PHS Failing to Meet Goals; State Says to Restructure and Improve

Peekskill High School is failing to meet state goals and needs restructuring in order to reach them, a member of a state Joint Intervention Team (JIT) told the Board of Education Tuesday night. Key problem areas are the progress of special education students and the graduation rate.

Focusing on seven areas, Dr. James Butterworth offered the board a fast-paced overview of the team’s findings during its official visit to the high school Nov. 28-30. The full report is to be delivered to the district by early January.

Butterworth, a former assistant state commissioner of education, is the executive director of the Capital Area School Development Association. He was the outside educational expert on the 11-member team, whose members included Joseph Mosey, Peekskill’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and Frederick Hutchinson, Peekskill’s director for reading and gifted.

Mosey and Hutchinson introduced Butterworth’s presentation, noting that the JIT visit was prompted by the high school’s inclusion on state watch lists for six years – two as a school in need of improvement, followed by two as a school in need of corrections. It is now in its second year as a school in need of restructuring. Students with disabilities are not reaching goals in English language arts and mathematics while all student groups are falling short of the target graduation rate.

“Basically, Peekskill High School is stuck,” Butterworth said. “The school has not made significant progress in identified areas and is not likely to make its AYP (annual yearly progress)” on its present course. A goal of the visit is to help the school revamp itself, especially its organizational structure and leadership, to improve student achievement.

The JIT visit, a highly structured process including 100 indicators, involved extensive review of data and first-hand observations to assess conditions at the school, Butterworth explained. Classroom observations and interviews with teachers, students, parents and district officials were part of the process. 

While the primary focus of the JIT – “think of us as critical friends,” Butterworth suggested – is to focus on problem areas, he said the team found commendable strengths in Peekskill that are not always noticeable in troubled schools. He cited staff commitment; a feeling among students that they are supported and connected to their teachers and school; common planning time; reduction in the number of subgroups not meeting their AYP goals in recent years; and accomplishments among students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds equal to those of other students. The team sensed a “good spirit” in the school and found student misbehavior such as tardiness to be more habitual than malicious.

Butterworth said the JIT’s concerns included:

Curriculum: No evidence of written curriculum tied to state standards, no vertical or horizontal alignment in core areas, no evidence of systematically developed lesson plans.

Teaching/learning: Little evidence of internal leadership, low faculty expectations of students despite high levels of support, little evidence in mixed classes of individualized instruction or adequate understanding of techniques for supporting students with disabilities and English language learners.

School leadership: Lack of shared vision, expenditure of administrative time primarily on building management (safety, order, scheduling) instead of instructional supervision and program development, lack of leadership from the special education department for special education instruction.

Infrastructure for student success: High number of referrals to administrators, no plan to increase attendance rates and lower tardiness rates, limited joint planning among general and special education educators, academic intervention services that are not in compliance with state standards.

Collection and use of data: Done effectively for reports to the state but not utilized to drive local improvements.

Professional development: Episodic, not comprehensive, not enough time, common planning time underutilized.

District support: Sense of disconnection between the school and the district administration.

Among the 35 recommendations forthcoming in the final report, Butterworth mentioned redesign of the administrative team and curriculum, increased expectations of students, ongoing faculty development, improved time management, increased support for special education students and English language learners, greater curriculum integration and more support for the people carrying out these efforts.

While the JIT does not help directly with improvements, Butterworth said, it offers networking with specialized consultants and with districts that have dealt successfully with similar challenges. The Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services offers similar networks, he said. Describing the JIT report as a baseline, he suggested that Peekskill set priorities and utilize its “significant resources” to “seek a few quick victories” and build upon them as it tackles more complex challenges.

“We have work to do,” board President Joseph Urbanowicz acknowledged, summarizing the sense of urgency voiced by board colleagues and administrators.

Board member Douglas Glickert suggested that one immediate improvement could be a crackdown on tardiness.

Superintendent of Schools James Willis said the district needed a “curriculum map,” beginning with vertical alignment of subjects from one grade to the next followed by horizontal alignment, in which each class is at approximately the same spot in the curriculum and subject matter is handled at approximately the same time in different academic disciplines. As an example he cited studying Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird in an English class while a history class was studying southern social and economic conditions before the civil rights movement.

Assistant Superintendent Mosey is seeking grants to help fund improvement initiatives.

The district is required to submit a Comprehensive Education Plan to the state Education Department in January. A revised version, addressing the JIT findings, is due in February, along with a Comprehensive District Education Plan. After state review the district will implement the plans over two years beginning in the spring.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Mosey, who has been dealing with some of the JIT issues for several months. “But we will get it done.”