Results from a national study (March 2006) conducted by the Gates Foundation regarding perspectives of students who have dropped out of school indicate:

• 47% said classes not interesting
• 35% quit because they were failing in school
• 69% were not motivated to work hard
• 81% called for more “real-world” learning opportunities
• 32% had to get a job and make money

RISD is the Largest Employer in Rockwall County

House Bill 1 increased graduation requirements for students beginning with 2007-2008 ninth graders.

Students are required to earn four credits in each core content area: math, science, English language arts and social studies.

Referred to as the “4X4” plan

Ethnic Distribution in RISD

• 7.4% African American
• 17.9% Hispanic
• 71.3% White
• 0.3% Native American
• 3.1% Asian/Pacific Islander
• 21.02% Economically Disadvantaged
• 25.8% At-Risk

The mission of the Rockwall ISD Education Foundation is to generate and distribute resources to the Rockwall Independent School District to enrich and expand programs needed to meet the District’s stated mission of excellence in education.

Currently, 42 elementary and secondary teachers are enrolled in the Cohort of Rockwall Educators Masters Degree program (CORE) with graduation dates in 2010 and 2011.

RISD educates 13,700+ students this year

 99% of RISD 3^rd graders passed the Reading portion of the TAKS test

The composition of a district’s Strategic Thinking/Planning Team is in transition as well as the process for developing a Strategic Plan for the future.  Schlechty, an expert on school leadership, provided the following guiding principles for districts to keep at the forefront of their planning processes.     In Shaking Up the School House he noted the following:

The pace of change in American society is far outstripping the capacity of schools to keep up….  For . . . leaders to do their jobs it is essential first to acknowledge that in spite of numerous waves of reform U.S. schools are not much different – either for good or ill – than they were fifty years ago.  Certainly there have been changes, but for the most part they have been fragmented, episodic, multidirectional, and lacking in coordination and persistence.

In Rockwall ISD the focus is on the whole child. However, under the current system, one has to stop and breathe in order to keep that focus in check.   Students are expected to achieve at a competitive level with other school students, yet our truest focus within our profession has to be on the quality of the “learning journey,” not just on the “learning vehicle,” or at least, not on the wrong “learning vehicle” – one test.

Under the current system, schools in general are being criticized for letting one test determine its entire curriculum. Yet, in the plan to move education into the 21^st Century, a test has to be used as a measurement of “what was learned,” not as “what is to be learned.” In Rockwall ISD, our goal is for learning to be engaging for all students, which means it has to be relevant and valuable to each individual child.

In Rockwall ISD, student engagement means that students are interested, challenged, satisfied, persistent, and committed to their work.  According to district philosophy, “The critical result of student engagement is that students learn what is important for them to learn” (Schlechty).  The goal is that students be life-long learners who can make good decisions while exhibiting high levels of character and integrity.

Rockwall ISD is going to always focus on the highest standards for every child.   The district will continue to support high accountability and a need to be transparent in all our actions, yet also support the need to ensure that the spotlight is always on students, their needs, their learning, their happiness, and their futures. 

The core business of schools is to focus on authentically engaging students in meaningful and challenging work to enhance the learning of all.

MAJOR ASSUMPTION: The key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2006) through Professional Learning Communities where educators are committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results for the students they serve.
 

In our community, 46 languages other than English are spoken in homes. 1,590 students have another language other than English, and 914 students are identified as Limited English Proficient (LEP). 7% of total student population in the district is LEP.

The need to address education’s “problems and challenges” erupted from our nations’ schools not meeting the needs of all students. In Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas, problems and challenges are summarized in the following way:

Every parent has a dream that their children will be happy and successful. Our communities and the schools that serve them should equally share in that dream and have a plan for making that dream a reality. Preparing students for success in the workforce is secondary to preparing children for success in life. The core business of schools is to provide engaging, appropriate experiences for students so that they learn and are able to apply their knowledge in ways that will enrich their lives and ensure their well-being. Unfortunately, the present bureaucratic structure has taken away that focus and replaced it with a system based on compliance, coercion, and fear. If proper focus is to be restored, the system must be transformed into one based on trust, shared values, creativity, innovation, and respect.

RISD has 92% of students in grades 7-12 participating in extra/co-curricular activities.

RISD conducts random drug/alcohol screenings which are required of all varsity athletes, cheerleaders and drill team members.

RISD average SAT score of 1578 is above the state (1455) and national (1493) average

RISD average ACT score of 22.6 is above the state (20.8) and national (21.1) average.

According to Cambridge Strategic Services, a Strategic Performance System, a Strategic Plan evolves through the process of Strategic Thinking, and includes “the means by which [a] community continuously creates artifactual systems [concepts] toward extraordinary purpose [unprecedented possibilities]” (cambridgestrategics.com). In other words, Strategic Thinking is the process strategic organizations undergo (along with their community and business members, parents, and students) as they concentrate all their efforts, resources, activities, and energies toward a single goal. This one goal is to create a Strategic Plan for imagining, designing, and creating the best schools for the future.

As RISD looks toward 2015, the planning process will focus on educational awareness, examining current literature and best practices, analyzing changing demographics, teacher characteristics, and much more. The process will emphasize the key elements supporting imagining, designing, and creating great schools of the future.

With American culture now in the midst of reflection and its own reform of sorts, schools are being challenged more than ever to mirror community core values while creating new pathways to prepare today’s learners for tomorrow’s future opportunities. The authors of Applebee’s America introduced their book with the following quotation by philosopher Eric Hoffer: “In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” (Sosnik, Dowd, and Fournier, p. 1). In educational circles, this quotation is very insightful, for it references the importance of developing informed roadmaps for transforming schools to meet the needs of twentieth-first century communities and their learners.