Schools five years from curriculum, instruction goal
By Jerry Gaulding Editor, Free Press

Diboll school district trustees last week heard the results of an audit focusing on curriculum and instruction and learned that the district is five years away from being where it wants to be in those areas.

The audit was not state-required. Superintendent Brent Hawkins requested that the Texxas Association of School Administrators visit the district for the audit.

Dr. Rosanne Stripling, a dean at Texas A&M University- Texarkana, led the audit and told trustees that the audit was known as a "deficit audit," one designed to identify weaknesses rather than strengths. Nevertheless, she said her report was "as positive an audit as I've ever written."

Credit for that goes to Hawkins, who has had training in the audit process employed and has already begun to implement the process, she said. Her report indicated that he believes the standards employed in the audit process will help the district achieve its goal of being "the district of choice in East Texas."

Among the "deficits" Stripling cited were inadequate curriculum design and coordination. Forty-one percent of courses have curriculum guides. Eighty percent is considered adequate, she said. No curriculum documents were found for elective classes, she said.

"Assessment planning is the weakest area for the district," she said. Current assessments do not "discover what kids learn," she said.

Trends show a continued gap between the three predominant racial groups in the district she said, while college entrance exam scores are below stat e and regional levels. Those scores are "lower than would be expected" from the district's results in state-mandated performance tests, she said.

The district has good policies but the policies are rarely referred to in day-to-day decisionmaking, she said. The auditors found that instruction primarily is teachers talking and students doing "seat work," Stripling said.

Among her recommendations, Stripling advised tighter planning, with a long-range district plan and annual campus plans. The "alignment" between written and taught curricula needs to be tighter. Evaluation of instruction and assessment of student progress needs to improve.

"Getting control of delivery," or classroom teaching - "that's the tough one," Stripling said.

She called for the appointment of a coordinator of planning and establishment of an office of quality assurance to coordinate and manage student assessment and program evaluation.

The district "is in a transition and in an emergent stage of improvement," she said. Focus and discipline are required to achieve the district's goals.

"It took the board and superintendent a lot of courage" to seek the audit, she noted, in that it is an exercise to find the weak spots.

Hawkins noted that three years ago, there was no curriculum planning in the district. "It was an empty cart." Hawkins became interim superintendent in February 2007 and was appointed permanently that June.

Stripling said bringing the district up to the standards of the audit procedure will take five years to "fully implement." Hawkins said that is his goal and that the audit report will be "our bible for school improvements."

After Stripling's report, Hawkins told trustees that the Legislative Budget Board, an arm of the state Legislature, has picked Diboll as one of 10 school districts across the state to be studied on March 31. The LBB inspectors will examine the various districts to give the Legislature, when it convenes next January, a report on how districts are faring under state law.