WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE'RE GOING: THE BEDFORD CENTRAL

SCHOOL DISTRICT'S PATH TO WORLD CLASS STATUS

This evening, it is my hope to spend some time reviewing with you some of our recent past successes and looking ahead to the work that awaits for this new school year and beyond. Why bother looking back, you might ask? Because by reminding ourselves of our accomplishments we bolster ourselves with the knowledge that we are successful, and because knowledge of our successes increases our confidence and sustains our energy as we move forward.

Looking Back

With this in mind, at the start of our summer administrators' workshop late last month, I engaged the administrators in a review of our recent past accomplishments during these past two years. We came up with an impressive list, which I'd like to reprise for you now. As I do so, I would remind you that these are our collective accomplishments as a staff and district. They belong to all of us, not to any individual or small group. Some were achieved through plain hard work while others came about through real resourcefulness.

What do I mean by resourcefulness? It's best exemplified by the story of a rabbi and two friends, one a Protestant minister and the other a

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Catholic priest, who played three handed poker one night a week. Nothing wrong with that, except that they lived in a small, blue-law town. The sheriff raided their game and brought all three before a Justice of the Peace who, after listening to the sheriff's story, sternly asked the priest, "Were you gambling, Father?" The priest looked heavenward, whispered, "Oh, Lord, forgive me," and then said aloud to the Justice of the Peace, "No, your honor, I was not gambling." "Were you gambling, Reverend?" the Justice of the Peace asked the Protestant minister who, like the priest also looked upward and whispered for forgiveness before he answered the Justice of the Peace, "No your honor, I was not gambling." The Justice of the Peace addressed the third clergyman. "Were you gambling, Rabbi?" Looking the Justice of the Peace squarely in the eye, the rabbi shrugged and answered, "With whom?" That's resourcefulness!!

l. In my opinion, our most significant accomplishment last year, and one which indicated our resourcefulness and commitment, was recapturing and giving voice to the support of our community for education in Bedford. Coming off the heels of a budget defeat in May of 1993, members of the staff reached out to the parents of our students, their neighbors, colleagues in other districts, and individuals in the community who believed strongly in our work, and we mobilized one of the most impressive budget victories in our area. Groups such as People for Public Education became spokespeople for the excellence of our schools and staff. Residents volunteered to run neighborhood coffees, write and produce radio commericals, hand out fliers and leaflets and, most importantly, bring out the actual vote. Teachers and civil service employees agreed to salary givebacks that helped change the tide of

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negativsm which was so pervasive in the community. While we are not out of the woods yet, and I'll have more to say about that later, this galvanizing of community support has returned a spirit of optimism to our district. We begin this year with a budget that will provide for children's educational and developmental needs and with a staff that is second to none in our state or nation.

2. With the hiring of Marjorie Castro, we've returned the focus of the school district to curriculum and instruction. It was heartening to me when we were listing the things we did right at our summer administrative workshop, that someone simply said "Marjorie." Under her leadership, we've made major educational progress in the past year alone. Let me cite but four examples of her impact to exemplify--kindergarten, technology, staff development, and gifted and talented/enrichment:

- We've implemented and evaluated our new full day kindergarten which, by all measures, was a wonderful success. Our kindergarten teachers worked hard to insure this, to be sure, and they were supported with staff development programs dealing with creating mathematically powerful learning enviornments and high quality literature based programs. The teachers developed a kindergarten philosophy, a new booklet describing their program, a new report card, and a thoughtful evaluation of their program. Our kindergarten program will continue to improve, to be sure, but it is already a model for others to emulate.

- We have created a district Technology Planning Committee which includes teachers from every level in the district and almost every school,

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as well as parents and community people who have contributed professional expertise, business application knowledge, and enhanced credibility which will be especially valuable as we try to sell further expansion of our computer program to the community in the coming years. The 1993-94 school year saw the installation of five brand new 24 station Macintosh computer labs in each of the elementary schools, and the movement of the old lab computers into elementary classrooms. Under Marjorie's leadership and with the assistance of Brian Messier and Brady Garber, as well as others, training was provided to all of our elementary teachers to assist them in utilizing these computers in their instruction. The Technology Planning Committee also completed and presented to the Board of Education what I regard to be the finest educational report I've seen in my 26 years of public education. This long range plan for technology integration will be a blueprint to guide us in the coming years as we seek to bring Bedford into the twenty-first century, and I'll talk more about this in a little while.

