UPDATED: Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019 at 8:28 p.m.

The Syracuse City School District is working to rebuild and reorganize three struggling schools to meet New York growth requirements, after state officials raised concerns about a lack of progress in strengthening student test score numbers, among other things.

In December, New York state placed Danforth Middle School, Westside Academy at Blodgett and Dr. King Elementary School in an intervention program after the schools failed to make meaningful improvements in several areas, including family and community engagement and student performance on state exams for English, math and science.

Schools placed in the intervention program — known as receivership — are overseen by a receiver, or representative of the state. They have 60 days to propose a plan to either be taken over by an independent receiver or phase in a new school that replaces the old one. The SCSD’s proposal is due to the New York State Department of Education by Tuesday.

“What the state’s asking us to do is propose a school that’s going to be substantially different in terms of staffing, in terms of leadership and in terms of programming,” said Laura Kelley, SCSD director of school reform.

Twiggy Billue, a local activist whose granddaughter Geyannah attends Dr. King, said she got a call from her daughter who had heard rumors about receivership, but the school did not give a complete explanation.

“It’s stressful for all of us. It’s stressful for the teachers. It’s stressful for the parents, but it’s stressful for her,” she said, gesturing to her granddaughter. “She has all of these questions … She’s just generally concerned, will there be a place at King for her?”

Kelley said the district is looking to close Danforth and reopen it as an expeditionary learning middle school. Expeditionary learning focuses on student achievement in three main areas: knowledge and skills, character and high-quality work, according to a district presentation.

The SCSD began implementing expeditionary learning changes this year by hiring a principal with experience in the area and recruiting staff specifically to support the change, Kelley said.

At Westside Academy, the district is hoping to create a STEM school that will allow students to receive high school credit while still in middle school, Kelley said. The school would partner with Le Moyne College, she added.

Kelley said a Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics elementary school centered on project-based learning is being suggested for Dr. King. She said the goal is to create a pipeline to the new regional STEAM high school Mayor Ben Walsh proposed last month.

“We want our students to be competitive for those spots too,” she said.

This year, the district began implementing changes in its middle schools under the direction of Executive Director of Secondary Schools Pamela Odom, Kelley said. SCSD also implemented LANGUAGE! Live, a nationwide literacy intervention program for students to improve their reading skills.

The district also does walkthroughs to assess how the school is performing in areas including note-taking strategies and organization, Kelley said.

“We’re really just trying to share the good practices and get rid of the ones that aren’t getting us any results,” she said.

Dr. King, Westside Academy and Danforth were all first identified as being in receivership in 2015, which was when the receivership model was first put into law.

Kelley said the data used by the NYS DoE to determine the schools that should be put in receivership was from the 2017-18 school year — before the results of the initiatives could be seen.

In 2015, the state put 15 other SCSD schools into receivership, a number that will decrease to five in the 2019-20 school year, Kelley said. Thirteen of the district’s 36 schools are currently in good standing, she said.

Receivership status is based on a 100 percent demonstrable improvement index, or how much the schools improve based on certain qualifications, Kelley said. She said schools that are at 67 percent or more cannot be considered for receivership, while ones that are below 40 percent automatically get an independent receiver.

The NYS DoE Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, has jurisdiction over whether schools that are between 40 and 66 percent are placed into receiverships, Kelley said.

Dr. King, Westside Academy and Danforth had 48, 53 and 47 percent growth since 2015, respectively. All three schools made improvements in school safety and providing extended learning times, but they struggled to improve state testing scores.

Before being alerted to the three schools’ receivership status in December, Kelley said the district knew they were in the middle area but wasn’t sure what would come of it.

“It was disappointing, upsetting,” she said. “But you know, a little bit of a jolt to think about how to do things differently going forward.”

The district presented the plans for the three schools to the Syracuse BoEd on Wednesday. While receivership law states that the school district’s superintendent has final say in how a school handles receivership, Board Vice President Katie Sojewicz said Superintendent Jaime Alicea has kept the board up to date with the progress being made.

“We’re informed every step of the way, and our superintendent would certainly take any questions or feedback and bring that back to his staff,” she said.

The board approved all three plans, according to minutes from Wednesday’s meeting.

The district also met with SCSD staff and Syracuse community members to go over plans for all three schools, Kelley said. At a Danforth community information session, people gave feedback on special education programming, parent engagement, the new school’s name and its budget, among other topics.

Dr. King faculty expressed concern about their future employment and positioning at the school during its information session last week. According to receivership law, at least half of a school’s newly-created positions must be filled by senior staff from the receivership school.

Community members also said at the session that they were worried their voices weren’t being heard while the district was developing its approach to receivership.

Kelley said people are nervous about the receivership and have many questions, which she said is why the district has tried to provide as much information as possible.

“We have some really great kids and we have to be strong for them and let them know that no matter what happens, the school’s not going anywhere. It’s gonna be there,” she said.

Published on February 3, 2019 at 8:08 pm

Contact India: irmiragl@syr.edu