUSD pointed out just how committed they are to continuous improvement. They were less interested in talking about beneficial changes they had made in earlier years than the changes they were making this year to make things better. Both districts have received recent acclaim as the best urban districts in the nation, yet there was no resting on laurels. They both stressed how far they have to go to meet their goals. Every drop-out, every child that fails to pass a test, is a heartfelt failure that adds fuel to a pervasive “let’s fix it” attitude. In the context of a durable set of overarching goals, there is constant adjustment of strategies, tactics and techniques to help accelerate progress.
10. “Best Practices” districts “walk the talk” on accountability.
“Best practices” districts understand that what you measure is what gets done. They know what their goals are at every level in the organization, and they measure them incessantly. At the same time that they provide extensive training and support, they are never in doubt as to their priority: educating the children.
As has been pointed out, GGUSD and LBUSD fill their leadership positions primarily from within. This means that principals and other senior administrators usually have long-term relationships, even friendships, with those who appoint them. Yet the culture at both Districts is that the interests of the children always take precedence over the interests of the adults, despite the relationships and friendships that bond the adults. A teacher who has been promoted to principal will receive lots of training and support, but if they do not perform, they will be back in the classroom, where they can make a better contribution to the children than as principals. The same is true of teachers. They will get lots of training and support, but if they aren’t getting results that advance the interests of the children as defined by District and school goals, they will be reassigned or be gone.
This commitment to performance and accountability is not intended to be punitive – it is simply intended to advance the goals of the District, with the children at the heart of those goals. There is no “dance of the lemons” at these school districts. It works because there is a shared agenda, built on trust, that unites all stakeholders, including administrators and union leaders.