Working the Plan, part 1: Cape Girardeau School District focused on improvement

Editor's note: Beginning today, the Southeast Missourian in a four-part series examines the Cape Girardeau School District's Comprehensive School Improvement Plan, looking at what it will take to reach educational goals over the next five years and telling the stories of the people who stand to lose or gain in the pursuit of improvement.

There are hundreds of success stories in the Cape Girardeau School District.

From the three National Merit semifinalists at Cape Girardeau Central High School to little Jacob Lutes, a Blanchard Elementary kindergartner learning to read with the help of volunteers, the public school system, for many of its students, appears to be delivering on its mission statement, "to develop productive citizens of strong character with the skills and attitudes to compete in a changing, global society."

There are stories of failure, too.

Like the 19-year-old single father who has given up on graduating and is among dozens of dropouts in a district with a 74 percent graduation rate but a significantly lower rate for black students. There is the South Cape mother of two who sees children in her neighborhood who should be in school wandering the streets or hanging out in stores. Or the students who have fallen so far behind academically they have lost faith in their school and themselves.

And then there are the challenges, many of which go well beyond the schools, into the troubled corners of the community and into the capitol buildings in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. Among the obstacles: poverty, mass student mobility, mental illness and behavioral problems, budget shortfalls.

Looking to build on its successes and strengthen its weaknesses, the school district has embarked on Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. The five-year campaign, billed as a "living document" by district administrators and school board members, aims to:

* Improve student performance

* Develop a highly qualified staff

* Enhance facilities, instructional programs, support

* Strengthen parent and community involvement

* Improve district governance

In a standards-based environment driven by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the stakes are high for educators but even higher, experts say, for the nation if an unacceptable number of the nearly 50 million public school students are ill-equipped for a globally competitive market. As the district, like thousands of others nationwide, struggles to hit the rising math and communication arts proficiency marks that are headed to 100 percent by 2014, Cape Girardeau School District superintendent Jim Welker said the focus will remain on improvement.

"We may not make the targets, but it has been a process of analyzing the data," Welker said. "Of course we want to make [proficiency standards]. But the thing I get excited about is that we keep improving."

Hitting the mark

Developing and enhancing quality educational programs under the plan is all about the number 14. The district's goal every year is to meet all 14 of the Missouri School Improvement Standards reported in the Annual Performance Report. The indicators include state-required Missouri Assessment Program tests, ACT and end-of-course examinations, graduation and attendance rates, and other academic measurements.

Most recently, the district met 13 out of 14 standards, with the help of a bonus point, earning it a "Distinction in Performance" designation.

Welker said the curriculum and qualified educators are in place to drive up performance, but making the mark will hinge on constantly examining data and responding when students aren't performing. Additional help might come in the form of after-school programs, tutoring or alternative instructional practices.

Assessing and learning from the data is a critical element of the improvement plan. Mark Cook and his crew have been at the game for years.

Cook, principal of Jefferson Elementary School, more than four years ago started a "portfolio" tracking every bit of critical school-related data, from test scores and teacher strategies to parental contacts.

"It has to become part of your culture," Cook said. Because it has, he said, the school has seen some remarkable changes in learning and discipline. For instance, discipline referrals have declined about 60 percent, the result of data monitoring and consistent practices.

Jefferson, like other schools in the district, has adopted a number of philosophical approaches to engaging learners over the years, including the Kagan method of learning. Case in point, "Quiz-Quiz-Trade," where elementary students test each other on lessons, moving from desk to desk. That's the kind of cooperative learning that Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School principal Roy Merideth said holds promise for academic gains. One of the best examples of student engagement, Merideth said, is the school's literary circles, where students select books they want to read and work in groups to break down the work.

"Our communication arts class has 28 kids in it, and I walked in the other day and every single kid had a book out and they were reading," he said. "You could have heard a pin drop."

While curriculum goes through tweaking over time, assistant superintendent Pat Fanger said the district avoids rash, wholesale changes.

"Too many schools do that," she said. "We're not jumping from one thing to another. We're staying firm in good, solid, research-based practices and we try to see it through."

Fanger said she is daily inundated with pitches on instructional programs from people who have "all the answers for us."

Difficult fixes

A research-based curriculum, however, can only go so far in combating the problems beyond the school's control. And No. 1 on the list is poverty.

Sixty percent of students in the district receive free or reduced lunches, as high as 87 percent at Franklin Elementary School and an increase of 30 percentage points or more at many schools, Fanger and others said. With poverty often comes a cultural conflict, causing behavioral breakdowns and, at times, out of control classrooms, teachers and volunteers say.

"I have just seen over the last year, especially this year, really since this whole school choice thing opened up I have seen some real behavioral issues out of students," said Robin McCollough, vice president of Alma Schrader Elementary School Parent-Teacher Association. "I see some teachers having to spend way too much time having to discipline one or two students when they need to concentrate on teaching the whole class."

Such situations interrupt learning for all students, which ultimately can affect performance, educators say.

Many of the conflicts have to do with misunderstandings, according to school officials. The district employs the Ruby Payne process of better understanding the backgrounds and perspectives of families in poverty. Carla Fee, principal at the Cape Girardeau Alternative Education Center and At-Risk coordinator for the district, is trained in the method and is charged with teaching teachers about generational poverty.

"It's not to make excuses, but to understand where students are coming from so they understand how to reach them," Fee said.

However, about one-third of students in the school district move in and out every year, administrators say. That rising mobility rate is presenting significant challenges to learning and improving academic performance.

Mike Cowan, principal of Cape Girardeau Central High School, said that two years ago the school dropped or added 402 of its approximately 1,200 students. The number declined slightly last year, but Cowan said the school continues to enroll students almost daily this year.

Last week, he enrolled three students who, based on their records, had not been in class since the third quarter of last year. The high school is a month away from its cumulative semester exams.

"What possible chance do those children have to be successful on those exams?" Cowan said. "I feel story for them because they were destined for failure before they even set foot on this campus."

The high school, Cowan said, will do what it can to get the students back on track.

Success together

At the Cape Area Family Resource Center on South Sprigg Street, staff and volunteers are working to break through the walls of poverty. Pat King, the center's director, leads a host of programs, from after-school "power hour" homework sessions to career exploration classes to Pet Pals, where kindergartners read to dogs.

"The children are running with a book upside down saying, 'I got to read Ms. Pat, I got to read,'" King said. "It's just amazing."

Dozens of Cape Girardeau area service organizations, like the mentoring program at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri, are providing time and resources to enhance the district's efforts in preparing students for the world.

But the key to building academic performance, Fanger said, begins with quality teachers.

"When you have a relationship with children they're going to want to come to school and they're going to want to perform for you," she said.

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

301 N. Clark Ave., Cape Girardeau, MO