Regionalization Plans in New York State Video

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the department recognizes the need for a strategic approach to addressing uh educational disparities um
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fiscal constraints operational efficiencies across the districts in New York state um so today we have
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um folks from the staff that will present a proposed regulatory Amendment for ACT adoption as an emergency rule to
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collaborate with the district superintendent to and Implement a regionalization plan every 10 years that
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is designed to student opportunities so as presenters we have Dr Matson uh David
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Frank and Laura glass so if you will uh present for us thank you well good morning everyone morning it's been a lot
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of work getting to this point behind the scenes we've been working on some regionalization conversations thoughts
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um considerations since at least April um with various groups our team who's been working on it internally has
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been Dr glass and Elison Garb and Nicole Lennon who've done some wonderful staff
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work for us as we've tried to get it to this point uh where we have something concrete to show you and talk to you about I think the first thing I want to
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address is the title of the presentation regionalization plans in New York state just to make sure we differentiate these are not our regionalization plans that
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we're going to do to New York State and to our school districts these regionalization plans the goal here is
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to have each region put a plan together uh to submit to us so that we can take
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themes from those plans to help support a legis a future legislative agenda so it's kind of the reverse it is coming
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from the field to us um our mandate as you would see in this regulation is a mandate for a Comm
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so that's what we're going to be working on next SL so why are we even having this conversation first we think there's
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three major movements at work that uh provide impetus for us to have these conversations each region and state
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first we've seen over the last 15 plus years some declining enrollments in many schools a well over 300 of them um and
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while they are able to provide a BAS and you heard from um our teacher from Fort PL this morning say that they
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graduate students at a very high rate but there are so many gaps in the experiences they've been able to have in
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their school that they're not as prepared as students from other school districts um how do we address that
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problem um having a base program and graduating students should amount to
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something and when we say we give a student a diploma they should be able to do something with it and not have to
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restart as they described this morning so that's first is student access to high quality educational opportunities
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it's become more and more infrequent in many areas of our state fiscal constraints we also know there's been
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conversations about more closely tying Aid to enrollment and when you've been
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on safe harmless for an extended period of time it got our attention this legislative session when they had this conversation that we needed to prepare
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our districts have a conversation about what they're going to do should those monies start to dry up how
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are they going to meet the needs of the students in their schools and third we're about to Embark in a major
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initiative um and we've had uh the grad measures Blue Ribbon commission and they're be making proposals to you right along I'm sure there'll be regulatory
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amendments Etc over a period of Time how are these schools that are now only able to offer a narrow set of opportunities
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for students going to meet the expectations of that more broad expectation of the portrait of a
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graduate when they're just offering some core academic subjects so how do we do that well we believe that there's
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resources in each region uh to support school districts that we have uh amazing Innovative Educators in each region of
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the state and then they can find ways of connecting with each other on the bright spots uh so that they can create new
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bright spots and make sure there's student opportunity no matter where a student lives no matter what region that is
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so slide it's an opportunity and a strength every region with their Bose
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regions has a great deal of sharing going on already but there's only so much that you can do through iosis there
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are legislative constraints there are regulatory constraints and there are Financial constraints however we do have
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um shared state employees in each Bose's region called District superintendant um and those superintendant report directly
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to the commissioner of Education they are her representative in the field and we have an opportunity to have them lead Regional conversations about how we
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spread the bright spots across Ross each region of the state this is not about creating a super bosis in every um
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region of the state this is about creating super opportunities at each school districts in every region of the state and you can see when we think
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about opportunities we're talking about Advanced coursework shared staff extracurricular activities a range of
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subjects Regional Partners we heard a lot about that this morning and we also considered student Support Services is
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also one of those things all students should have access to and we also heard this morning I mean you would have thought this was teed up perfectly for
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us um the shortage in many school districts of school counselors Etc people to support students as they make
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their way through I remember when I first began teaching that I wasn't quite as concerned way back airband era when I
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was a teacher um about the social emotional health of the students as if they were ready for class you we
