MV schools implementing district-wide initiative to boost student learning

A copy of “Moneyball” sits on a round, wooden table in Carl Bruner’s office. He hasn’t read the book, in which author Michael Lewis chronicles Oakland A’s general manger Billy Beane and his use of statistical analysis in professional baseball.

But the similarities in baseball and school districts share one commonality — funding.

Just as Beane must stretch his team’s salary budget, the Mount Vernon School District Superintendent must get the greatest student achievement from the district’s revenue.

To help make that challenge easier, Mount Vernon recently obtained a state grant that will fund a district-wide effort to improve teaching. The grant covers costs for a number of tools — from national education professionals to test data analysis — to help involved districts improve their student performance.

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) came up with the pilot program, which is being tested in four other Washington state schools in addition to Mount Vernon.

Bruner said the program’s hypothesis is that school districts with unique challenges, such as poverty or a large number of non-English speaking students, can make district-wide teaching adjustments faster if given access to additional funds and resources.

School districts ordinarily fund teacher improvement programs, or professional development, for individual schools. The state grant allows all Mount Vernon schools to participate.

“What’s different is typically we have enough funding (for specific schools),” Bruner said. “What we don’t have funding to do is get everybody on board.”

Starting next month, the district will begin to utilize the all-inclusive strategy, called the Summit District Improvement Initiative.

There are three elements to the initiative, Bruner said — funding, technical assistance and facilitators.

The state grant provides approximately $280,000 for base funding, but additional costs could be incurred.

Using a number of consulting groups, district officials will begin to collect data in October and November based on surveys, classroom observation findings and test results.

Meanwhile, six school improvement facilitators will be brought in to give advice and work with local principals for approximately 15 hours per week, Bruner said.

Individual facilitators will work at the high school and middle schools, while three will be available to the district’s six elementary schools.

Based on that analysis and data, the district will create a plan in December to take into account the possible changes, Bruner said.

The state office has been funding school improvement assistance grants since 2001, and Mount Vernon has received grants for individual schools, such as the high school and the middle schools since then, Bruner said.

Beth Ashley, Mount Baker Middle School principal, said the school began to receive training for a similar school-wide grant in January 2002. Since then, the school has received state accolades and honorable mention awards for raising its Washington State Assessment of Student Learning scores, she said.

“Our school has stayed very truthful to that, and we’ve seen that it has truly in my mind revolutionized our school,” she said. “We’ve created a culture where we’re focused on our mission and everything revolves around that.”

Teachers and administrators work together to analyze data and it’s helped improve test scores, Ashley said, adding that having a similar program in place at the district level is something to look forward to.

“That will happen at the district level as well,” she said.

Twenty-one districts were invited to apply to this year’s pilot program and submitted letters of interest to OSPI. According to district officials, selection was determined by need. The state office selected Mount Vernon and Renton school districts on the west side of the state and chose Wapato, Mount Adams and Othello school districts on east side.

“For students, there won’t be much impact right away,” Bruner said. “Once it gets rolling, we see us getting better and better.”