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PEEKSKILL, N.Y. -- Superintendent of Schools James Willis has a number of challenges in front of him in the coming months, but the new superintendent said he's dealt with many of those same challenges before.
The Peekskill City School District is currently working on a plan to address inadequacies found by a Joint Intervention Team, or "JIT", an independent team sent by the state to study the school's structure. The JIT was triggered by low performance in state testing at the high school over the past several years.
Peekskill Middle School underwent a similar study, the SQR, last week and Hillcrest Elementary School also underwent a similar study before winter break. The results of those studies are still forthcoming.
Willis dealt with the same process as a superintendent at the Ithaca City School District last year, where the high school and two middle schools underwent the studies.
"We were supposed to do this (study) last year," Willis said of the Peekskill JIT. "The school board asked me why I didn't get done and I think it had to do with the leaving of Judith Johnson. I'm not going to point fingers, but for whatever reason we didn't get to it."
The district has asked for an extension on the deadline until March 1 in order to put together a proper response for the state.
The JIT report covered seven categories, and the district must give a plan to address the categories where deficiencies were found, such as creating a school-wide written curriculum where one did not exist before and a lack of lesson plans.
Willis said that teachers should be putting together universal lesson plans each year regardless of how experienced they are since the JIT study found such plans lacking.
The district must also work to improve concepts like vertical alignment, better known as curriculum mapping, which allows teachers in each grade to know what students were taught in the previous grade in order to create a smooth transition.
The district is not required to send parents a copy of the JIT report but a final version of the report will eventually be posted on the district website, along with a copy of the district's action plan once it is approved by the state, Willis said.
Another issue being addressed by the administration and the school board is student behavior, which has become a major focus in recent months.
"When I met with the school board on our retreat in July they wanted to know how could we remove disruptive factors from the classroom - that was their number one concern," Willis said.
At the most recent school board meeting, Willis suggested bringing back an alternative classroom setting for difficult students, which was formerly held at Park Street but later eliminated by the district since it failed to help student performance. Willis said that he saw the same thing happen in the Utica district where students failed to do well in a similar program.
"They did a lot worse, in fact," he said.
The district administration is looking into such programs at similar schools to see how much success they have and will discuss the finding with the school board in February. Willis said that unlike Peekskill and Utica some alternative programs in the state have been successful, with some even having a waiting list.
"Parents want their kids to be there because they are successful," Willis said.
Willis said the changes that need to be made in the district are coming at a time when new state and national educational standards are being put in place, making the improvements more necessary than ever.
"You can cry about the past and assign blame but the important thing is moving forward," Willis said. "This is a great opportunity to get on track."
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