Time Keeps On Slippin'...

[Chris_Wendt]

...into the Future!

I read on W-S Patch that the Board has canceled tomorrow's Planning Session. I have been unable to find an agenda for that meeting, but I simply cannot believe that they have nothing to deal with.

Like the 3-year District Technology Plan, which expired on June 30th. What could the BoE do with or about the District Technology Plan tomorrow evening?

• For one, they could review the results, the successes and the failures of the Plan, and take account of what still needs to be done with and about technology in Wantagh
  
• For two, they could start work on the next 3-year District Technology Plan, using those same successes and failures as a blueprint.

Then a funny (chuckle?) thing happened as I once again started reading through the now-expired 3-year District Technology Plan(hyperlink). It was like recalling Bluto's soliloquy in National Lamthingy's Animal House:

"Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer... Dead!"

Nothing quite so drastic, but equally as dramatic, reading the top players on the roster of the 2010-2013 Wantagh Technology Plan:

District Technology Committee

• Dr. Lydia Begley, Superintendent of Schools
  
• Pat Krizan, Assistant to the Superintendent for Instruction
  
• Donald Murphy, Director of Technology
  
• Dr. Jeannette Stern, Principal, Wantagh Middle School
• ...and a cast of dozens

Now we have a new roster. Time for the Educational Leader to hand out the lineup, who's on first, shift the shortstop toward second, and what's the batting order for the first inning?

Even more difficult than trying to make a winning season out of what's left of the NY Yankees player roster, the leadership of the Wantagh School District has a lot to do.

Time...keeps on slippin'...into the future!

Let's get crackin'!

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

...or, they could review the outdated & expired Acedemic Intervention Services Plan (hyperlink to 2012-13 AIS Plan) .

Among the action items required in the currently posted plan are the following milestones:

• January 2012
  • The committee meets to continue to review the district plan.
    
  • Committee members share information and gathered feedback at building level.
  • Input is used in the development of the revised district AIS plan.
• May 2012
  • The plan is submitted to the Superintendent for review and comment.
• June 2012
  • Board of Education approves the Academic Intervention Services Plan
• January 2013
  
  • The committee meets to discuss any revisions to the plan.
    
  • Changes are submitted to the
    Superintendent of Schools.
• May/June 2013
  • The revised plan is submitted to the Board of Education for review, comment, and adoption.
    
  • (Implied: the BoE should meet, review, discuss, and eventually adopt the Plan)

With two new board members and two new board officers recently sworn-in, I would think they would benefit from a formal presentation and review of this important District Plan.

Reading through the Plan posted on the District website, I have the following observations or comments:

• Nowhere in The Plan is there found any reference to RTI. It is not that RTI and AIS exist totally independently of each other. Maybe the forthcoming 2013-2015 AIS Plan will be articulated with RTI (and vice-versa)?
  
  
• the Data Analysis topic in the AIS Plan appears to be superficial, at least in terms of accountability:

  Data Analysis
  Student data from State and local assessment instruments are reviewed regularly by the Assistant
  Superintendent for Instruction, principals, directors and department supervisors. Current and
  longitudinal data are also analyzed to determine academic needs and improve instruction.

  This apparent superficiality flows through to the next bullet point....
  
  
• the Record Keeping topic in the plan presents a real opportunity for improvement in the revised 2013-2105 AIS Plan. There are five (5) items that the current Plan requires as part of its record keeping protocol. All five (5) are student-specific, and the items are all kept in one of these places:
  • "...the student’s cumulative record"
  • "...the student’s record"
  • "...the student’s cumulative folder"
  • "...the record", or
  • "...on file"

What are the opportunities for improving the record keeping facet of a revised Wantagh AIS Plan?

• get the nomenclature standardized for precisely where which student records are to be maintained and by whom.
• Wantagh expends loads of time, effort, and money on supportive services, yet the AIS Plan does not require any summary data to be produced nor any longitudinal or cost-benefit analysis to be performed, reported to the Board, published, or maintained as part of "Record Keeping".
  