- There has been a restored focus on staff development in our district in the past year. We have continued with the Saphier I and 11 programs and are currently training Melissa Brady and Linda Levine, two of our own teachers, to serve as on-site trainers and reduce our training costs. We've maintained the services of Marilyn Pisetsky so that she may continue her fine work with our new teachers. In addition, we brought Heidi Hayes Jacobs, a nationally recognized curriculum expert, in to work with 56 teachers from all grade levels this summer, and will be continuing this work in 1994-95. Bena Kalick, another nationally regarded educator, worked with our staff on establishing curriculum outcomes and standards; Bedford and Chappaqua teachers participated in a writing workshop with Linda Reif on "Approaches to Teaching Literature in the Classroom." Bedford was the site of a week of "Math Their Way" training this summer, and twenty-five of our elementary teachers participated. And five members of our own middle school faculty--Mike Maloy, Gail and Dave Friedman, Carrie Sears, Jim Koloski--presented an excellent two-day workshop early in July on the ungraded middle school for both our new and continuing faculty.

- Finally, Marjorie and a committee of teachers and parents spent last year developing plans and recommendations for the return of a gifted and talented/enrichment program at the elementary and middle schools during the coming year. We have hired two terrific new teachers to bring this program to fruition, and I am certainly looking forward to the exciting results this program will surely engender.

3. We have planned for and are now ready to implement a reorganized Fox Lane Middle School. Following Jim Alloy's charge, members of the middle school staff, led by Mike Maloy, developed recommendations to move to a single organizational structure in 1994-95. Parent meetings were held to explain the proposal and recommendations, Board presentations were made, and ultimately Board approval was given for a fully ungraded middle school, the creation of two full-time house directors to replace an assistant principal and two part-time house coordinators, and the move to 6-12 department coordinators in the academic departments at both the middle and high schools.

4. Under Don Slater's leadership and with the support of principals, teachers, and other staff, we have made what I consider to be extraordinary progress toward the achievement of the Board's goal in increasing the number of minority staff in our school district. With a student body, which is over 17% minority, Bedford's faculty has had and still has an underrepresentation of minority staff. But the progress we've made in the last two years, particularly this year! When I joined the district in July of 1992, minorities comprised just 1.8% of our faculty. In 1993-94, that percentage grew to 3% and as we begin school this fall, minorities now comprise 5.5% of our faculty. As an even more dramatic indication of our progress in this area, when we closed school on June 30 of 1994, only two short months ago, there were only 9 minority staff members on our district's faculty. As we open today, September 1, we now have 17--an 89% increase. I am proud to say that while we were ardent in our pursuit of this goal, we were unwilling to compromise on the quality of the teachers we would bring in to this district. The men and women we have been able to attract, whom you've already had the opportunity to meet just briefly, have earned their place in Bedford as the best and brightest in their fields and I anticipate they will enrich the experience of all of our students, both white and non-white alike.

I could go on to expand on our recent accomplishments almost to the point of boredom, but let me just take another minute or two and simply list some of the others. They are certainly not less important than those I have chosen to dwell on, but time simply does not permit me to go on as long.

-The Board of Education examined and reviewed the Diversity Report, a two year study of this issue in our school district. The Board adopted a policy on diversity and multiculturalism, identified immediate goals for implementation, and we have begun working in that direction. We know we've made some progress on these diversity issues, but they are so complex and mutli-dimensional, we know that there is more we need to do. lt reminds me of Albert Einstein who, you may or may not know, played the violin with some enthusiasm. He once played for Gregor Piatigorsky, the distinguished cellist, and he asked him "How well did I play?" Piatagorsky replied, "You played relatively well." Well, we've done relatively well with the diversity issues but there is much more to be done. Back to a quick listing of our other accomplishments.

