Central Falls High School

SWOT Analysis & Strategic Plan

Juan Ramirez, Carlos Rodriguez, Quang Tran, & Alesander Olaizola

Case Summary

• Student achievement at CFHS had remained among the lowest in the state

• Central Falls School District (CFSD) had been in state-administered corrective action since 2002

• In January 2010, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) identified Central Falls High School (CFHS) as one of the state’s persistently lowest-achieving schools

• RIDE’s Protocol for Intervention:• Turnaround

• Restart

• School closure

• Transformation

Case Summary (Cont.)

• The original selected Protocol for Intervention was transformation

• Negative of the CFHS Teacher Union to collaborate

• Turnaround model is selected: all teachers are fired from Central Falls HS

• Months of negotiations, lawsuits, and division among teachers, and parents, the Union and the Superintendent reached an agreement to rehire all teachers and adopt pretty much the original transformation model of six points

• The union original wanted $10,990 in additional pay for teacher under this model and district offered $3, 420. They finally agreed to settle at $5,800 of salary increase in stipend and extra duty pay.

• Challenges• Central Falls HS is ready to start its new phase a school. Yet with no principal,

Central Falls is ready to start the new school year and get its way to improve student achievement and elevate its standards to a high performing school.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Small and diverse campus (the only HS in the district)• +800 students

• Diverse student body:

• 72% Hispanic, 15% Black, and 13% White

• Small campus is easy to manage

• Small but steady student achievement gains (2007-2009)• Reading from 33% to 55%

• Math from 3% to 7%

• Special Populations:

• 11th grade Hispanic students 10% average gains in getting proficiency or advance

• Low-income students showed on average 12% in gains in Reading and 2% in Math

31%

3%

28%

0%

43%

4%

42%

3%

51%

6%

54%

8%

CFHS Hispanic 11th Grade Reading Proficency

CFHS Hispanic 11th Grade Math Proficency

CFHS Low-Income 11th Grade Reading Proficency

CFHS Low-Income 11th Grade Math Proficency

Perecentage of CFHS 11th Grade Students Proficient or Advanced in Reading and Math

2007 2008 2009

Strengths

• Some dedicated teachers

• Free tutoring (Partnership)

• New teacher’s evaluation system ready to implement

• Current state awareness (data available)

• School Intervention Plan development lead by the

superintendent in collaboration with stakeholders

• Compromise between administration and union

• Both parts agreed to the new labor contract required by the

transformation model.

Weaknesses

• Low scores: Central Fall HS has been an underperforming school for the last 7 years. • Math proficiency of 11th graders is 7%, and in Reading 55%

• Central Fall HS is performing below the state average at every level

• 27% of students are LEP (Limited English Proficiency)

• Low graduation rate• Graduation rate 52%, very far from the annual yearly goal (AYP) of

75% outlined by NCLB.

• High dropout rate• Estimated dropout rate is around 30%

• High leadership turnover• Four principals in four years, there is no continuity in leadership

Weaknesses (Cont.)

• Lack continuum of intervention system• During the last four years the school has changed from two houses

(one for freshmen and sophomores and one for juniors and seniors) and six periods schedule to four period-schedule and four interdisciplinary theme academies in the upper house, but not consistency in the programs.

• Teachers and parents divided• some teachers supported the superintended and many more

supported the union. There is a mix feeling that the superintendent did not have respect for teacher and another group of teacher feel like the union did not represent their interest and never brought the issue to vote and consideration.

• Toxic culture • Seven years low academic performance

• Culture of mediocrity and low expectations

• Teachers are divided between those who support the superintendent and those who support the union

• Low morale

Weaknesses (Cont.)

• Low socioeconomic status: Health related issues (TB)

• District’s approach too proactive: chose Intervention Model 1, Transformation (but in a one high school district this means firing 50% of the HS teaching staff)...but no school had been labeled chronically low performing, yet.

• No cooperation among stakeholders • Teachers' union representatives made decisions without the full

support of its members.

• CFSD Superintendent Francis (Frances) Gallo failed to reach consensus at the beginning.

• Parents' views were largely missing from public debate.

• Campus Safety: violence

• Limited resources (no RTTT funding): state did not make it as a finalist in the RTTT. Having to get teachers' unions consent was a big factor in getting RTTT money

• Firings viewed as politically motivated by teachers

Opportunities• Funding grants

• Federal governments' race to the top (RTTT) or any other grand or funding from the state or federal government

• Small district• 6 schools (4 elementary, 1 middle and 1 high school), the district can be handle

more easily than a large district.

• District-wide improvement programs implementation

• Strategic Partnerships• University of Rhode Island to offer college courses (dual courses) and free

tutoring

• Local foundation has offered $1 million in support

• Stakeholders input• The superintendent got input for the intervention plan from the parents,

teachers, the University of Rhode Island, and services agencies (think tank group)

• New leadership• Once the intervention plan has been approved by the district and the union, the

new principal has the opportunity to star fresh a new school culture that will bring Central Falls HS to a new level of performance and student achievement

• CFTU and CFHS new labor agreement

Threats

• Negative media• For three months Central Falls HS has been in the news from firing

and re-hiring the whole faculty and staff

• The media can politicize the district vs. the teacher's union

• Conflicting legislation• Commissioner's authority to intervene low performing schools

• State teachers collective bargaining law

• Confusing RIDE school intervention protocols• Stakeholder are confused as to which model is better for the needs

of Central Falls HS

• Dense area population• The area where central falls is located is one of the most densely

populated areas.

Threats (Cont.)

• Socio-Economic enviroment• 41% of children of the Central Falls SD live under the poverty level and media

income for a family of 4 is only $33,520 (half of national average).

• State deficits• Decrease in state revenue may decrease the budget for Central Falls HS

• Short tenure of district's top level leadership• The district has been overtaken by the state since 1991, but in 2002 the board

elected a new superintendent and since then, there has been 4 superintendents in 4 years before Gallo. Thus, there have not been consistency in the direction of the leadership.

• Violence• Outside violence can impact negatively the school such as the tragic dead on

two teenagers that were shot. One of the was a student from CFHS.

• Confrontation with the Teacher’s Union• All the problems of massive firing and massive hiring was caused by the lack of

negotiation between the superintendent and the union. This type of confrontation may arise at any time.

Threats (Cont.)

• Teachers' union (CFTU): may arise new legal issues

against the school or the district

Strategic Plan

Main Problems

• Lack of Leadership Capacity• Four principal in four years

• Lack of continuum and consistency in the educational programs and policies to improve the student achievement at the school Even when moderate gains have been achieved in the last three years (2007-2010) the principals quit or they are moved to a different schools

• High principal turnout ratio has caused the poor academic results, low graduation rates, an adversarial relationship with the union, and a toxic culture at the school

• Low Academics• Lack of teacher capacity in Reading and Math

• Low expectations of students

• Lack of rigorous instruction

• No consistent system to monitor student progress by teachers and administrators

• Lack of implementation of best practices; planning; instruction, assessment

Main Problem

Lack of Leadership Capacity

Lack of teacher capacity in Reading

and Math

Low expectations of students

Lack of rigorous instruction

No consistent system to monitor student

progress by teachers and administrators

Lack of implementation of

best practices; planning; instruction,

assessment

Low Student Academic Achievement

CFHS Strategic Goals

• Build Leadership Capacity

• The number one priority is to find a suitable principal that will take the challenge to create a new school culture and that knows how to lead a diverse student population.

• Improve Organizational Culture

• A new culture of high expectation, high academic performance, collaboration and family and community engagement. A new principal that will implement successfully the intervention model of transformation and will eliminate ineffective teachers, retain and hire highly effective teachers, will use data to guide instructions, will set system of collaboration , and will raise the academic rating and moral of the school. The new principal must be a leader that knows how to develop needs assessments at the school, how to support the school and its different programs such as ESL, how to evaluate teachers and develop collaboration.

• Student Achievement

Strategic Goal 1: School Culture

• Improvement of the school culture and climate for

teachers, students, and community members

• The culture at the school was a toxic culture because it was a

low performing campus the last seven years

• New school culture based on high expectations, data driven

decision, highly effective teacher, and teacher collaboration

• Improve teachers and faculty morale

• Overcome division, fostering trust and relationships

• Increase family engagement

• New standards and expectation in terms of teacher and staff

attendance, teacher evaluation tools, communication and

collaboration, new school discipline system, and family and

student input

Strategic Goal 2: Improve Academics

• Improve Math, Reading, and ESL achievement• Math course will not be optional but a regular course of the curriculum

• Academic program must consider the low socioeconomic status of the students and the ESL level of the students

• This program has to be consistent and yet flexible to allow changes

• Emphasize the academics, benchmarks, formative, and cumulative assessment to guide instruction and promote student achievement

• Furthermore, CFHS will use the resources from its community partnerships to achieve this goal (nonprofits and the University of Rhode Island). Thus, the scores will keep the steady growth until they reach the acceptable performance at proficiency of at least 70%. In order to achieve this goal is necessary the implementation of the transformation model: longer school days, after school tutorials, increase professional development, and the having lunch with the students once a week. Finally, a more rigorous teacher evaluation system to take out the system the ineffective teachers

• Besides the academic support Central Falls HS must provide a systematic support system that includes more technology, simple placement options, better communication with students and families, and provide multiple opportunities to graduate

Goal 2: StrategiesInstructional Planning Monitoring

Intensive PD; coaching, data analysis

support; structured lesson planning

Administrators will meet weekly to

evaluate the progress of the Campus

Intervention Plan

Professional Learning Communities

(PLC) meetings to lesson plan & analyze

data & discuss effective practices

Teachers will track their student data to

drive instruction

Teacher Specialist will provide

instructional support to teachers in need;

ie. coaching, modeling

Instructional Rounds will be held weekly

with immediate feedback and follow up

Student interventions will be re-

structured with improved monitoring

(Response to Intervention model)

Formative assessments will be

developed for the teachers and

administered every 2/3 weeks

Goal 2: Strategies (Cont.)Curriculum Alignment

• Teachers will look at the State Tests item analysis to determine how to compact the curriculum. We will look at which Grade Level Expectations (GLE’s) need to be high focus per grade, per class, per student. We will have teachers review the high priority GLE’s with the formative assessments to understand the context of the questions and get some PD for the teachers on this content.

Teacher Support

• We will support those teachers who had low growth with teachers who had high growth. (This will be done by looking at the scale scores.)

Student Groups by Ability

• We will then use the category results to group students for instruction and intervention to begin immediately.

Strategic Goal 3:Graduation Rate

• Improve the graduation rate and decrease the dropout

rate

• Offer the dual courses offered by the university of Rhode Island

• Offer Advance Placement (AP) classes, SAT support, Credit

Recovery classes, Online classes, Saturday tutorials, counseling

and support services, and also providing alternative course so

students can get the required credits for graduation and avoid the

dropout

• Central Falls HS graduation rate is at 52%, the objective is to

increase the rate by 10% each year and keep the dropout rate

below 15%

References

• Burns, A., Duré, E., & Hardeek, S. (n. d.) Central Falls HS

Third Year Transformation Report. Annenberg Institute &

The Education Alliance.

• Geoff, M., Moore Johnson, S. (2012). Central Falls High

School. The Public Education Leadership Project. Harvard

University.