Days after Texas education commissioner Mike Morath praised Dallas ISD’s turnaround plan for struggling schools as an example for the rest of the state to follow, DISD administrators announced major changes for the Accelerating Campus Excellence program.
For the next round of schools selected for ACE, DISD will no longer replace entire teaching and administrative staffs when the schools are picked for the program.
Additionally, DISD won’t pay every teacher at the school a stipend to teach at an ACE campus. Only administrators and select teachers — “teacher leaders” — will be recruited to the new ACE campuses and receive the extra money, Assistant Superintendent Jolee Healey explained to the school board Thursday during its monthly meeting.
Teachers currently at ACE schools receive stipends, including signing bonuses, totaling between $8,000 and $12,000 over three years.
Stephanie Elizalde, DISD chief of school leadership, said that moving forward, approximately a quarter of teachers at an ACE campus will get similar stipends. There will be a pool of additional compensation available at each campus, she added.
The changes were prompted by experience and economics, Elizalde told the board. The district believes it can achieve the same results with a scaled-down model by incorporating best practices gathered from two previous launches. It will also save money, approximately $2 million each year.
That’s a plus, considering DISD is in the process of making $80 million in cuts for the upcoming budget.
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa reiterated that the cuts aren't a “shortfall,” but the result of a prolonged reduction in the district's enrollment. Projections have next school year’s enrollment around 153,000, a 3,000-student decline from this year.
As a result, earlier this month DISD issued “excess” letters to 400 teachers, around 4 percent of its teaching staff. All 400 teachers won’t necessarily be let go, Elizalde said, as they will receive priority in filling vacancies created by departures and retirements at the end of the school year.
The third iteration of the ACE plan will include seven elementary schools, including five new to the program: Cesar Chavez, Dunbar Learning Center, Hotchkiss, Martin Luther King Jr. Learning Center and Rhoads.
Maple Lawn Elementary will also be in the pared-down ACE model, prompted by the consolidation of its campus and a current ACE school, Onesimo Hernandez Elementary.
The revamped program will also include a holdover, Pease Elementary, which took part in the pilot launched three years ago. ACE normally ends at a campus after a three-year cycle.
Incentive pay and staff turnover aren’t the only strategies ACE employs. Schools will continue to give students a longer school day, mandatory after-school tutoring, and more enrichment and wrap-around services.
The turnaround program, developed in the final days of former Superintendent Mike Miles’ tenure, has been a rousing success, especially at the elementary school level. Six of seven schools selected to be part of the pilot moved off the state’s failing list after just one school year. Several campuses have seen 20-percentage-point gains in reading and math achievement, as well as increased attendance and better scores on parent and teacher campus climate surveys.
This week, Richardson ISD launched its version of ACE for four of its elementary schools, based on DISD’s original model.
While the changes didn’t need board approval, several trustees voiced their concerns about altering a plan with a proven track record.
"It is a little bit disappointing that we have a program that has produced such outstanding results, and for budgetary reasons, we are having to look to modify it," board president Dan Micciche said.
Trustee Edwin Flores said it was clear that ACE works, bringing "the good stuff to all the different schools and the kids most in need. And it's unfortunate that we don't have the funding to expand it."
The district also announced the dissolution of its other program for at-risk schools, the Intensive Support Network.
The 14 schools receiving additional support under that plan will be folded, along with the ACE schools, into a new department run by Healey called the Office of School Improvement.
Elizalde said Friday that she didn’t expect any difference in performance with the changes.
"The truth is, this is a way to expand, taking teaching techniques that are working at some of these schools and putting them at every school," she said. "We wouldn't be doing this if we thought we were going to take a step back. If it’s going to affect the effectiveness, I’m not going to make those changes.”
