Audit could mean changes on district's horizon

EOWYN LeMAY IVEY-Frontiersman reporter

Beginning a process that could take several years, the Mat-Su Borough School District is looking for ways to respond to the criticism of a recent curriculum audit.

Mat-Su school board members are planning to study the nearly 200-page audit report during the next weeks and discuss it as a work session later this month, when they will most likely request a formal response from district administration.

Even as board members work to digest the extensive report, there are signs that the district is already reacting to some of its recommendations, including the board's setting of districtwide goals and the move toward a curriculum-driven budget.

While the 20 findings and nine recommendations in the report, addressing everything from budgets to curriculum to staff development, seem wrought with negatives, Interim Superintendent Bob Doyle said he wasn't surprised by the auditors' conclusions.

"I think it's a great opportunity for us to improve," Doyle said after Phi Delta Kappa presented its findings to the school board Wednesday night. "I see it as a tool."

Doyle admitted the transition toward improving the district will not take place over night, but instead means getting everyone involved, including central administration, the school board and individual schools, in a districtwide shift that will take several years.

"I think there are a lot of challenges," he said.

The district appears to be tackling these challenges from the top down. Among the auditors' finding was that the district lacked cohesive goals and direction. Around the time the audit was conducted, however, the Mat-Su school board was in the process of developing its goals, which were finalized as

Prioritize district resources to increase the progress of all students toward achieving state standards

Support highly qualified workforce through a comprehensive staff development plan and

Provide facilities that are safe and have broad use for education and the community

Next week, district central administrators will meet to discuss the board's goals and translate them into specific objectives for the entire district.

"These aren't just some goals to put on the wall," Doyle said.

At the same time, the administration announced at Wednesday's meeting that it is transitioning toward a curriculum-driven budget process. In recent years, Doyle said, as it developed its budget the administration met with individual principals who advocated for their schools' needs and wants as resources were divvied up. This year, in an effort to develop the more unified approach recommended by the auditors, the district is instead organizing budget subcommittee meetings designed to move the focus away from each school as separate entities and toward districtwide planning.

The meetings, beginning next week, will invite principals, staff, parents and community members to provide input to a budget that will look at elementary, middle and high schools as groups rather than individual sites.

"We're trying to think of common threads … rather than having 30 units advocating for their own wants and needs," Doyle explained.

Among the subcommittee topics are elementary, middle and high schools, alternative and small schools, co-curricular activities, special education and pupil transportation.

As the board has time to absorb the audit and discuss it with the administration, more changes could be coming for the district.

"We have great students … We have a great staff," Doyle said. "We just need to get everyone lined up and focused."