-Teachers and administrators revised and piloted a most successful new elementary report card last year.

-We created written job descriptions for every employee in the district, not particularly exciting or sexy work, but necessary as we have reviewed our operation and continue to explore opportunities for becoming more efficient and effective.

- We have expanded our efforts in grant writing and continue each year to receive more and more money in grants from outside sources. Susanne Abbott has created a small committee of staff who will be examining the voluminous grant literature which comes to us from the state and federal government, as well as other outside sources. Other members of our staff continue to be helpful, such as Arthur Eisenkraft, our science department head, whose national connections have facilitated our receipt of a $125,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to pilot a new integrated high school curriculum for our general students.

-Last year we eliminated the general track in global studies at the high school and still achieved a 92% passage on the Regents exam. Along the same vein, high school English and social studies teachers planned last year to implement a heterogeneous 9th grade program this fall, which we hope will engage more students in demanding and challenging work while still providing the stimulation that our most capable students require.

-Following a year and a half of planning we are ready to move into the implementation of the Compact for Learning in earnest. Site based teams have been formed in all seven schools, our Plan for Participation was approved by the Commissioner, and initial training dates have been set for the committees, beginning with an initial three hour training session just this afternoon, and continuing for two eight hour sessions on October 17 and October 18. More on this in a little while.

_We piloted a readiness kindergarten program at West Patent; we broadened the role of language arts consultants into the new position of elementary helping teacher; the Board created a Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee which has lent increased credibility to our claims that we are operating efficiently and are making responisible use of tax dollars; we expanded our public relations efforts, conducting a very productive meeting for local realtors to make them more knowledgeable about the school district; we re-formatted our district newsletter and did a better job of getting staff to keep us current on the many exciting things taking place in our classrooms; and we have significantly expanded our exposure on radio, cable television, and in the press. No less significant, we've made some wonderful additions to our custodial staffs, and their impact on the physical appearance of our schools--particularly at the middle and high schools--has been dramatic. With extensions of our employees' contracts--through 1996-97 with CSEA and through 1997-98 with the BTA and BASA--we've paved the way for an environment in which our focus can be placed on the reason we are all here--the education of our children.

Looking Ahead

The Board of Education devoted a good deal of time at its meeting on August 8th looking ahead to a preliminary examination of district goals for the coming school year and will be discussing them further this evening. Several of these goals bear directly on the important directions in which I believe our school system must move in the coming year and over the next decade.

Of the sixteen areas the Board preliminarily identified, the one which was cited by the largest number of Board members was on the area of educational performance. I find this a heartening departure from the topic of "budget" which, while also important, is not, after all at the core of what a school system is primarily about.

Board members talked about educational performance from a variety of perspectives: continuing our pursuit of excellence, how can we better monitor and raise standards; how can we improve our articulation among elementary schools and between the elementary and middle schools and the middle and high schools; what criteria can we develop for better measuring academic performance; how can we expand educational opportunities for all children, but particularly for minority youngsters and improve their educational achievement; and how can we even better communicate our accomplishments so that the public's perception of our performance is equal to the often impressive results we achieve.

This is a sophisticated set of questions which the Board has raised, one which reflects many of the issues we as educators have been pondering and will continue to grapple with. During the coming school year, we need to develop a mechanism to provide answers to these questions to the Board and the community they represent. It is not enough for us to just feel as if we are doing a good job. We need to better define our standards (in the current educational vernacular "what children should know and be able to do"--at different grade level points, and in all curricular areas); we need to define expected exit outcomes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels; and, to be truly accountable-to our Board, our community, and ourselves, we need to provide proof that we are meeting these standards, by agreeing on outcomes, rubrics, and assessment measures.

To this end, we will begin a curriculum evaluation cycle this fall, concentrating on at least one specific area of instruction each year, and beginning in 1994-95 with mathematics K-12. What we are seeking to do is to define a Bedford education--for the community, for our students, and for ourselves as professionals. Our goal is not to achieve identicality of instruction in every classroom but to insure, for example, that every third grade youngster, experiences a similar curriculum, and that every seventh grade English or 10th grade social studies student does likewise.

