District Improvement Plans (Austin and Overton ISD)

Since there are very few similarities between the Austin ISD Improvement Plan and the Overton ISD Improvement Plan this review will be heavy on the differences and light on the areas of commonality. The first and most obvious difference between the two is the complexity of the documents.  AISD goes into great detail in their document.  Our document is very much generic in its approach.  I don’t know if this is due only to the size of the districts or if there has been an attitude of complacency in preparing the Overton plan.  One would have to conclude that making an improvement plan for a district with less than 600 students in Pre-K through 12th grade should require less effort, if only because there are only so many tax dollars available and only a few students and staff on which to spend the money.  I was also struck by the numbers of people involved in creating the improvement plan for Austin.  I counted over 130 positions on the committee.  Our entire high school only has 148 students in it.  Once again, this may not be pertinent, but I continue to marvel at the amount of money available in larger districts and the myriad of programs available to them. Austin’s plan is very specific about what it hopes to do, how it hopes to do it, and the funds to be used to accomplish the plan.  The $37.6 million dollars to be used for such programs as student discipline, truancy, tutorials, and specific programs dealing with at risk students was obviously reached after much study.  The salaries for the 566 staff members required to support the programs were included.  This takes great planning.  Overton’s plan is of course smaller, but ironically, not as well thought out as Austin’s even though we have fewer students than staff Austin is committing to this one area.  I’m sure the $107 million to be used from external grants and federal funds was derived from multiple employees dedicated to researching and writing grants. Austin also indicated that they knew of specific sources of funding (Title Programs, grant sources, etc). We have no one specifically designated to find grants.  It has been a haphazard proposition and left to individuals to attempt to find funds for programs. Appendix B and the PBMAS at both schools were at least similar.  The form, of course, is standard and Overton did do a better job of describing specific activities, resources, and timelines for the CIP.  This planning will be even better this year as we have a PSP assigned to the district due to two campuses receiving Academically Unacceptable tags do to the performance of a subpopulation.  We will be very aware of being specific and have already seen benefits of this planning.  Both schools have measurable goals, but in this area Overton does have more specific numbers.  For example, where Austin just states that they hope to improve student attendance and participation, we put our goal at a 95% attendance rate.  In conclusion, Austin’s plan is more detailed and seems to be a document that leaves little individual decision making once it was approved.  Overton’s does leave room to interpret the desires of the committee a little more freely.  Overall, the intention of both documents is to focus the school’s resources at areas that are in need of improvement.