Site-Based Management Strategy Team
Minutes - Monday, April 26, 1999

Present:

The meeting opened at 5:30 PM

1. GUEST: DR. FRANK PALLOTTA, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

 
1. Site improvement teams vs. site based management.

Dr. Pallotta prefers “site improvement teams” (SIT) to “site based management” (SBM) to avoid “connotations of control.” Later, he noted the RI Dept. of Ed. has mandated that each school have a three-year action plan by November of 1999 and that each plan shall be created by a SIT (which can be a SBM team) with at least 2 parents, 2 teachers and the principal. Dr. Pallotta passed out RIDE’s SIT “short guide” for SITs.
 
2. Dr. Pallotta offered some observations on what makes for successful SITs.

 
• Coherent vision, mission, goals and objectives
• Diversity and representation of the community
• Agreeing to disagree
• The concept of “teaming” - how to work in a team
• Consensus decision-making; unless skillfully facilitated, voting is divisive.
• Strong facilitator, preferably the school principal, but if not, then someone principal relies upon for leadership in the school. (The assumption that principals would know how to facilitate teams has turned out to be wrong.)
• Clear agenda as a starting point for discussion - work and issues will evolve from here.
• Understanding what to talk about and what not.
• Constitution and by-laws governing team discipline, succession, etc.
• To be avoided: “self-serving,” “my child” attitude or blaming specific teacher.

 
Does or should the SIT have the final word on educational issues?
Dr. Pallotta’s own view is not fixed, but contractually, teachers have the right to vote on curriculum and teaching methods.

What do SITs talk about? Not specific implementation, but general direction..
For instance, don’t second-guess specific suspension, but do set overall discipline process. Principals must buy-in to SIT’s influence, which is part of forming a SIT.
 

3. Questions:

 
Have principals been trained to work with SITs?
The old corps was trained, but newer promotions have not been systematically trained.

 
The strategic plan parameters say “we will always attempt to enhance site-based decision-making”, while, of the nine actual strategies, SBM is the least clear.  How did the strategic planning team arrive at this result?
Dr. Pallotta says the term “site-based management” is used loosely.  His view: why go through the whole formal SBM process when SIT has the same effect? People who think there is special funding for SBM schools should realize the money for SBM as such will dry up.

 
Is the zone administrator position useful in changing administration from manager to resource provider for schools?
Yes. Zone administrators sit in on SITs and carry lessons from site to site. Also, they evaluate principals and link schools to resources. Schools call one person they know, not many.

 
How do you keep schools consistent under SIT/SBM?
OATs is the key and Providence is way ahead of the rest of the state on that score. New hires are trained.  You deal with staff turnover by continuity of vision.

 
Can SIT’s influence staff selection?
Yes. First, schools have authority now to change the nature of a given staff position. For example, a school can change a social worker to a counselor in its budget submission.  Downside here is that you take the first person off transfer list. Another route is negotiating a specific building-wide exemption from contract so that SIT can interview and select. If the SIT wanted this exemption, it would go to superintendent, who would approach PTU. PTU would probably agree providing the union’s building rep had no objection. Thus, schools have the potential to win a major (perhaps the major) advantage of SBM without going through the SBM process.  Five schools besides the two SBM sites (e.g. Veazie St.) have staff selection authority.

 
Dr. Pallotta concluded with the plea that our recommendations result in setting consistent parameters across all schools in the District.
 
2. TEAM ISSUES: Greg
 
1. Calendar: Meetings now scheduled for Mondays: May 3, 10, 17 and 24. Greg wants to set Tuesday, May 18 as firm meeting date. His intention is that we will meet in working groups on May 17 and finalize our presentation on May18. May 24 would be a wrap-up, perhaps to create a video.
2. We present to the larger planning group on Tuesday, June 8. Greg was told we would present first at 9 AM. Will need to decide who will present. We will have 20 minutes.
3. Website organization. Greg suggested Barbara, Fran and John Rich structure links and materials on our website in terms of priorities so that new members and the planning team can quickly visit and get up to speed. There was no agreement on the need for this and this issue was deferred to next week.
4. Stucture and work plan: Jon Howard suggested that an issue like structuring links and documents on the website would fall into place if we had an agreed "structure of inquiry." Greg responded that we will finalize this structure at next week's meeting.

 
3. APPENDIX W


Should we post “Appendix W”, the contractual provision governing formal SBM in the District? This was agreed by consensus.
 

4. RESEARCH REPORTS


Greg held Lou's report on leadership out as a model for research reports.

 
1. Parental involvement - Jon Howard - Has found relatively little on SBM and parents -- national PTO has standards for parental involvement, one of which addresses local decision-making. His report with links will be posted later..
2. Comer model - Tom Arrison. Tom handed out his summary of how Comer is relevant to SBM.

 
5. REPORT OUT FORMAT


Greg handed out the report of Action Team #2, which was put forward as the model for team output at a recent team leader meeting.  The format of their report:

 
1. Cover letter
2. Original goal & three new action objectives
3. Action steps (5 to 8 steps) for each objective
4. Cost/benefit (tangible and intangible) matrices for each plan.

Group members were surprised by the cost estimates in the plan.  We are not necessarily bound by this precedent, but this seems to be what the planning team is prepared for.

Our next meeting is Monday, May 3 at 5:30 PM.
We meet in School Board meeting room C at the School Department building.

Submitted by Jonathan Howard