Monday is the first day of school in the City School District of Albany. In many ways, it also is the start of a new era.
I have been waiting for this day for a long time, and I know our entire community has, too.
W. Edward Deming's research tells us that systems are designed to get the results they are getting. When I started my tenure as Albany's superintendent on Sept. 24, 2012, I knew, of course, about our mixed results.
Like those before me, I came to Albany acutely aware of the urgent need to raise achievement for our African-American and Hispanic students, students with disabilities and poor students.
Throughout my first months I watched and listened. My underlying assumptions were that there were many strengths across the district, and this was confirmed.
Albany's public schools are fortunate to have effective and hard-working leaders, teachers and staff in all schools, highly engaged parents and powerful partners throughout the community.
However, I also uncovered troubling systemic issues.
We have an undeveloped and misaligned core process of teaching and learning across the district. Too many well-intentioned initiatives plus too little training and support equals disappointment, disillusionment and, too often, apathy.
Grants and external mandates also have driven our strategies in disconnected ways because we have not clearly defined our own expectations for high performance, effective instruction or leadership.
Last, and certainly not unique to education, we work in isolation from each other instead of in collaboration across the system. In that environment, our leaders resorted through the years to what amounted to a patchwork approach from school to school and even classroom to classroom, producing pockets of success but not consistently strong results for all.
I knew I was not the first to make these observations.
So what to do about it?
What I also have found in Albany is hope. I have found school staff, parents, students and community partners eager to embrace our goal of becoming the best urban school district in America by 2020.
This is our 2020 Vision.
To achieve it, we first must embrace a fundamental change in our beliefs, thinking, practices and programs.
Our board of education has been at work for the past several months in drafting a strategic road map that will guide our turnaround. We will bring this draft to the community for feedback in the new school year and hope to adopt a final version later this fall.
Our 2020 Vision is grounded in a set of underlying principles:
If we provide a caring and competent teacher in every classroom and if we:
Empower and support principals as the key leaders to facilitate this vision and if we:
Ensure a strong central office staff focused on supporting school and teacher leaders and if we:
Ensure a strong partnership with the board and district leadership and if we;
Gather, analyze and use data to monitor continuous improvement, make informed decisions and report progress and if we;
Expand leadership density throughout the entire organization and if we:
Engage students, parents, community members and strategic partners to work together in reinforcing learning paths toward graduation to ensure students pursue college and careers, then ...
We will become a district that educates all students for college and career, citizenship and life in partnership with our diverse community.
We will meet our 2020 Vision.
In the end, it is what happens in the classroom that matters most. Teachers have the power to change lives; this is the heartbeat of all of a school district's work. Providing the support and tools our teachers need is "Job One" for all of us.
As we prepare for the start of a new school year Monday — and the start of a new era — I have challenged myself and each staff member to live by a new credo:
Raise the bar. Commit to excellence.
That's our mantra, and we're sticking to it!
Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, Ph.D., is superintendent of the 8,600-student City School District of Albany