July 1, 2011

Top News

Superintendent Holds Virtual Town Hall

Superintendent Tony Tata held his virtual town hall today responding to more than 20 comments and questions. He offered this welcome: 

It has been a fast five months, and I am enjoying serving Wake County students and parents every day. As we wrap up the 10-11 school year, preliminary data shows that we had a respectable academic year with our graduation rate moving from 78.2% last year to 80.3% this year, elementary EOG results moving from 79.9% to 81.8%, middle school EOG results from 80.4% to 80.2%, and high school remaining level at 83.6%. Disaggregated data showed subgroup growth in nearly all categories with African-American graduation rates moving from 63.9% to 67.2% and Hispanic graduation rates moving from 54.2% to 64.1%. Caucasian graduation rates moved from 89.3% to 90.4%. I congratulate all of our teachers, principals and central office staff on their hard work to achieve measurable gains this year.

You can find the archive of virtual town hall discussions here.

2011-12 School Year Starts

The 2011-12 school year will begin with the opening of year-round schools on July 11.

Listen to Superintendent Tata's July 3 news conference 15 minute mp3 file

Superintendent Tata said the 40 elementary and nine middle year-round schools are staffed and ready to go.

“We have a series of meetings coming up that will give me the chance to speak to every teacher in Wake County to thank them for their work and share our expectations for the coming year,” said Tata. “It’s going to be a positive student-centered year and I am looking forward to greeting the first wave of students as they arrive on July 11.”

The school system has produced a Back-to-School Guide for parents. Copies are in our schools and community centers and online at our website’s front page. Families can check out the guides for details on before- and afterschool programs, bell schedules, vaccines and other important information.
http://www.wcpss.net/2011_back-to-school/

WCPSS Seeks School Calendar Waiver

The school system has submitted a request to the State Board of Education for a waiver of the new legislative requirement for five additional days of instruction for the 2011-12 school year.

State lawmakers added five instructional days to the school year at the expense of five teacher workdays, approving the change several weeks ago at the close of the legislative session.  

“With the start of year-round school on top of us, it would not have been feasible to add those days to the calendar,” said Tata. “In our waiver request, we are detailing how we will use the five work days to provide professional development regarding the common core and essential standards in line with our Race to the Top scope of work. The bottom line is that we will ensure that those five teacher workdays will be used to provide professional development positively affecting student achievement. And if approved, our student calendars will not change this year.”

As the State Board of Education sorted out implementation of this legislative change, WCPSS administrators considered options. At its last meeting, the school board authorized administrators to add 10 minutes to the end of the school day as an alternative to the added five days. There will be no need for a change once the state approves the school system’s waiver request. The state has indicated a willingness to consider waivers this year, allowing school systems more time to move to a 185-day school year.

More News

Update on Developing a New Student Assignment Process

The Superintendent’s Task Force on Student Assignment is in the middle of detailed analysis.

The task force has provided a data team the survey results from13,805 families who took part in an online test drive of hypothetical choices in a draft Wake County student assignment plan.

"It’s going to take some time for them to crunch the numbers, but the statistical analysis that they are providing will be instrumental as we take the best elements of all the plans to bring a proposal to the school board this fall,” said Tata.

Here is some preliminary information based on the 13,805 families’ responses:

• 91 percent said that choice is very or somewhat important
• 77 percent said that keeping cohorts of classmates together is very or somewhat important
• 89 percent said a guaranteed K-12 feeder pattern is very or somewhat important
• 88 percent said schools close to home is very or somewhat important
• 72 percent would rank schools the same if they had only express busing, and
• 81 percent of respondents expressed at least some interest in an achievement school.

Superintendent Tata said the feedback and detailed analysis by the data team will be baked into the recommendations for the school board.

Recruiting the Best Employees

Superintendent Tata talked with reporters today about efforts to recruit the best teaching talent for the Wake County Public School System.

“As the CEO of a $1.2 billion operation with 18,000 employees, I have a responsibility to challenge every aspect of what this organization is doing so that we can improve,” said Tata. “I believe in the past few years, we have been leaving talented perspective teachers on the table by not aggressively seeking high quality teachers in every possible venue from every possible background. It is a matter of record that Wake County quit spending dollars on recruiting and training in the last few years.”

Superintendent Tata has directed WCPSS Human Resources to work harder at outreach, looking for high quality teachers and looking for them in a broader range of places.

“We have high standards for teacher recruitment and we will not waiver from those standards,” said Tata. “Anyone who thinks I will lower standards quite frankly doesn’t know me very well.”

As of June 16, 45 teachers had accepted early contracts for this school year.

45	Total	Teachers hired on early contract
13	29 %	Male
27	60 %	African-American or Latino

As of June 16, 729 employees were rehired who were on terminating contracts.

729	Total	Employees rehired who were on terminating contracts
582	78.9 %	Caucasian
120	16.5 %	African-American
16	2.2 %	Hispanic

“We will continue to work with our school principals to ensure that we are staffed with the highest quality teachers and employees,” said Tata.

Update on AdvancEd

Superintendent Tata provided reporters an update today on the school system’s response to the AdvancEd review of WCPSS.

“We have 57 steps that we have created in response to the seven AdvancEd directed actions,” said Tata. “Many of those involve strategic planning, student assignment policy review, governance team professional development - all of which we are doing in accordance with my 90-day plan initially and now our strategic planning. I feel we are on glide path to meet AdvancEd’s directed actions that we are going to report out in November to them. I feel like we are in good shape there.”

Recently approved legislation gave the State Board of Education the authority to accredit schools within NC.

“It's too early to determine how that might impact us,” said Tata. “For one thing, it will take DPI some time to develop a framework for accreditation and establish the arm to do so. Our board and staff are continuing to work through the action steps that we created.”