Join the conversation

Story posted March, 2008

Results:
• 72% of schools made Adequate Yearly Progress for the 2006-2007 school year, up from 59% when the workshops began
• Community-identified goals have led to increased teacher salaries, opening the district's first preschool, and performing their first audit, among other actions

To create high-performance schools in an aging, fiscally challenged city, Hampton, VA, School Superintendent Patrick Russo and other school leaders acknowledged that a sense of community ownership of the schools was the key to improvement. With that as the goal, the school district initiated the first Community Priorities Workshop in February 2005. The intent was and continues to be to hold such workshops annually.

The objective is to engage the entire community in shaping a set of desired outcomes for the district. A broad cross-section of community stakeholders and partners participate each year. Participants included students, parents, school board officials, city employees, higher-education professionals, neighborhood leaders, civic and faith-based organization representatives, real-estate professionals, military representatives and business leaders.

Hampton is largely a blue-collar community with quickly changing demographics that is frequently disconnected from the majority school-age, African-American population. Hampton City Schools, named the Virginia state winner in the 2008 National Civic Star Award competition for its workshops, serves approximately 22,000 students in 36 schools. A few years ago, only 57 percent of the schools made Adequate Yearly Progress. The workshop idea was seen as a way to move forward.

The workshop lasts three hours and involves approximately 150 participants. Individuals are divided into groups that share similar frames of reference. Facilitators successfully guide each group through discussions that shape a shared set of goals.

The objective is to involve the entire community in shaping a set of shared outcomes for the schools. After the small group meetings, everyone reconvenes and group leaders give their reports. Participants then divide a second time into mixed groups to refine goals. The process was designed to ensure that all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute and become partners, with the school district providing direction and ensuring educational success for all students. The 2005 workshop resulted in six priorities:

• Recruitment, development and retention of effective staff
• Facilities and technology
• Parental involvement
• School and community partnerships
• Three- and four-year-old preschool and at-risk programs
• Program audit

Subsequently, the school board adopted the priorities as community priority goals for the district, and the superintendent turned the goals into action steps. Each central administration department and individual school was charged with developing three to five simple, quantifiable, written objectives to support the community priorities, resulting in more than 200 tools with which to implement them.

The superintendent charged each school with developing a plan to achieve the community priorities. Students play an important role in the school-level plan development and implementation process each year. The plans are successful largely because of student leadership and support of the process.

Since 2005, teachers' salaries have increased by 18 percent in Hampton, and the division has begun an aggressive construction project. Among parents, 96 percent stated that they understood the school division's mission and vision on a recent survey, and 94 percent of parents gave their children's schools grades of "A," "B," or "C."

Seven faith-based partnerships were created. The first three- and four-year-old preschool was opened, and the first program audit was competed, resulting in the shifting of resources to support a streamlined, newly effective course outline for K-12.

Most importantly, 72 percent of the schools made Adequate Yearly Progress for the 2006-2007 school year. School leaders believe this is directly a result of the community's commitment to the schools and the willingness to set high standards for staff and students.

This story came to LFA's attention as the Virginia winner of the 2008 National Civic Star Award, presented by the American Association of School Administrators and Sodexo, Inc.

For additional information, please contact:
Patrick Russo
Superintendent, Hampton City Schools
757-727-2030
prusso@sbo.hampton.k12.va.us

Story reprinted by permission of Sodexo School Services and the American Association of School Administrators, 2008.

Photos courtesy of Hampton City Schools