Right now, we lack a written curriculum in most of our elementary school subject areas. At the middle and high schools, where state curricular documents are more prone to define our programs, we need to identify how our expectations in Bedford differ from and in many cases exceed those of the state. Toward that end, we are asking department coordinators in all subject areas to begin a curriculum mapping process with their teachers to identify both gaps and areas where instruction is duplicated. Some departments are further along in this effort than others, so certain subjects will have less to do in this vein.

At the elementary level, we will begin to map the language arts curriculum toward the goal of developing a language arts curriculum framework for each grade level. When a new teacher starts work in our district, we need to have a curriculum to hand to him or her which sets forth our expectations. In short, we can no longer wing it as we often have in the past--even if the results of that "winging it" were acceptable or even commendable.

We are not alone in this work, certainly. Across the state and nation, our colleagues are going through this process of defining outcomes and honing assessments. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, certainly, and can build on the ground breaking efforts of others. We are, in fact, unusually fortunate to have our share of experts on staff, people like Dan Berman, Arthur Eisenkraft, Pat Wistort, and others, who have been engaged in similar work at the state and national level.

Under Marjorie's leadership, we will also be establishing a district curriculum council this year, to coordinate and support district-wide curriculum and instruction initiatives. And we will be establishing a committee to review our district testing and assessment practices, seeking recommendations on how best to evaluate student learning and progress.

We will be implementing the first stage of the technology planning committee's report, including the installation of presentation stations in each of the elementary and middle school Mac labs; the addition of two student work stations in each of the elementary computer labs; the installation of brand new Mac labs in both the middle school and the high school; the upgrading of a high school lab for keyboarding, remedial math, and other regularly scheduled classes, upgrading the high school writing center to provide greater access to multiple platforms; the establishment of a science mini-lab at the high school; the connection of the high school and middle school media centers to better share resources: the development of a wiring plan for the high school; and the provision of appropriate staff development K-12.

Those of us who have been praying that the computer was another of those passing fancies or fads, like hoola hoops, have got to realize that we cannot move into the next century without becoming computer literate ourselves and that to deprive our students of technological competency and even proficiency would be a terrible injustice. Just listen to what Bill Gates, billionaire chairman of Microsoft, describes as the future of shopping: "You're watching Seinfeld on TV and you like the jacket he's wearing. You click on it with your remote control The show pauses and a Windows-style drop-down menu appears at the top of the screen, asking if you want to buy it. You click on 'yes.' The next menu offers you a choice of colors; you click on black. Another menu lists your credit cards, asking which one you'll use for this purchase. Click on Master Card or whatever. Which address should the jacket go to, your office, your home or your summer cabin? Click on one address and you're done--the menus disappear and Seinfeld picks up where it left off. Just as you'll already have taught the computer about your credit cards and addresses, you will have had your body measured by a 3-D version of supermarket scanners, so the system will know your exact sizes. And it will send the data electronically to a factory, where robots will custom-tailor the jacket to your measurements. An overnight courier service will deliver it to your door the next morning. And because this system cuts out so many middlemen, the jacket will cost 40% less than the off-the-rack department store version." Think it's impossible. Just give it time, Gates tells us.

I spoke earlier of this year's new program initiatives, which were planned last year--the reorganization of the middle school, the heterogeneous grouping of ninth graders in English and Social Studies, the new gifted and talented/enrichment programs. I neglected to mention that we are also significantly expanding our special education inclusion efforts this fall, providing for the needs of a much larger number of children in their local elementary school--in this case, Bedford Hills-where we will be bringing special education teachers into regular classrooms to truly meet the needs of youngsters in the least restrictive of environments. In the implementation phase of all these programs, we will need to provide support and monitoring, collect data on their performance, and report back to the Board on their results. I'm saying this quickly, but I know that these changes represent significant adjustments for staff, students, and parents. Their success will depend on the care we take to deliver on the promises we made, to provide support where it is required, and to honestly assess our work, making mid-course corrections and adjustments where needed.