• Similarly, summary data from AIS could be articulated with summary data from RTI, and then all of that summary data integrated into a database with Assessment results (data), and then also used for a variety of longitudinal and cost-benefit analyses.

But we seem to be content with just dropping individual student AIS sheets into individual student folders, leaving them to sit there until perhaps some cause of action arises from a dissatisfied parent.

I mean, in business, you don't run expensive or regulated/mandated programs of any kind without developing, publishing, reporting and analyzing summary data and the cost-benefits of the program(s).

To be fair to the Board, they certainly cannot review or adopt a revised, updated AIS Plan until and unless such revisions and updating are done by the Administration and presented to the Board for action.

As I said at the top of this blog, time keeps on slippin'...
...into the future!

Back to the Future!

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

...but then there is the matter of RTI (Response to Intervention) which is a state-mandated approach to developing and implementing intervening strategies before any student is classified, in the earnest hope of preventing unnecessary classifications through the RTI Process (of early interventions).

For the record, the district's DRAFT RTI Plan (2012) does reference Academic Interventions (in a way that is very similar to AIS), and, the DRAFT RTI Plan does in fact use the term "AIS" one time, as an indicator for proving RTI to Kindergartners who are not ready to exit an AIS program.

This is confusing to me, because, I cannot understand how a Kindergartner would be receiving AIS without first having received RTI, and/or without having scored appropriately (2 or 1) on a state assessment, and, presuming we have a Kindergartner receiving AIS, then when, during Kindergarten, would it be determined that the student has not met his/her AIS exit requirements...and thus wouldn't we be talking about First Grade instead?

But the more confusing stuff is that the AIS Plan is prominently listed under the Approved District Plans tab on the website (despite the fact the AIS Plan is out of date/expired), while the DRAFT RTI Plan is over in the margin, still in "DRAFT" form. Yet, on Page 7 of the BoE Minutes of 9-13-2012, on the recommendation of Superintendent Phil D'Angelo, the Board passed a motion:

"...approving Policy Nos. 4705 and 9005, as attached."

...immediately prior to adjourning into executive session to take up a "specific personnel matter".
Digging deeper to the back of the Agenda, something rather similar to the "DRAFT RTI Plan" was approved by the Board as (Policy) #4705, titled: "SUBJECT: RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI) PROCESS". The word "Policy" is not used, and within the document the words "Process" and "Program" seem to have been used interchangeably, but the word "Plan" does not appear.

So I think I have concluded the basis for confusion involving RTI and AIS as arising from:

• AIS is called a Plan, and as such is included as an Approved District Plan on the website, regardless of its having become outdated and expired);
• there does not seem to be an "AIS POLICY", although there may be one, somewhere.
  
• The DRAFT RTI Plan seems to have morphed in Policy #4705, leaving the DRAFT RTI Plan to languish in the margin of the website, seemingly never to be finalized and then moved over into the Approved District Plans tab.
• Although Policy #4705 is not called a "POLICY", it was passed as such on the Board Agenda, and has thus been relegated to that vast no-man's land known as The Board Policy Manual, and will thus never appear in public, i.e. on the district's website.

My personal frustration over this is the lack of clarity or articulation between AIS and RTI, coupled with the seeming absence of any stated intention in either Policy or Process or Plan to produce summary data that will cross-reference AIS and RTI activities, providing reports that can inform the district, including and especially the Board members, about the levels, amounts, efficacy (educational benefits), and cost-benefits of AIS & RTI from year-to-year. It looks like (but I am quite sure this in NOT the case) that the District is merely complying with federal and state regulations concerning AIS & RTI, and coming up with stuff that seems to fill the bill, administratively at least, if not academically, as intended. As I stated, I am sure that is not the case in reality, but appearances often do not square with reality.

Our website needs lots of work.

...into the future!"

Chris Wendt