Study: Schools' revamp plan falls short

By Jim Saunders
Times-Union staff writer

When Duval County School Board members approved a reorganization plan this spring, they said it would bring administrators closer to the schools they serve.

The plan is pretty simple: Break up the sprawling school system into five regions, each with its own administrator. Then move dozens of employees from central offices to the regions - in some cases, actually into school buildings.

But experts hired by The Florida Times-Union to study the school system say the plan, which takes effect next month, is missing a key ingredient: teaching. They say school officials should take the ideas they've used in the reorganization and extend them to programs that determine what, and how, children are taught.

Under the concept, downtown bureaucrats no longer would oversee academic programs, according to SchoolMatch, an Ohio-based education consulting firm. They would be replaced by some of the county's best teachers, who would be assigned to work with other teachers in improving children's performances.

''I think there are too many services [in the Duval system] that are centralized, particularly instructional services,'' said M. Donald Thomas, executive consultant to SchoolMatch.

The Times-Union hired SchoolMatch this spring to study the 125,000-student school system and suggest ways it can improve. The study, released last week, comes at a critical time: The School Board is looking for a new superintendent and an appointed citizens commission is trying to come up with a vision for the system.

The study also came as interim Superintendent Donald Van Fleet drew up a reorganization plan that will move employees such as special-education specialists and social workers into regional offices. The plan will leave in place the central administrators who do such things as oversee math, science and language-arts programs.

School Board member Susan Wilkinson said she agreed with the SchoolMatch idea of turning over more responsibilities to qualified teachers. She said central administrators can lose touch with what's going on in schools.

''You get stale and you lose touch,'' Wilkinson said. ''And the other thing is, who knows better how to be an effective teacher than some of our master teachers in our classrooms?''

SchoolMatch has conducted more than 600 audits of school systems nationwide. In Duval County, SchoolMatch officials reviewed school policies, interviewed dozens of administrators and teachers, looked at thousands of school records and surveyed parents, teachers and administrators.

The recommended changes to the administrative structure, SchoolMatch officials said, would shift more emphasis to classroom instruction and beef up efforts to hold teachers and principals accountable.

Along with giving teachers more responsibility for instructional programs, SchoolMatch said the system should create a new office that would set educational standards and hold schools accountable for meeting them.

Van Fleet said yesterday he will recommend the School Board approve creating such an office. Standards are now set and monitored by the system's instruction department, which also oversees academic programs.

Van Fleet's reorganization, which School Board members approved last month, is aimed at decentralizing the school system. It will shift 65 employees from central offices to newly formed regional offices this summer; 77 others will move during the next year.

Most of the jobs targeted for moves will come in the system's special-education and student-services departments, said Veronica Valentine, who directs special-education programs. People who will move this year include special-education admissions specialists, technology specialists, psychologists and social workers.

Each of the regional offices also will include an administrator who will work with principals and oversee the operations of schools within the region.

Thomas, of SchoolMatch, said Van Fleet's changes are a ''move in the right direction.'' But Thomas said SchoolMatch officials think it's crucial the school system also decentralize instructional programs.

In the SchoolMatch design, instructional administrators would be replaced by so-called ''master teachers'' who would work in schools. Those master teachers would help other teachers improve student achievement in problem areas.

For example, Thomas said, if data showed students performed poorly in reading, the system could assign its master teachers to work with other teachers on reading instruction. No one would serve as a master teacher for more than three years before heading back to a regular teaching job.

Van Fleet said he agreed with SchoolMatch's ideas about decentralizing instructional programs. But he said he does not have a large enough instructional staff to make the changes.

Board member Linda Sparks said she is pleased with the changes Van Fleet has made, but she agrees with SchoolMatch the school system needs to further decentralize.

Sparks, for example, said teachers often should receive training in their classrooms from other qualified teachers, rather than attending seminars in an administration building.

''You can't learn to ride a bicycle by watching a video,'' she said. ''And I think it's equally true you can't learn to be an effective teacher by listening to somebody tell you how to do it.''

One school district that has decentralized its instructional programs, similar to the SchoolMatch design, is the 75,000-student Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas.

Pat Linares, an assistant superintendent, said Fort Worth made the change two years ago. It involved breaking the district into four quadrants and assigning a staff of curriculum and instructional specialists to each quadrant.

Previously, the district's instructional staff had been housed in a central administration building, Linares said. Now, specialists are housed in each of the quadrants, closer to the schools they serve.

Each staff is made up of people with different specialties - for example, one employee could focus on reading, another on math, Linares said. The specialists go into classrooms to work with teachers, help tailor curriculums to individual schools and provide teacher training.

Linares, who until recently headed one of the quadrants, said principals and teachers have reacted positively to the change.

''I think they are able to feel like they have somebody who is right there for them,'' she said.