DESE Releases Report on Amesbury Public Schools

Earlier this month, the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released a “District Review Report” for Amesbury Public Schools. You can view the report HERE.  District Reviews are standard procedure for the DESE, in their role of supporting local school districts (that is, it was not precipitated by any particular problem or need). According to the report,

“[D]istrict reviews support local school districts in establishing or strengthening a cycle of continuous improvement. Reviews consider carefully the effectiveness of systemwide functions, with reference to the six district standards used by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE): leadership and governance, curriculum and instruction, assessment, human resources and professional development, student support, and financial and asset management. Reviews identify systems and practices that may be impeding improvement as well as those most likely to be contributing to positive results.”

The report first lays out findings in the six areas mentioned above, then provides recommendations and proposes action steps in response to the findings. A broad variety of stakeholders were consulted for this report via interviews and focus groups, including City Councilors (Council President Joe McMilleon and me were together at one focus group session) and classroom observations were made.

I’ll say more about this below, but a report like this is an invaluable management resource and really provides the City with some clear guidance on what are its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Like any good performance review (just had my annual review at work last week), it combines fair criticism with an acknowledgement of strengths and pushes towards goals that stretch and challenge. A report like this presents us with the opportunity to improve our schools by aligning our efforts – as leaders, administrators, and citizens – towards clear goals.

From the March 2015 School Committee Forum

Key Review Findings

The report covered a good bit of ground, but it is quite readable, even for those not involved in primary and secondary education. I will highlight a number of what I see as the most important findings and recommendations for Amesbury Public Schools.

I was pleased to see this as the first finding in the report: “The superintendent and school committee have created a culture of collaboration that encourages stakeholders to work together to support higher levels of student achievement…Creating a culture of collaboration paves the way for stakeholders to work together to address difficult issues, to develop strategies to support higher levels of student achievement, and to implement important initiatives in a timely way.” (6) A culture of collaboration is the key to success in any organization and will certainly be a critical factor in how well we do in responding to these findings.

·       Leadership & Governance

o   Finding: “The superintendent and the administrative staff have not recommended to the school committee budgets that refer to improvement planning and the analysis of student achievement data.” (12)  Recommendation: “The superintendent and the administrative staff should recommend a budget that refers to the district’s improvement planning and includes an analysis of student achievement data.”

o   Finding: “The district does not have a current actionable, multi-year strategic plan or a District Achievement (Improvement) Plan with essential components to guide efforts to attain strategic goals.” (13) “School Achievement Plans (SAPs) for each of the four Amesbury schools are not informed by a district strategic plan or a District Achievement (Improvement) Plan.” (14) Recommendation: “The superintendent, with input from stakeholders, should lead a focused improvement planning process to guide continuous improvement of achievement for all Amesbury students.”

·       Curriculum & Instruction

o   Finding: “The district curriculum is inconsistently documented and Amesbury has limited personnel with defined responsibility and limited time for curriculum development and renewal.” (15)  Recommendation: “The district should give high priority to curriculum development and renewal by restoring infrastructure and providing more time for curriculum work.”

·       Human Resources & Professional Development

o   Finding: “While the district is implementing its new educator evaluation system, the district’s principals are struggling to find the time necessary to conduct the required observations and to complete evaluations.” (22) Recommendation:  “To improve the implementation of the new educator evaluation system and enhance its overall effectiveness, the district should review its current staffing levels and allocation of responsibilities and prioritize the development or acquisition of software with the capacity to properly support the new evaluation system.”

·       Financial & Asset Management

o   Finding: “The approved fiscal year 2015 operating budget does not address student achievement priorities with budget impacts, as identified in School Achievement Plans.” (25) “The fiscal year 2015 Operating Budget is long, incomplete, and unclear. It does not include comprehensive staffing data or special revenue and revolving account revenue and expenses.” (27) Recommendation: “The district should create budget documents for public presentation that contain comprehensive and historical data and that are written more clearly and concisely to better communicate the district’s academic, programmatic, and financial needs and plans.”

o   Finding: “The district is not using accounting technology to effectively track, manage, and forecast funds or to provide useful reports to district leaders and the school committee.” (28) Recommendation:  “The training of central office staff in the use of accounting technology, and the immediate creation of staff-related expense information in an electronic format that can be easily modified and shared, should be a district priority.”

My Top Takeaways

• The report gives Amesbury Public Schools and the citizens of Amesbury the basis for building a forward-looking ‘road map’ to improve our schools. The report identifies some clear areas for improvement for Amesbury Public Schools. Responding to these issues will require leadership and collaboration from especially school administrators (Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, along with their school principals), the School Committee, and the Mayor (as chair of the School Committee and Amesbury’s Chief Executive). It will also require the support of citizens and the City Council, especially in terms of making the investments that may be required moving forward.

• A big missing element is a District-wide Achievement Plan (DAP). Each school (AES, CES, AMS, AHS) has its own School Achievement Plan (SAP) that identifies student needs, sets objectives and describes strategies, but there is no current overall strategy that binds it all together. A DAP would guide systematic priorities, objectives, and strategies across the system, as well as guide and support the annual budgeting process and final request. The report noted success in developing school-level plans but, as quoted above, noted that they were not “informed by a district strategic plan.” Various plans exist across the district, but they lack overall cohesion.

The report also noted that the FY15 budget presented last year (at least) did not clearly connect with either school-level or district-level achievement plans. From the report: “When asked whether the budget is driving the SAPs instead of the SAPs driving the budget, all principals said, ‘Absolutely.’ (14) When asked whether the fiscal year 2015 budget addressed their School Achievement Plans, the principals said ‘No.’” (26) Fortunately, the budget requests presented this year by principals to the School Committee have been more clearly tied to schools SAPs.

• Some issues have been known and have been previously identified.

o   Superintendent Robinson’s own ‘Entry Plan’ from 2011 when she started at Amesbury Public Schools noted a number of the needs in the report, including (as quoted in the DESE report):

§  “there is no human resource department and no single position dedicated to HR management”;

§  “there is an increased need for data collection and analysis and no person responsible”;

§  “technology infrastructure in all buildings lacks the capability to create critical learning environments for all students”; and

§  “necessary budget cuts have resulted in limited specialized programs.”

o   Amesbury School Coalition leaders pushed the School administration and School Committee last year for improved budgeting processes, clearer connection of the budget request to data-driven needs and long-range planning, and stronger budget presentation documentation.

o   Mayor Gray had this to say about last year’s budget process, as well: “This year’s process uncovered numerous problems. One thing we have learned is that we need better information sooner in the process and we must make better use of the information we have available to us. As a result of systemic problems encountered, the school committee and I will be working together starting immediately, in order to benefit from what we have learned and to improve the budgetary process in the future.” (6/2/14 School Committee meeting)

• The report identifies several areas that will require either the re-allocation of resources or new investment. The report notes the following staffing and infrastructure deficiencies that inhibit our ability to perform highly:

o   The district lacks a position dedicated to curriculum development, nor are teacher schedules adequate to allocate time to curriculum development.

o   The district lacks a position dedicated to managing human resources. At every level (administration and principals), the district struggles to allocate sufficient time for the observation and evaluation of teachers.

o   The district doesn’t allocate enough time and resources to teachers for professional development.

o   Central office must be trained to use accounting technology and software, so that spending, revenue, and personnel cost data can adequately tracked and reported out to stakeholders – School Committee, City Hall, Municipal Council, DESE

So, What Should We Do About It All?

From the March 2015 School Committee Forum

This report gives Amesbury Public Schools a big ‘to-do’ list. Some of the items are definitely higher priorities than others. In my mind (and from my City Council perspective), the highest priorities are: 1) Develop a District-Wide Achievement Plan that guides all school-level plans and drives budget planning and rationale; 2) Adequately staff core administrative functions crucial to manage a $30million+ educational institution (HR director, curriculum director); and 3) Improve core financial management functions (management of accounting data).

To accomplish any of the report’s recommendations, we’ll need to first develop a consensus on our priorities. This falls to the School Administration and the School Committee (led by the Mayor). Then, the Administration and the School Committee need to align the school’s strategic planning with their priorities. Finally, working with the public and the City Council, the administration and the School Committee must align the annual budget request with these priorities.

Only if we are all rowing in the same direction, will we get anywhere.

Amesbury Elementary School - Should We Update It? - Part II

In my last post, I talked about what it means for Amesbury to file a 'Statement of Interest' SOI in improving Amesbury Elementary School with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. As I wrote last week, the process for getting in the MSBA 'pipeline' is fairly competitive. Most schools submit an SOI application multiple times before advancing to the next phase of the process. MSBA is the state authority that works with local and regional school districts to design and fund school building and improvement projects.

UPDATE (3/24/15): You can find a copy of the SOI submission HERE.

For this follow-up post, I will:

• highlight conditions at AES that underpin our SOI request (as articulated in the SOI itself)
• talk about how a future AES renovation might fit into our overall financial picture and debt schedule

Conditions at AES:

From the SOI: "Built in 1968, Amesbury Elementary School (AES) is the oldest school in operation for our district."

• Overcrowding: In 1995, the district installed on site 6 'temporary' trailers with an estimated life of 4 years for use as classrooms and other uses. The trailers have been in continuous use since then (20 years). Nursing and counseling offices lack ability to provide confidential space for students to be served adequately. With limited space for 1:1 interventions, teachers often have to use hallways and stairwells to meet with students.
• ADA Compliance: The current facility was built before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Passed in 1990, the ADA prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, State and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation. Currently, any AES students needing accommodation for a disability at AES must be given services elsewhere in the Amesbury school system. With the lack of an elevator, students who are temporarily impacted by, say, a broken leg, must relocate to different classrooms for the term of their condition.
• Electrical wiring and technology: AES ability to integrate new learning technologies into the educational program is inhibited by the limitations of the building's electrical wiring. AES is literally unable to add outlets or install new equipment such as 'smart boards' due to outdated wiring and inability to handle any new load on the system.
• Fire Supression: AES has no sprinkler/fire suppression system.
• Aging plumbing: Original copper plumbing has leaks and cracks, requiring the opening of interior walls to fix. Asbestos coverings still exist on some plumbing - joints on piping and flooring throughout the building.
• Energy Inefficiency: All windows are single pane and extremely inefficient. The kitchen equipment is original and also inefficient.

AES - 'Temporary' trailers on the right

Financing a Future AES Project:

This topic is challenging to address in any simple manner. This is mainly because the scope -- and potential price tag -- of any AES renovation project is, at this point, highly speculative. The heart of working with MSBA as a community is going through an intensive community and facility-based needs assessment process and then scoping out and pricing options to meet those needs. What we know now is the list of deficiencies outlined above. What we don't know, without going through the intensive work with MSBA, is what solutions might look like.

That said, it is safe to say that any project funded by the MSBA will be substantial in scope and like cost in the millions (if not tens of millions) of dollars, even for a project that focuses on renovation of the existing facility rather that building a new facility.

The way that MSBA financing currently works is that once a project has been fully developed (see my last post), the MSBA enters into a construction and financing agreement with the local district. MSBA shares the cost of the project with the district by splitting up front the full project cost. For example, say that a project was going to cost $15 million and the MSBA determined that it will be paying for $8 million of the project. The remaining $7 million would fall on the local district to finance.

Both MSBA and Amesbury would finance construction by issuing bonds. On our end, we would likely use what is called a 'debt exclusion' bond issue, as we have for the Middle School and the High School in recent decades but that is only one of a couple of options. Without going in to the details of all that, the main point with bond issues is that they work like loans: you issue the bond for some extended period of time (likely 20 years for this big of a project), investors buy your bonds (letting you pay for your project) and then you pay back principal + interest to the investors over the period of the bond ('loan').

At any given time, the City of Amesbury has multiple bond issues that it is paying off, of all sorts of scales and repayment periods. The inventory of all of this debt is called a 'debt schedule'.

Amesbury's current 'debt schedule' can be found HERE. If you click on this link and open the document, you can see that one item is highlighted in yellow, '05 Mid Sch Refunding'. I've highlighted this to show that we are about to complete the repayment of our debt from the Middle School renovations. Indeed, looking out beyond 2017, one can see a cascading 'retirement' of debt. The retirement of old debt and the making of new capital investments is part of the long-range investment rhythm of a municipality. With a project like AES, the bond payments hit the books and the debt schedule only once the project is completed (there are other mechanisms for managing the short-term costs during construction) and would likely be a few years away, at least. This should give some sense of how the financing of a possible AES project might fit into our long-term financial picture.

The Municipal Council takes up a resolution of support for the Statement of Interest (required by MSBA) at a Special Meeting Tuesday, 3/24/15 in Town Hall, immediately following our regular Finance Committee meeting (which starts at 7:00 p.m.). Public comment on this issue is welcome during the public comment period (this will not be a Public Hearing, per se).

Amesbury Elementary School - Should We Update It?

The Amesbury City Council has before it a resolution forwarded to us by the School Committee to approve the submission of a 'Statement of Interest' application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for participation in their building program, in this case, for Amesbury Elementary School. To be considered for participation in MSBA's school repair and building program, local districts must first submit a 'Statement of Interest' application that has been voted on and backed by both the local School Committee and the Board of Selectmen/City Council. The School Committee voted unanimously to approve the SOI (with an an abstention from Mayor Gray) last month. [MSBA local vote requirements are very specific and can be found HERE.]

Amesbury Elementary School

The School District has until April 10, 2015 to submit an SOI application; the Council vote is the final step in enabling that submission.

What does it mean? What, exactly, are we applying for, if we submit this 'SOI'?

I'll start with what we are not doing with this application.

We are not appropriating funds to repair, rebuild, or tear down Amesbury Elementary School, at least not at the present.

What we are doing is competing with other school districts across the Commonwealth in order to have the chance of making substantial upgrades to Amesbury Elementary at some point in the future.


The MSBA funds local school rehabilitation and building projects, on a cost-sharing basis with local communities. In order to participate in the MSBA's building program, districts must go through a multi-phase process. The submission of the 'Statement of Interest' is the first phase in this process. An overview of the 2015 SOI competition can be found HERE. As the MSBA reports, for the FY14 competition, MSBA received 227 applications from school districts. 111 were approved to take the next step in the MSBA's 'due diligence' process. Of the 108 applications for the MSBA's CORE program - the program that Amesbury would be applying to - only 28 proceeded past the due diligence phase on to the next feasibility study phase.

The point is, this is a very competitive program and scoring is based on the relative needs of school districts across the Commonwealth. It is typical for districts to apply multiple times before getting past the initial SOI phase.

What would it mean if our SOI application was accepted?

If an SOI is accepted for further review, the next phase is a 'Senior Study Site Visit.' According to the MSBA's website, "[c]onducting a Senior Study is part of the due diligence phase of the MSBA's newly reformed school renovation and construction grant program....The information acquired during the Senior Study will help the MSBA to determine the next steps in the process. The MSBA’s goal is to collaborate with the district to find the right-sized, most fiscally responsible and educationally appropriate solution to the facility’s problems. The Senior Study is not approval of a project. It is part of the due diligence phase of the MSBA’s new process." [emphasis mine]

At this point, if the district advances in the process, the MSBA would partner with the school district (and community) to undertake an extensive feasibility process, a process that is designed to fully assess a particular facility's needs in the context of a districts overall educational program, taking into account everything from enrollment trends to the financial state of the community. At this point, the district (and community) begin to make real commitments, working with MSBA to hire a qualified project team. Here, the District and its team collaborate with the MSBA to document their educational program, generate an initial space summary, document existing conditions, establish design parameters, develop and evaluate alternatives, and recommend the most cost effective and educationally appropriate preferred solution to the MSBA Board of Directors for their consideration." It is important to note that the district's costs for undertaking the feasibility process are reimbursable from MSBA.

Only after review of feasibility study is reviewed by the MSBA board, does a community enter into the design phase of the process. This is the phase were the full scope, design, budget, and schedule of the building project comes in to view. According to MSBA materials, "[t]he MSBA generates a Project Scope and Budget Agreement that documents the project scope, budget, schedule and MSBA financial participation to forward to the MSBA Board of Directors for their consideration.  Approval by the MSBA Board of Directors is required for all projects in order for the MSBA to enter into a Project Scope and Budget Agreement and a Project Funding Agreement with the District." On the district/city side, the community must go through a public input phase and certify that it has gone through a public process for soliciting feedback that meets MSBA standards.

It is only after all of this that a project actually is voted on and approved for funding by the MSBA Board of Directors. As one can imagine, the process described above can take months, if not years, to complete.

Once the MSBA approves a project that has been fully studied, developed, and reviewed, the final phase before construction is funding. Should Amesbury actually make it to this point in the process, it is here that we would then have to take a public vote to appropriate funds - likely through what is called a 'debt exclusion' - to fund our share of the project. Once both the MSBA and the locality have approved funding, the project can move into the construction phase.

I'll save discussion of how this project would fit into Amesbury's long-term debt commitments for another post; this one's long enough already.

To RECAP:

The SOI is not a commitment of funds, nor is it a commitment to any particular building program or scope of work for Amesbury Elementary School.

The SOI is a statement from the Amesbury School District that the current facility has obsolete elements that substantially inhibit AES from fully achieving its educational program. And it is the first step in a long process that allows Amesbury to collaborate with MSBA to design a good project that meets the current and future needs of our students.