[Amy Weir]

Dear Board,

Later today I will be sending out an email with a copy of the Lone Star Governance Integrity Instrument and our last score card. Both can still be found on Board Docs for the March 26, 2020 meeting even though that meeting was canceled.

I will also be including the Crisis Monitoring Priorities Plan which was approved at our May 14, 2020 meeting and can be found on Board Docs in that meeting agenda. I have gone back through all the Board Updates and gathered the reports on the Crisis Priorities from Dr. Malerba and put them in one google drive so that we all have access to them in one place. As I was putting all the information in the folder I noticed that we still had not received an updated report on Crisis Progress Measure 1.1 Preliminary Course Completion, 2019-20 School Year. The original report only contained high school course completion and included the fall combined with the spring. At least two trustees asked to have the spring data separated. We will need to clarify with Dr. Howard how this affects our score in the LSG integrity instrument.

We should all expect our score to go down. The grading rubric is based on our goals, constraints, goal progress measures, and constraint progress measures which we suspended at the May 14, 2020 meeting. While we did approve Crisis Monitoring Priorities we did so without a Lone Star Governance Coach and without confirming they would be adequate replacements. Therefore our Crisis Monitoring Priorities and Progress Measures may not count toward our Vision Points. Twenty two of our 27 points came from the Vision Framework, so without them we may have a very low score. Just like for our students, it was a strange year for the board. We will need to discuss how we will move forward in August with creating our new goals, constraints, goal progress measures, and constraint progress measures to achieve the best outcome for our students in these difficult times.

[Anonymous]

Lone Star Governance (LSG) was originally designed for dysfunctional and failing school districts. Participation was forced on them in lieu of having the TEA commissioner replace the leadership. It was for districts that had campus failures for multiple years with no signs of improvement, and it applied to only a few dozen districts out of 1200 across the state. A few more have since volunteered to participate, including RRISD, but LSG is only one tool to evaluate board and district progress. Unlike the SAT, GRE or other standardized tests, there are no right or wrong answers. We certainly all want to do what’s best for kids (an often overused phrase), but as we can see with the current COVID planning as an example, that can have a wide range of what is needed.

As with any evaluation, we need to agree on terminology, including definitions of where we are and what we’ve accomplished, before deciding on where we need to go. Each district has a different starting point, so we can’t simply reference what another district has done and follow their plan.

The best solution for addressing any situation is communication, candidly and frequently. Implementing any plan without including all stakeholders creates resentment, especially to those who don’t get their preferred outcome.

Even though we haven’t had an LSG coach over the last few months, everyone has been working hard to stay aware of the changing landscape from last spring to this coming fall.

[Author]

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