Superintendent Parker: Academic Performance Rising

Schools Superintendent Nathan Parker gave his welcome speech to new staff for the new school year on Thursday, which also served the dual purpose of highlighting past district accomplishments and outlining new goals.

Parker said that the district added 35 new teachers, 14 classroom aids, four custodians, two behaviorists, two instructional facilitators, one nurse, one guidance counselor and one new administrator to the school system. 

“Our staff is an important asset,” Parker said. “We have the best teachers, secretaries, classroom aides, security guards, food service personnel, support staff and custodial and maintenance personnel.”

Parker said that 2011 is the last year of the district’s most recent three-year strategic focus areas: student achievement, social and emotional development globalization and program assessment. “In the fall we will identify three new focus areas for the next three years,” he said, but not before providing some key benchmarks based on the current goals.

Parker pointed to scores on the Biology Achievement Test given by the state, which jumped from 64% passing in 2009 to 87% passing in 2011. And 18 of 19 students who took BC Calculus achieved the highest score possible - a five - and 87 % of students scored a three or higher on advanced placement exams.

“The longer a student stays in Summit schools, the better they do academically,” he said.

Parker said he has planned three strategic initiatives for the coming year that will be focused on encouraging and supporting students.  The first, he said, is culturally responsive teaching. Each school is expected to develop a plan to increase culturally responsiveness. The second, is to increase student achievement among hispanic students. “The goal is to eliminate discrepancies on state mandated tests, grades and college acceptances,” when compared to non-Hispanic whites, Parker said. Parker said that program has a lot riding on it: the district received a $100,000 donation from a community member to ensure implementation, he said. 

The third strategic initiative is to meet all requirements of the state’s new anti-bullying mandate, which went into effect on Thursday. The mandate teaches students the difference between telling and tattling, and defines bullying on campus or online. In addition, there are new requirements for incident reporting by administrators and requirements for disclosure of incidents to the public.

Fresh off his decision in May to reduce the size of its basic skills instructional staff from 12 to seven for the 2011-12 school year to some parental consternation, Parker highlighted additional ways, he said, that the district has made efforts “to do more with less.” 

He pointed to two actions that the district took in 2010-2011 school year that saved the district money - a move to a  new food service vendor that saved $70,000 and a move from Bank of America to Investors Savings Bank, which saved the district “equal to two first year teachers’ salaries,” he said.

Parker also mentioned facility improvements, most notably,  a new concrete entry at Lawton C. Johnson school so that entrants will not longer have to squeeze through bushes or slog through the mud to reach the main entrance.

The second project  - renovation of the high school auditorium - he said will be completed mid-year, but students will enjoy new cafeteria tables as soon as school opens.

On the  technology front, Parker said that a new phone system has been installed throughout the district, which will allow greater access to faculty.

A new Web site will be launched within the next week that enhances  communication with the community, and finally, he expects to launch a new parent-focused email system, or listserv in the fall for non-emergency communications between the schools and parents.