The topic of accountability ranks high these days. I suggest the board look at three areas: streamlining central office operations, improving teacher hiring and professional development, and soliciting goals that reflect the interests of those most directly involved in the district — the students, families and teachers.
Central office accountability means providing district enrollment information and placement decisions on the same timeline as neighboring districts. It means sending out transportation and class schedules two weeks, not two days, before the first day of school. It means ensuring that Parent Engagement and Student Placement offices are staffed with knowledgeable employees who answer the phone. It means consolidating snail-mailings to households and having an exceptionally friendly website.
Accountability means encouraging local collaborative networks between the Rochester Teachers Association and schools of education that use peer-led professional development to improve instruction and curriculum. It means valuing student-teacher relationships and programming by ending the disruptive practice of laying teachers off in June and re-hiring them in August.
The board will gain public trust only when it settles on a superintendent who can set improvement goals by seeking partnerships, observations and ideas from its most important stakeholders: students, families and teachers.
Published in the Democrat and Chronicle, September 3, 2011
