Community Leaders Discuss School Audit

OCALA -- Local business and education leaders greeted an independent audit of Marion County public schools with enthusiasm and an eye toward the positive Monday morning at the Ocala/Marion County Chamber of Commerce Business/ Education Forum.

Auditors for SchoolMatch praised Marion County for high test scores for students in the college preparatory track and chided educators for an extremely high drop-out rate. SchoolMatch, a private company based in Westerville, Ohio, analyzes how well school districts educate students. It uses socioeconomic factors such as poverty level, income and education levels within the community to compare student populations. About 1,500 school districts share characteristics with Marion County. The audit whittles that down to 10 for a direct comparison.

It came here at the behest of the Marion 2020 Task Force, a group formed by the chamber's business/professional alliance. With Central Florida Community College President Charles Dassance as chairman, the group raised roughly $70,000 to pay for the audit. The Star-Banner kicked things off with a $10,000 challenge grant.

"I think it's a really balanced report," Dassance said. "There's an awful lot of positives, things we can feel good about.

"I don't know that our challenges are any greater than anybody else's," he added. "If we can just get people to come together and focus on them, we have a real potential to move ahead."

Other members of the Marion 2020 Task Force agreed.

"It's a great start, a great foundation," County Commissioner Steve Henning said. "The key is, we need to follow up on it and we adopt and accept some of what's being presented today.

"I think this was a very good, productive project," Ocala City Councilwoman Mary Rich added. "And I'm just hoping the superintendent and the School Board will put together a group to implement the suggestions."

Superintendent of Schools John Smith said he was impressed by the turnout, as more than 150 people attended the four-plus hour presentation.

"We look forward to continuing to work with the Marion 2020 Task Force," Smith said. "In fact I just got off the phone with Dr. Dassance and we're already planning some follow-up meetings to discuss the recommendations that were there."

School district staff development Director R.M. "Mack" Dunwoody said the ultimate solution won't be found only within district offices.

"For any kind of planning, for any kind of recommendation follow-through, it's really got to get the community involved, particularly with the school advisory councils," Dunwoody said.

Dr. James C. Manley, superintendent of the Northgate, Pa. school district, who gave the group an overview of his experiences with SchoolMatch, said that while his district got its audit a year ago, it only started putting new initiatives into practice in October.

"It's been a year-long process," Manley said. "We wanted to take time to really study and become knowledgeable of what changes we wanted to make." In all, SchoolMatch made 18 recommendations to improve Marion County's education system. Among them, auditors say the district should develop a districtwide strategic planincluding the curriculumand consider a reorganization of the central office.

"The whole concept of redoing the administrative office ... it'd be interesting to see some models of other districts to see how they do it differently," School Board Chairman Cheryl Appelquist said.

College Park Elementary School Principal Herbert DuPree said curriculum alignment caught his eye.

"I think it has some very important things we can look at particularly in paralleling curriculum so the elementary school can talk to the middle school, the middle school can talk to the high school," DuPree said. "We probably should go a step further. If we can set up some kind of districtwide committee to share that communication across the grade levels it would be a worthwhile effort."

SchoolMatch President and CEO William Bainbridge said the audit should be used as a benchmark for any district improvement plans Marion County should implement.

"We're just a snapshot in time," Bainbridge said. "It's hard for Marion County to do everything in the top effectiveness levels but it proves it can be done."

Top effectiveness levels are achieved by the top 15 to 20 percent of similar schools.

At their best, Marion County public schools exceed that standardmost notably in scores achieved by college-bound seniors on the American College Test and Scholastic Assessment Test.

Marion County students scored a combined 1,012 on the SAT and 20.8 on the ACT in 1997-98. Those scores were above the effectiveness level of 986 and 20.4 respectively.

"In other words, they're college-ready," said Roderick McDavis, Dean of the College of Education at the University of Florida, and one of the SchoolMatch auditors. "So the students you're sending off to collegemost of whom I hope you're sending off to the University of Floridaare well-prepared to enter into a college experience. And of course that predicts that they ought to do well."

That news was most heartening to North Marion High School Principal Walt Miller.

"We are doing a good job, I was pleased to hear what they're saying," Miller said. "If a student wants a good education in Marion County, they're going to get a good education in Marion County.

"But we need to focus on those students who may not necessarily want an education," he added. "That may sound crazy but we've got kids who really don't want to be at schooland we have to find a way to reach those kids."

Dealing with those type of studentsbefore the high school leveland keeping them from becoming a dropout statistic.

Marion County's drop-out rate of 17.52 percent is significantly higher than the average of 11.6 percent.

Both Bainbridge and McDavis pointed to an expansion of the Storefront drop-out recovery program as one solution. But they also pointed to a need for a more aggressive drop-out prevention program starting in the middle school years.

After a 45-minute brainstorming session, the 21 groups ranked the recommendations in order of importance.

Recommendations dealing with leadership and management attracted the most interest, with 10 groups listing either a redesign of the administrative staff (6) or creation of a system-wide plan (4) as a top priority.

After that, the concept of teaching all students "in the middle," who aren't either gifted or special-needs students showed up as a priority for eight groups.

Other areas ranked highly were augmenting the middle school program, reducing pupil/teacher ratios, drop-out prevention, upgrading technology and grade inflation.

In general, School Board members saw the report as a positive building block.

"I'm generally pleased," said Kathie Rushlow. "We certainly have got a lot of opportunities." "I was for this 100 percent," Jim Kelly said. "It can never hurt to be evaluated."

Ron Crawford said he wanted to reserve judgment until he'd read the entire 138 page report and learned the reasoning behind the recommendations.

"It sounds like they've got some very good, some very interesting suggestions," Crawford said. "What I'd like to do now is see what the backup waswhy did they reach that conclusion?"

Vice Chairman Leslie Scales said she thought a lot of productive ideas were shared throughout the morning.

"I thought the communication was wonderful," Scales said. "And having so much of the business community here was a big help.

"I think it gives us a basis for moving forward," she added. "We're having our second strategic planning workshop next week.

"Speaking for myself, I know this will be a basis for my thinking and I'm sure it will be for the other school board members."