[Cory Vessa]

Dear fellow Trustees,

As we return to school for the 2020/2021 school year, amidst these challenging circumstances related to the Covid 19 pandemic, I believe it is critical to have clearly articulated board goals/priorities to guide Dr. Flores and his team. Last year we adopted our 5 board goals and 2 constraints at the Sept. 26, 2019 board meeting. Then, when Covid 19 hit, on May 16, 2020 we suspended our original board goal monitoring calendar and adopted a Crisis Monitoring Plan. That Crisis Monitoring Plan got us through this summer, but now we need to adopt a new set of goals relevant to the circumstances we are facing.
Dr. Flores and his team outlined their priorities in the Spring 2020 Instructional Continuity Guiding Principles: student and staff safety and well-being, focus on equity (no widening of learning gaps), flexibility, and centralized communication. However, the Spring circumstances and this year’s circumstances are different and should be guided by priorities more aligned with our strategic plan goals and previous board goals, but adjusted for our current circumstances.

I hope we can engage in a dialogue on this message board and also create ways for the community to be involved. For me, I do believe that staff and student safety and well-being should be the highest priority, as it currently is in the Strategic Plan goals. Articulating objective, measurable ways to access the district’s success in this regard is challenging. My first thought is to evaluate whether district’s plan aligns with guidance from public health authorities and whether it is executed with fidelity.

My second priority would be ensuring a return to rigorous academic standards and promoting equity by ensuring students who have fallen behind are caught back up. We have been told that baseline evaluations will occur in September. That will be crucial data. Once we know by campus where students are right now, the district needs to develop campus level plans to get them where they need to be, and then develop metrics to measure the progress towards those goals at regular intervals. The state currently plans to administer the STAAR at the conclusion of this year. Certainly, recovering from the academic setbacks brought on by the pandemic will be a multi-year endeavor, and we can use that STAAR exam as a baseline for future board goals. However, we cannot wait for that STAAR information to set goals in the interim. We need to utilize the benchmark measurements we have to ensure we are making as much progress as possible.

Truly these are challenging circumstances to teach in and executing to a high standard will require equipping our staff with the resources and support they need to overcome the many obstacles. And while we hope and pray new obstacles won’t arise, that isn’t certain. Measuring staff support must be ongoing to ensure we are adjusting quickly and effectively. And we also must be soliciting feedback from parents and students to identify problems and gaps quickly. Thus, I believe achieving the second priority requires responsive communication, which is my third priority. Perhaps we can conduct surveys and/or Thought Exchanges for staff, parents and students to provide their feedback. I also think forums for two-way communication are critical. I think front loading these communication methods is key. I’d like them scheduled after the first few weeks of school and every few weeks thereafter.

Tomorrow is the first day of school for 2020/2021. It is imperative we communicate with Dr. Flores and his team ASAP our expectations. We have a meeting scheduled next week – August 27th. I request this be added to the agenda. Until then, I ask that we also use this forum to engage in a dialogue to better position us for that discussion.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Trustee Vespa for getting this started. I agree with these general priorities. Safety first, needed refocus on academic rigor second, and an effective feedback and communication loop third.

We were dealt with an unforeseen and damaging event. Similar to those recovering from a natural disaster, we need to assess the damage through baseline student evaluations, set priorities and strategies to recover, and execute the recovery plan effectively. I fear that we will identify pockets of our District that have suffered disproportionately. I hope that we can align to allocate human and financial resources disproportionately toward those pockets, so that we optimize student outcomes for all.

[Amy Weir]

Thank you for starting this conversation. Dr. Malerba will be incorporating the Crisis Monitoring Priorities into the COVID presentation on Thursday. Trustee Math and I discussed the board goals with Dr. Flores and his team on Friday. In May we voted to suspend the Board goals and constraints and the monitoring calendar only from May through August 2020. We’ll be able to discuss this as part of the CMP discussion Thursday and further in the future. Staff is looking at our original board goals and how to possibly modify them with the current data that we have. As you state staff will have some baseline evaluation data in September, which will be critical to this discussion. This may be something we need to add to the September regular meeting. September will be the first month that the board goals are “un-suspended” and our board monitoring calendar will be back. We will have to adopt some changes to the goals due to different measuring metrics that are in place for the virtual learning environment. And possibly add something regarding health and safety, or as our LSG coach suggested we could add health and safety in the constraints.

That being said, I do think you bring up good points about needing additional information/feedback from staff, parents and students regarding the current virtual learning and later to include the transition to in-person learning. Dr. Malerba indicated that surveys are being planned and I believe she will be asking for board feedback on Thursday about what those surveys should look like. I will try to give some thought to the types of questions and the type of survey that would be most helpful to the board in addressing our student outcome goals. I’m hoping if we can discuss here what types of questions we’re thinking about it will help our discussion on Thursday and make it more productive. We could also consider adding something about staff and parent satisfaction as a constraint as well. It can’t fall below a certain level. I’m not really sure how that would be phrased or if it would work, but it’s something to consider.

[Cory Vessa]

Dear Fellow Trustees,

As you know, last night was to be our meeting on board goals, to continue the work begun on March 4th. However, due to numerous circumstances which I will refrain from detailing here, the meeting had to be cancelled. However, we have this unique venue to continue the March 4th meeting and make progress towards the end of establishing new board goals, as we are a new board with four new members.

Before I begin though, I want to take a moment to publicly apologize for my behavior on March 4th. I apologize for any harm caused by my words. Trustee Harrison, I know you, in particular, felt harmed. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. The words I used were poorly chosen and I could have made my points in a way that was more diplomatic and less offensive. I commit to better learning how to do that. I also could have held my tongue and worked out my concerns offline so we could move forward with accomplishing the goal of the meeting. I contributed largely to derailing the meeting and that was a disservice to you and the community. It was selfish of me to center on my objections to the detriment of the entire process. Furthermore, I am sorry I behaved in an unprofessional manner at the end. I am trying to take steps to better care for myself so I don’t get into that mental and physical state of exhaustion again. I hope you all can receive this apology and we can move forward productively.

As for the board goals, I am in favor of NOT delineating by race. The way they are now groups everyone together for the official goals (not goal progress measures), which are by any standard, aggressive. While I believe we should track the progress of individual races, considering we are one family here in Round Rock ISD, we need to stand or fall together. I find holding all races to the same high standard (which seemed the consensus of the board on March 4th – correct me if I’m wrong) best achieved by grouping all races together.

The constraints can deal with any desire to differentiate. For example, currently we have a constraint that no campuses receive a D or F rating. We could add a constraint that says no race shall fail to improve its performance from the previous year. We could also add a constraint that requires annual improvement in performance for students diagnosed with dyslexia.

I look forward to a robust and respectful dialogue. I know I will do my best to guard my words and be open to hearing if anything I wrote caused harm. I encourage you to do the same.

[Author]

Posts