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expected them just come ready and we have a much B era where we care about the students we're monitoring them much more closely to make sure they're
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engaged make sure they're ready for um class every day and we have ways of measuring that there's tools for teachers to know when a student is ready
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on a daily basis but not all teachers have access to those tools not every school has access to those those tools
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so we think student Support Services is also one of those items that all school districts should have to
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support students no matter where they live finally we are Guided by some core
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principles when we do this work first our Mantra is re regionalization is not reorganization there's incentives to
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reorganize your school district and to merge with a neighbor or two um that's not what this work is about if that is a
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choice a school district wants to make there's incentives the legislative put legislators have put aside for them to do that we have educational Management
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Services to support them in that work but this is about having the conversation as a region about every student in region and making sure your
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school district uh students have access to the same ones as the school 10 minutes down the road we believe the
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time to act is now we think probably the time to act was 15 years ago when we started to see the declining enrollments which is why we're bringing a regulation
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you that would put this in regulation to be a thing that happens every decade so that we don't slide into this moment
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where we've got some very um deficit type transcripts coming out of some of our school districts that were're able
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to monitor this every 10 years they make the plan things change every 10 years five felt too frequent uh 10 feels just
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about right because they'll do this work over the next 14 months and start um make making a legislative agenda and
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executing the plan for a few years and then they can come back uh on year 10 and do this work again and have a conversation our regions change over a
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decade and we want to make sure the conversation continually happens we also believe the Innovation is most likely and the best
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Innovation for our schools is most likely to happen with the fol Clos to the problem they will come up with the
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best ideas on what to do for their students because they see the problem right in front of them they know what the resources are to their school
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district and in their region and we want to hear from them this is not about us declaring here's your four potential Solutions pick one execute it good luck
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this is about a conversation about what are some things that we could put in place as a department or even ask the
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legislature to put in place so that you could do more sharing provide more opportunities for students we think collaboration is a
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poal for the global economy and that we should be mimicking that with our schools and we think no single District
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can engage in the work alone in fact uh we need to try to make sure that when we have bright spots everyone knows about
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it and that it is shared it's a public system so it should be
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public all right so based on the many benefits of regionalization during these challenges times the department is proposing that each component School
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District in a supervisory District or Bose's would work with the district superintendant to create a regionalization plan every 10 years so
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by creating this uh planning process in a 10e cycle school districts can step back um during their busy schedules take
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time to reflect on their goals and engage in a systematic mechanism for continual Improvement there would be 37 regionalization plans one for each
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supervisory District the regionalization ation process and implementation cycle would have five steps beginning with uh the strengths and needs tool that's at
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the top of the graphic through this tool the school districts would collect data in three different domains academic
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social and cultural and capacity the school districts would also analyze and reflect on their data by answering questions about their strengths
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challenges and progress as well they would outline their Vision including their goals priorities and support needs
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the district superintendents would also leave convenience with the school districts and stakeholders in the region to review the data from the strengths and needs tool identify the strengths
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and challenges generate Innovative local Solutions and form Partnerships and share resources the district superintendent
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would also complete an interim progress report and regionalization plan on templates provided by the department the department would provide feedback on
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both of those documents the information the documents could help the department identify new or additional types of support in the planning process and Lead
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policy and regulation changes to barrier to creative ideas then finally for the implementation school districts and
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supervisory districts would begin implementing the approved regionalization plans no later than the start of the 20 um 26 27 school year the
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school district and component school districts would review the regionalization plan initiatives and outcomes throughout that 10-year
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implementation cycle the timeline is designed so that regionalization plans would be submitted
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to the department in one year on October 1st 20125 by receiving the plans next fall the department could use the information
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in the plans to help shape the budget and legislative priorities for the next fiscal year and based on this timeline
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uh school districts and as well as the bosies would begin working on the strengths and needs tool and would begin organizing the convenings in the near
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future so although we're all responsible for our students in the regulation we outline responsibilities for three
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groups the first being the New York State education department which will be responsible for providing technical assistance guidance and feedback not
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only to the district superintendant but also to the component school districts and any other participant in the regionalization process the State
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education department will also look across all 37 Soul supervisory districts and help to share effect
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practices among the districts and within districts as well the other group are the district superintendents themselves
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the district superintendents will be responsible for facilitating the conversations with their component school districts and with the broader
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Community within their region the district superintendence will be the State education Department's eyes and ears on the ground and will come back to
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the State education department to report to us whether or not we need to provide additional technical assistance guidance
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or templates or tools that the district superintendents can use to help facilitate uh and create conversations
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around regionalization the district superintendents will also ensure that a wide range of stakeholders will be
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invited to the table within their region to talk about regionalization this might include Business Leaders as we heard earlier this morning about the
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importance of including our business Community it might include Charter Schools non-public schools
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Chambers of Commerce to create a big tent around this regionalization conversation last but not least are our
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component superintendents themselves the components uh District Su superintendents are really where the rubber meets the road they're
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responsible for identifying the strengths and needs within their districts to bring to the table uh their problems of practice and to be
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participants to help brainstorm ways that they can achieve solutions to those problems of practice as Jeff said before
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to close the transcript Gap just some additional notes about the process this is the start and not the
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Finish although we're mandating regionalization plans occur every 10 years component uh super uh component
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school districts and Bose District superintendents are responsible for implementing starting to implement regionalization plans no later than the
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start of the 26 27 school year but but again that is just the beginning of the conversation in the regulations we've
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created a process where the regionalization plans can be amended and updated as needs within the Region's change and we do encourage our Bose's
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District superintendents and component superintendence to have continual ongoing conversations and although the
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the regionalization plans occur at the very least every 10 years we do hope that those conversations will be ongoing
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throughout the decade that been are in place as I said before we want a big tent to uh have these regionalization
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conversations and so not only will neighboring districts be invited to the conversation but also the big five City
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school districts will be invited Charter Schools religious and Independent Schools the business Community Workforce
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Development and the list goes on and on and that really is the responsibility of both the Bose district superintendent as well as their components to identify Who
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are the ke uh stakeholders in uh in their catchment areas to have conversations about opportunities for
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students lastly the New York State education department will be entrusting the district superintendent to monitor
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the ongoing implementation of regionalization plans and again will be the State education Department's eyes and years to ensure that we know where
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additional resources or supports are needed um and I have to say throughout this process that Bose District superintendents have just been great
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Partners in this work and we know as these regulations are implemented they will continue to be great Partners just a a quick word about some of of the
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benefits um and so uh as we spoke about when the Department of Labor was presenting on the teacher ambassador
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program the goal of this work and the benefits are really to close the transcript Gap and eliminate disproportional uh impact uh that
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students have uh and create access to opportunity for every student across New York State we also this is part of the
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State education Department's Global Mission um this work is never done and we want to establish a systematic ongoing mechanism for continual
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Improvement um and you might hear that word continual Improvement for example when Deputy Commissioner Haron presents
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on accountability this is part of the Mantra State education department there's always work to be done we can always better serve our students and
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then lastly we want to create a flex and Nimble system where uh the local superintendents as well as the bosis
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have an ongoing mechanism in order to address any issues that might come up uh in addition to the three uh headwinds
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that Jeff mentioned before um we don't know in 10 years what the educational issues that our students and our schools will face and we believe that this
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mechanism is one way in which we can create ongoing conversations to best support students across uh New York
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lastly it would be remiss if we didn't say this is an emergency regulation um and so uh it's imperative that uh we enable our Bose's District
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superintendents to start these conversations now to address the immediate concerns that our schools are
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facing um this uh regulation although it will be uh it will go into effect tomorrow uh after the Board of Regents
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meeting um it will go out for a 60-day public comment period and then we do anticipate bringing this back um to the
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board of regions in January and again as Jeff said um this is going into effect as an emery regulation to start having
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the conversations that's all that is being mandated is have the conversation come to the table and and we believe
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that that has to happen starting so Vice chance I'll turn it back over to you