In the vein of new initiatives, we will be implementing the first effort at site based teams in Bedford, fulfilling the requirements of the Compact for Learning. While staff and parent participation in decisionmaking is certainly nothing new for our district, our new building and district teams will certainly have people working together in a new format, learning to develop consensus-decisionmaking skills, working to address building issues, and hopefully keeping their focus on the purpose of the Compact--which is to improve the education of children. The members of these teams will need training and support which we are prepared to provide, and I am hopeful and excited about this new venture. Providing that support and training will be an important goal of mine during the coming year. William James, the psychologist, once said, "Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. If you believe James, some of those site based committee meetings promise to get pretty crowded.

There's the story of two men struggling to get a large crate through a door. They struggled and struggled and the crate would not budge. Finally, one man said to the other, "We'll never get this crate in." Replied his partner, "in? I thought we were trying to get it out."

Like these two men struggling, we cannot find our way into the future without defined plans to guide our work. Enrollment is continuing to creep up in the district. We are running out of space in our elementary schools, and the middle school's plans for an 8 period day and the creation of designated classrooms -for academic teachers next year can not be met without considerable renovation. All of our buildings and grounds have more extenisve physical and plant needs than have been accommodated in recent budgets. There are numerous housing starts which are anticipated in the communities we serve, which will generate additional enrollment and create further strains on the school system. Our technology report recommends a future expenditure of up to $5 million to realize our vision of a technologically rich educational environment, an amount we can never hope to incorporate in our annual budgets. To address these issues and realize success in meeting these challenges, we have got to plan.

All of our needs in Bedford, which will undoubtedly exceed our capacity to address them in a given annual budget cycle, highlight the importance of our planning longer range than for just the coming school year. Mark Betz and I have been discussing the development of long-range budget and facility planning. This year I will ask the Board to approve a new demographic analysis of our school district to get a sharper handle on our anticipated enrollment over the next decade. Witih Board approval, I hope we will begin a comprehensive study of our physical facilities, to determine reasonable cost estimates of the work we must and should do to keep our schools functioning in a manner that will support our programs. All of this suggests the likelihood of bonding certain expenditures and the process of obtaining community support for such an effort. I expect to be speaking more about this in the coming months.

No superintendent's presentation in the 1990's would be complete without some reference to the budget. While I spoke earlier of the heartening community support we received last year, I regard the passage of the budget as a continuing fight in which we cannot let down. This year, we enter the preparation of the 1995-96 budget with the realization that 60% of our expenditures next year will be rising by 6.3%. With that realization, how can we present to the community a budget which will retain and even enhance our programs and do so at a cost they can and are willing to support?

Maintaining and increasing our public support will be key. Recognizing this, People for Public Education met after the budget's passage last June to begin mobilizing for the following year's budget. It is just this type of thinking we need to cultivate. I will be working hard this year to continue our public relations efforts so that the positive news of this school district gets out to the community we serve. We need to reexamine those public relations efforts and, perhaps, consider some professional training and support for staff to be sure that we are effectively delivering the message about the excellence of our school district, since this effort is directly tied to the support we wish to engender in our community, the attractiveness of Bedford schools to prospective homebuyers, and to the values of people's homes. We are talking about efforts to expand the community's use of the schools. Our Education Foundation, for example, seems willing to support extended hours of operation for our schools' computer labs. We may even offer adult education computer courses, taught by our own faculty. Last year I learned that the.likelihood of a senior citizen's voting YES on the budget doubles if he or she has been in a school building even once during the course of the previous year. With this in mind, we need to think about how we can enhance the value of the school system not only for the families who send their children to school here but for the 70% or so of the community who do not.

Perhaps as important as the budget vote we will face this coming May 3 is the fact that three seats come up for election to the Board of Education. Changing Boards of Education are no longer just a superintendent's problem. As Boards change, so do the directions which school systems take. While often those changes are positive and can lead a school district in exciting and productive new directions, all too often in districts around us the changes on Boards have been very negative, as people with single-minded agendas have taken control, not prompted by a primary concern for education but by other motivations instead. All of us would do well to watch these upcoming elections carefully. By making this a district on which the best people want to serve on the school board, we do our part to create the best outcome to the electoral process.

The Board of Education has laid out other goals for this year, too, including further study of the various diversity-related issues affecting our district to which I referred earlier, review and evaluation of the recommendations which will emanate from the Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee, revision of the district's policy manual, improved organization of Board of Eduacation meetings, continued focus on minority staff recruitment, and the implementation of a smoke free campus. All of these will make our school system better.

A Longer Range Vision for the Bedford Schools

And what about my long-range vision for the Bedford schools. Subject only to the continued support of the Board and the community, I would expect to be held accountable for the following to occur in the next 5-10 years, and even sooner in some cases:

1. We must, and will, over the next five to ten years, create technologically rich educational environments in all seven of our schools. Author and consultant Michael Kami, reminds us that world knowledge doubles every four years. "Everyone," he tells us, "becomes automatically obsolete within that short time period, unless a serious and determined effort is made, consistent, and constructively, to remain current and knowledgeable." To ensure that our students are "current and knowlegeable," we will need to provide them access to current technololgy not only in their labs, but in their classrooms as well. They will learn the skills of accessing information, not just recalling it, and making critical decisions based on that information. Technology will not be an add-on to our curriculum, but an essential tool or means of addressing it. It will become an integral part of every curriculum area. While this learning will begin in kindergarten, every graduate of Fox Lane High School will leave with the technological proficiency he or she needs to function in the workplace or in continued education.

2. We will continue to address the professional development needs of our faculty and staff, particularly in technology but in other areas that support their work and our educational goals as well. I expect that in the not too distant future, as teacher preparation programs catch up with the changing demands of our profession, we will begin to require technological literacy of all new teachers entering the Bedford system.

I We will have thoroughly reviewed our curriculum in all subject areas (probably twice, in the next ten years) and developed learning outcomes, for all subjects by grade level, which identify in specific terms understandable to lay people, what students will know and be able to do. We will also have revised our approaches to measuring student performance, selecting and utilizing standardized tests which provide the most useful information about student learning, and augmenting these tests with greater use of more authentic types of assessment, including the expanded use of student portfolios. And we will use student performance on our selected assessment instruments to set goals for continued improvement.

4. We will develop a mechanism to measure parent, student, and community perceptions of the schools on a regular and more scienctific basis, and to use those perceptions to address our continued progress and to suggest changes and modifications to our approaches. A few districts around our country are involved in efforts of this sort, and I hope to begin exploring such an initiative in Bedford in the coming year. I believe that schools that welcome this type of feedback from their stakeholders are perceived to be more responsive to their communities, and ultimately benefit directly from hearing about how they are regarded. I see this work as a natural extension of our expanded community involvement through initiatives such as the Compact for Learning.

5. We will continue our efforts to hire a faculty and staff that is representative of the diversity of our student body, and minimally double the number of minority faculty in our schools within the next ten years.

6. We will have addressed the changing demographic needs of our district in facilities which can accommodate all of our students and the programs we wish to offer. In addition, we will have developed and implemented long range plans to address our plant and grounds needs, have mechanical systems which are functioning effectively, and continued plans in place to maintain our capital investments.

8. By increasing the quality of a Bedford education, we will see a reduction in the percentage of district students who attend non-public schools. As the survey in the October, 1994 issue of Money Magazine  states, "Students who attend the best public schools outperform most private school students; the average public school teacher has stronger academic qualifications than the average private school teacher; the best public schools offer a more challenging curriculum than most private schools; and public school class sizes are no larger than in most private schools and are smaller than in most Catholic schools." We need to make a stronger case about the quality of Bedford's public schools to current and prospective private school parents, to attract and retain their children in greater numbers.

This is by no means a complete list of what I expect we will accomplish in the next 5-10 years. Rather, it highlights some key areas of focus as we reach and move into the next century. As I said earlier, the achievement of these goals will require the commitment of staff and community. We have all of the ingredients to achieve world class educational standards here in Bedford, and I look forward to leading us in that direction.