Great
opportunities for the Normandy School District have come disguised
as great challenges, said district Superintendent Stanton Lawrence
at the “state of the district” luncheon held Friday at Lucas
Crossing Elementary.
The
district has struggled for accreditation and financial stability.
It absorbed the failing Wellston School District last year. It
constantly faces safety issues in the surrounding community.
However, Lawrence said that the district is addressing these
challenges.
After last
year’s reorganization of the district, where he asked all employees
to reapply for their jobs, the district lost 160 positions and is
now saving $1.5 million annually, he said. Only three of the 11
principals were rehired, and all employees will be held accountable
to producing at high levels, he said.
“We are
not only leaner, the state of the district is stronger and we are
planning strategically,” he said.
Lawrence
said he and the Board of Education (chaired by Cozy W. Marks III)
make decisions as a team, and the decisions are based on
data.
In two
weeks, the district will launch a “data dashboard” on its website
that will allow the community to see the district’s current state.
The dashboard will include academic performance scores, attendance,
discipline/behavior, and school finance.
In the
fall, the district started conducting internal assessment tests,
similar to the state’s Missouri Assessment Program tests. This will
allow the district to assess performance throughout the year,
rather than just at the end of the year when it receives results
from the MAP tests. So far, tests show that students have improved
up to 13 percent in some grade levels in communication arts and
mathematics. These test scores will also be available on the data
dashboard.
Lawrence
discussed an idea that has not been popular among some teachers’
union leaders and members – paying teachers for academic
outcomes.
“If a
teacher has a track record of all of her kids performing at high
levels, why shouldn’t she be compensated beyond a teacher where
none of her kids are performing at a high level?” he
said.
“I’m going
to push it really hard, but it’s going to cause a lot of push back
from the organizations. But I already told them where I’m coming
from.”
Normandy
has the highest percentage of African-American students of any of
Missouri’s 524 school districts. Normandy was in second place with
99.2 percent to the Wellston School District, which had 100 percent
black student enrollment, before the two districts
emerged.
For his
efforts to turn around the district, Lawrence was recognized as the
2010 Stellar Performer
“font-weight: normal;”>by the St. Louis American
Foundation.
This year,
Lawrence became a parent in the school district as his son entered
kindergarten.
He said
there was no better way “to demonstrate how committed I am to this
school district than the fact that my son is attending school
here.”
