Ascension Public Schools’ Patrice Pujol, one of four finalists for the School Superintendents Association’s 2015 National Superintendent of the Year, explained in a panel discussion with the other finalists today how Ascension Parish turned around some of its struggling schools.
The Washington Post reports the superintendents, who gathered in the Washington D.C. area for the panel discussion, talked about the issues their districts face—from long-standing community mistrust to widespread poverty and poor communication with parents—and their attempts to solve those problems. Their answers will be part of what they are judged on as the organization selects the next superintendent of the year, which will be announced next month.
Pujol said one of her immediate top priorities when she became Ascension’s superintendent in 2010 was to improve the district’s eight lowest-performing schools. To do so, she replaced five of the eight principals and began providing additional guidance on best practices. She moved highly rated teachers into the low-performing schools and instituted team teaching.
“We really restructured our entire school district to support these eight schools,” she said.
The schools—which were rated D and F schools in the state’s accountability system—rose quickly to become B and C schools. That level of attention trickled down to individual students.
“It’s all about setting expectations and then taking individual students—student by student—and tracking their progress toward that mastery,” Pujol told The Post in an interview after the panel. “Teachers collaboratively look at the student’s work and say, ‘Where is this student going awry?’ And then they collaboratively come up with a plan.”
Nearly all of the panelists talked today about the importance of raising expectations and not writing off low student academic performance as an inevitable byproduct of poverty or minority status.
The other finalists are Patrick Murphy of Arlington, Virginia; MaryEllen Elia of Hillsborough County, Florida; and Philip Lanoue of Clarke County, Georgia. Read the full story.
