Turnaround Action Plan (TAP) for Providence Schools Released -Today

June 23, 2020/RINewsToday

Titled “Turning Hope Into Results”, the Providence School Department released its awaited Turnaround Action Plan for Providence schools.

The plan says it is built around three pillars:

Engaged Communities

Excellence in Learning

World-Class Talent

A foundational principle underlying the work will be: Efficient District Systems: The District’s Central Office will be revitalized through the implementation of policies that allow for efficient decisions about educator personnel, resource distribution, and budgeting practices – delivering resources and support to the school level.

Strategies

Some strategies identified include forming a district wide task force, which will include existing informal and formal stakeholder groups; a Rapid Response System, described as a phone/text system to appropriately communicate important parent information, accessible 24/7, enabling families to report and receive regular updates on student and teacher attendance; forming a Parent Academy, for ongoing training and assistance to families enabling them to become their child’s best advocate; and a Student and Parent Bill of Rights. Providence schools will also develop a new vision and mission.

Goals

Defined percentage goals include increasing to highs of 80% and more in certain measurables, including increasing goals in low scoring measures such as Meeting and Exceeding Expectations on the Math DLM from 5.6% to 49%. A cursory review showed most measurable percent increases will be a dramatic accomplishment of, in some cases, 100% or more.

More than Half of all new teacher hires would have to be educators “of color”

Currently, 20.5% of the total educators in PPSD are educators of color, or approximately 400 educators. In order to reach 33%, or 660 educators of color, PPSD would need to hire 260 additional teachers of color over the next five years. An ongoing national challenge, this metric represents PPSD and RIDE’s priority of recruiting and retaining educators of color in the District. Two levers impact this metric: attrition (the loss of educators due to retirement, resignation, etc.) and new, available positions. Given current rates of attrition, PPSD is only able to hire approximately 100 new edu-cators every year. 52 out of 100 educators would have to be educators of color every year, triple the current rate of educator-of-color applications, in order to hit 33%.

Parent/Family Involvement

“A family/community outreach staff person will be placed in every school, with a space/zone dedicated to this purpose” is noted as well as bi-annual parent/teacher conferences, and training opportunities.

Read the entire plan, here:

https://bit.ly/3dobl6F

Virtual Town Halls – A Series of Community Conversations

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and the Providence Public School District (PPSD) will be hosting a series of virtual town halls with Providence educators, students, and families to share the Turnaround Action Plan (TAP). Seven events have been scheduled: