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Partnerships, deal save Pontiac’s K-12 district
State, county, teachers team up to bring down deficit, improve learning
By Lori Higgins Detroit Free Press
On
paper, the Pontiac School District appeared to be on the brink of
collapse in 2013. The district’s massive deficit had ballooned from $38
million to $52 million in just one year. Bills weren’t getting paid. And
residents were on the hook for a nearly $8-million court settlement.
But desperation has turned into hope in this district.
“Nobody
wants to see this district dissolved and it’s not going to,” said Karen
Jones-Thomas, a kindergarten teacher at the International Technology
Academy. “It’s just like the city. We’re bouncing back.”
The
district’s deficit has been whittled down to $33 million over the past
two years, thanks largely to employees who took pay and benefit cuts,
two big emergency loans from the state, property sales and cost-cutting.
But
while the district is far from being financially healthy, the question
on many minds is whether its path there — via a consent agreement with
the state, a unique partnership with the Oakland County intermediate
school district, and a plan to also address lagging achievement — might
be a more viable and palatable option for school districts in a
financial emergency.
It’s a timely question,
considering the Michigan Department of Treasury this month will begin
preliminary reviews of 11 school districts with deep financial troubles —
reviews that could have the state finding them in a financial
emergency. Pontiac is among five school districts previously identified.
But
while the Detroit, Highland Park and Muskegon Heights school districts
received emergency managers between 2009 and 2012 — Pontiac went a
different route by choosing the consent agreement in 2013. The Benton
Harbor Area Schools followed suit in 2014. An EM, after all, would mean
the locally elected board of education would lose much of its power to
govern the district. And it would provide almost unilateral power to one
person.
The consent agreement process is far
different. While the board doesn’t have full power and can be compelled
to make decisions the state deems necessary, it still is in charge.
“It
does keep all of the shareholders at the table talking,” said Don
Weatherspoon, the man the state appointed to serve as a consultant for
the agreement. Weatherspoon is also the emergency manager in the
Highland Park school district and previously served as the EM in
Muskegon Heights.
Brenda Carter, president of the
Pontiac Board of Education, calls the consent agreement “a wise choice”
because it gave the board “the opportunity to work with the state to
help stabilize our school district.”
The agreement
in Pontiac called for the board to contract with an outside agency to
run key functions of the district. They chose Oakland Schools, the ISD
for Oakland County, which is in charge of finance, human resources,
technology and communications in the Pontiac district.
And
while it could have mixed success in other districts, Weatherspoon said
he’s impressed with what’s happened so far in Pontiac.
“By any measure, Pontiac is supposed to be gone,” Weatherspoon said. “The turnaround has been nothing short of remarkable.”
Some students say they’re noticing the change.
“There’s
programs that are coming that are getting you ready for the future,”
said Jose Ybarra, 16, an 11th-grader at the academy. “We’re rising
slowly, but we’re still rising.”
They’re rising,
said academy sophomore Dorian Kellam, 15, because “everybody is working
hard to be on top. I think the district has gotten better.”
But
the Pontiac district has a long way to go. State data released last
month showed the Pontiac district is far worse off than many other
districts in financial stress, with its $33-million deficit representing
46.66% of its revenue. Among traditional districts, only Benton Harbor
was a higher deficit ratio, at 47%. Detroit Public Schools was at 32%.
Much
of the district’s future is tied up in two proposals on the ballot in
March. One asks voters to approve renewing 18 mills on non-homestead
property, which generates more than $20 million in revenue for the
district. The other asks voters to approve the creation of a sinking
fund, a special fund that generates revenue to pay for major repair
projects.
Two previous attempts to pass a sinking
fund millage failed in 2015, and officials are hoping the third time
will be the charm. The district includes the city of Pontiac and
portions of nine surrounding communities. It’s in those surrounding
communities where the district struggles to get support.
“It’s
absolutely crucial,” Carter said. “With all the work we’ve done with
raising student achievement and reducing our (deficit), we still need to
maintain our buildings. Buildings are in disrepair.”
The last time the millage was before voters, it lost by 116 votes. It was encouraging news in the district.
Part
of the long-standing financial problems in the district are tied to the
failure to close buildings fast enough to address swiftly declining
enrollment. The student population has shrunk from 7,287 in 2008 to
4,224 this school year. Meanwhile, frequent changes in administration
left little consistency at the management level.
By
the time current superintendent Kelley Williams became interim
superintendent during the 2012-13 school year, the district’s financial
situation was dire. An audit showed the deficit was $35 million. But
just two weeks into the job, a new audit showed the deficit was
dramatically worse, at $57 million. Williams, whose background is in
curriculum and instruction, was alarmed.
“Everywhere
I turned in the office there was a bill, a vendor calling on a daily
basis asking for their payments,” Williams said.
The
consent agreement, Williams said, “is the best thing we ever could have
done.” But it hasn’t been easy. Egos had to be put aside. And some
control was lost. In the end, she said, the bottom line was hashing out a
plan that was in the best interests of students.
The
district has sold 17 surplus properties, earning $5 million. It
refinanced bonds and received two $10-million emergency loans from the
state. And it had meetings with each vendor that was owed money,
establishing a payment plan for paying that debt.
It
also made a commitment to spend federal Title 1 grant dollars that go
to schools with high populations of poor students. Nearly 80% of the
district’s students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The
problem before the consent agreement? Only 23% of the money was getting
spent, because the rule is schools must spend the money first, then get
reimbursed later. When the money went unspent, it meant kids who need
extra help the most weren’t getting it. Now, the district is spending
77% of that grant money, Williams said.
Employees
have stepped up in difficult ways, too. In 2012, they took a 6% pay cut,
then another 5.6% pay cut two years later, said Robert Moore, the
deputy superintendent of finance and operations at Oakland Schools. On
top of that, family insurance plans used to be paid by the district to
the tune of $17,000 each, annually. The district now pays $10,000, while
the employee pays the rest. A similar shift occurred for single and
married insurance plans.
“Employees are paying a
huge amount more for their benefits on top of having a more than 11% pay
cut over two years. And they’re still working. The sacrifice ... is
unparalleled,” Moore said.
Aimee McKeever,
president of the Pontiac Education Association, said that despite the
cuts, 168 of the 230 teachers who are part of her union were in the
district prior to the consent agreement — a testament, she says, to
their commitment to the district.
“I come here
every day because I love it. Plain and simple,” said Chris Prentice, a
ninth-grade social studies teacher who estimates he’s earning about
$15,000 less annually between the pay cuts and the increase in insurance
costs.
McKeever said one of the pros of the
consent agreement is the addition of Oakland Schools, which has provided
consistency for some key functions in the district, she said. But
overall, she said she’d give the process a C-, because she doesn’t think
there’s enough collaboration involving teachers.
“You need our input,” McKeever said.
Academic improvement key part of Pontiac’s plan
By Lori Higgins Detroit Free Press
The
Pontiac School District’s plan to eliminate a $33-million deficit also
includes an ambitious plan to improve academic achievement in the
district’s struggling schools.
The academic problem
is serious: Students in the district have historically underperformed
compared with the rest of the state on Michigan’s standardized exams. On
the state’s new, rigorous exam, just 14% of students district-wide
passed the English language arts portion, while 7.3% passed the math
exam, according to data released in December.
To
turn that around, the district — with help from Oakland Schools, the
county’s intermediate school district — has adopted a myriad of new
approaches since a consent agreement with the state was signed in
September 2013.
That agreement includes an
education plan that must be approved by the state superintendent and the
state treasurer. The two must be intertwined, said Robert Moore, deputy
superintendent of finance and operations for Oakland Schools, which is
providing the Pontiac district with finance, human resources, technology
and communications services on a contract basis.
“It’s
very challenging to do that — making sure there’s enough horsepower in
the budget to give the education plan the resources it needs,” Moore
said.
So far, schools have shifted from a
traditional September-to-June school year calendar to one that has
students starting school in August and remaining in school through the
end of June. They have the same holiday breaks other districts have, but
Pontiac students also have two additional two-week breaks — one in
October and the other in March.
How does that
improve academic achievement? A shorter summer break cuts down on the
amount of learning students lose during the traditional long summer
break. And during those two-week breaks, the district holds
intercessions that allow teachers to provide extra instruction to
students who need it.
Superintendent Kelley Williams said the intercessions provide that extra help when it counts most.
“We
can monitor when a student has not met the benchmarks, instead of
waiting until the end of the school year,” Williams said. “We capture
the intervention in the middle of the calendar.”
Meanwhile,
teachers at the elementary level are providing an extra dose of reading
and math instruction. And there’s a big emphasis on using technology at
the middle and high school level, through the use of Chrome-books
provided to each student, along with Internet access for students who
don’t have it at home.
The infusion of technology
required extensive training for teachers, helping them learn how to make
the best use of it. The technology doesn’t replace the teacher, but it
provides the teacher and student with a variety of resources to
supplement learning, said Vickie Markavitch, CEO of cost-recovery field
service at Oakland Schools.
“Teachers can go on
there now and find tutorials, enrichment, extra practice, they can find
colorful scenarios and simulations to help reinforce what normally would
have been on a page,” Markavitch said. “It’s much more exciting, much
more flexible, much more usable.”
Students seem to
be liking the focus on technology. Oakland Schools surveys 10th-graders
each year, gauging their satisfaction level with school and how engaged
they are in their learning. In the past year, Pontiac students have made
the greatest growth.
There are some other signs
things are improving academically. On exams administered through the
Northwest Evaluation Association, the percentage of students proficient
on reading exams went from 18.7% to 23% from spring 2013 to spring 2014,
Williams said. During the same time period, proficiency on math exams
grew from 8% to 19.4%.
The district’s composite ACT
score, though, has declined slightly, from 14.6 (out of 36) in the
2014-15 school year to 14.3 in 2014-15. But graduation rates are on the
rise, from 59% in 2013-14 to 72% last school year, Williams said.
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