School board delays annual improvement plan again 

Diyonne McGraw at a recent School Board of Alachua County meeting.
Diyonne McGraw at a recent School Board of Alachua County meeting.
Photo by Glory Reitz

The School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) delayed approval again on the annual improvement plan portion of the strategic plan for Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) during a regular meeting on Tuesday. 

The board approved the 3-year strategic plan’s strategy map portion of the plan on Sept. 3 but asked staff to come back with more detail for the annual improvement plans, which include critical initiatives to be implemented in Year 1 for each strategic theme: teacher recruitment and retention, system and organizational processes, student achievement and professional learning. 

Jacquatte Rolle, ACPS’s chief of teaching and learning, said the plan had been updated to include quantifiable key measures for Year 1, but the whole plan still fit on one page

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The critical initiatives on the plan, and their key measures, are as follows: 

Critical Initiative: Implement highly effective practices for recruitment and retention. 

  • Increase the percentage of filled positions by 10% 
  • Increase the retention percentage of new teachers (five years or less) by 5% 

Critical Initiative: Identify and clarify roles and responsibilities of all staff within the district. 

  • 10% increase in the number of clicks on the website after the new link on the website is activated 
  • 70% of participants strongly agree or agree they were able to identify the correct person or department 

Critical Initiative: Utilize multiple sources of data more efficiently to inform instructional decisions and implementation of systems of instruction. 

  • Meet or exceed state averages on all required state assessments 
  • Meet or exceed state averages for high school graduation 

Critical Initiative: Establish and document a shared vision of staff performance. 

  • 75% of staff and teachers report receiving and understanding ACPS vision of professional learning and expectations of performance through professional learning and support 

No board member made a motion to approve or deny the annual improvement plan, but Board Members Kay Abbitt, Sarah Rockwell and Tina Certain said the plan still lacked the information and measurability needed to make it a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goal. 

Rockwell said the plan is not ready for public consumption, and while she understood that the plans must be flexible, she still wanted to see more measurability and methodology. 

“It’s missing the route,” Rockwell said. “You have a starting point, your critical initiative, and the key measure that, oftentimes, is your ending point, and you’re missing the entire route along the way.” 

Board Chair Diyonne McGraw said the SBAC will need to have a special meeting to discuss the strategic plan, saying the board wastes time every time the plan comes back, and that there is a failure of communication between the board’s desires and staff’s product. 

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BillS

Is the word “DISFUNCTIONAL” too harsh regarding this board?

Lynn

This plan has some meaningless numbers, but none of the HOW!
WHAT are the highly effective practices the board will use to increase recruitment and retention of teachers? (Certainly wasn’t increase salaries)
How will the board increase teacher retention? Name SOMETHING! ANYTHING!
How will you get people to “click” on roles and responsibilities and why should they bother? The board, superintendent, SOMEONE Assign specific roles/responsibilities and monitor if DONE! Yes, no or in process.
What sources of data don’t we have? How will data be used differently from what we have now? Will curriculum be allowed to change to meet info obtained from data? Or just more of we know what to do, just can’t/wont DO IT!
I’ll stop. But until you add the critical part, “HOW are we going to get these things done?” into any plan, its not worth even the one piece of paper.