Superintendent Schiff describes his vision of how to change the school system
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Here are glimpses of the future of Hillsborough schools, as outlined Monday night by Superintendent Jorden Schiff:
Teachers can deliver to their classes any photo or sound they wish, using a digital device the school has provided. If it’s part of an experimental lesson, that’s OK because innovative practices are encouraged.
Students might follow along on a computer device also supplied by the district and be free to use that computer to listen to lectures or explore the digital world on their own time. They might use it to attend to their lessons in the early morning or late at night and send their “homework” to the teacher via the etherworld.
Dr. Schiff presented his “Building on Excellence” report to the Board of Education on Monday night. He subtitled it as a “starting point to inform a new strategic plan” for the district.
Dr. Schiff suggested setting goals of giving teachers portable computers to use and take home within the next four years as well as some computer or e-pad to students in grades five to 12 within the next five. The prices aren’t much more than a textbook, he said, and they’re reducing in price all the time.
Plus, the future of education may lie in e-textbooks, which potentially offer much more than the paper kind, he said.
He touched on other areas: how to monitor students’ progress, how to ease and educate teachers into accepting a new way of doing business and operational and facilities reforms and projects.
He suggested collaborative student projects, like the extracurricular RoboRaiders club, as part of the school curriculum for STEM science, technology, engineering and math.
All in all, he called his suggestions a “paradigm shift … it’s not a small change,” Dr. Schiff said.
In the era of scrutiny on student achievement, he said schools need to maintain a close statistical watch on standardized test scores and develop measurement systems with which teachers, parents and the board are comfortable.
Teachers will have to be schooled; new state law is likely to mandate teachers be evaluated for tenure and raises at least in part on the performance of their students. He said the teachers have agreed to a contract that includes having two meetings a month in which teachers engage in collaborative discussions professional conversations on how kids are doing and how they could do better, he said.
Dr. Schiff talked about “teacher leadership institutes” to develop those who’ll be in the forefront in the classroom.
The district might take a year talking to teachers, he said. And principals also will need a revised evaluation system, too, he said.
It all would be done within a budget maintaining a 2 percent cap on annual property tax increases, he said. Some new money would come from revenue-generating initiatives like the after-school kindergarten program that will begin this fall or perhaps an adult school, he said.
He suggested using green energy initiatives to reduce energy use. Perhaps deals could be struck that would result in solar panels on school property in exchange for new roofs and reduced electrical costs, he said. If money is made, perhaps it could go to other initiatives, he said.
He said the schools need to put more documents and meeting and committee minutes online for the world to see.
The most discussion came on two governance issues Dr. Schiff asked be addressed expeditiously. He wanted the board to rearrange its committee structure by reducing nine committees to just three operations, education and human resources. He asked the board to hold two meetings a month in which decisions can be made and to have those meetings two weeks apart in a month.
Board member Greg Gillette said he was reluctant to start a strategic plan process only two years after the last one had been completed.
But board president Steven Paget said, “We hired this superintendent to be visionary, and I enjoyed this document more than any I remember of this kind of report.”
Vice President March Rosenberg said he saw Dr. Schiff’s document as enlightening and well done and said it was “the first strategic analysis I’ve seen done” in the six years he has been on the board.
Members discussed the pros and cons of changing the committee structure before voting, 4-3, with one abstention, to try three committees for six months.
While Mr. Rosenberg called the idea “a breakthrough,” member Judy Haas had a problem with revising the committee structure. She said she thought it took responsibilities away from the board and gave it to the administration. She worried topics like policy and public communication would get lost in a new setup.
Dr. Paget said some of the present committees are busier than others, and aligning committees to goals might be useful. He said he would be willing to try it for six months.
Dr. Schiff suggested the committees have four members (five or more would mean the meetings would have to be open to the public) and the chairmanship be rotated among those members on a four-month basis. Mr. Gillette said a lot of the committee work falls on the chairman, and he didn’t think rotating the job would work well.
Dr. Schiff suggested moving meetings to Thursdays to give board members not only the weekend but a couple of more days to review material for meetings. Mrs. Haas, Mr. Gillette and Christopher Pulsifer said they didn’t like the idea of switching meeting nights, and Thomas Kinst said Monday meetings allowed him to travel the rest of the week.
By a show of hands, at least six members wanted to continue meetings on Mondays. But the committee experiment was approved narrowly with Thuy Ann Le, Mr. Pulsfier, Mr. Rosenberg and Dr. Paget voting for it, and Mr. Gillette, Mr. Kinst and Mrs. Haas against. Dana Boguszewski abstained, and Jennifer Haley was absent.