Will principals and teachers at Lexington’s low-performing schools be reassigned?

As part of the state’s new law for improving low-performing schools, Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk must decide whether to retain or reassign the principals and teachers at seven Lexington elementary schools.

Audits that will help make those decisions begin December 1, Fayette County Public Schools staff told school board members recently.

Seven Fayette elementary schools that are among the lowest performing, based on the 2017-18 accountability results released in September by the state Department of Education, will have to undergo transformations, Caulk said.

The schools, which are among 33 elementary schools in Kentucky that have been given the state’s new low-performance designation Comprehensive Support and Intervention, are: Arlington, Harrison, Mary Todd, Millcreek, William Wells Brown, Yates and Coventry Oak. They are among the bottom five percent of low performing schools in the state.

Here’s a timetable of what will happen:

“The schools will look pretty similar” to what they do now, Caulk said, until the end of this academic year. “But ... the schools could look quite differently” next school year.

In the meantime, the district is providing at each or the seven schools — and Booker T. Washington Elementary which had low scores in the past — a leadership coach and instructional specialist, a full-time substitute teacher available on a daily basis, and more family engagement activities, said Chief Academic Officer Kate McAnelly.

Under the law, Caulk takes over the authority of the schools’ site based councils which include parents, teachers and staff. Instead of eliminating the councils altogether, he asked them to stay on as advisors.

The Fayette school board decided last week that the Kentucky Department of Education will conduct the audits at Millcreek and Harrison. The company Cambridge Education is conducting audits at Arlington, Mary Todd, William Wells Brown, Yates, Coventry Oak.

Arlington had already been audited by Cambridge as a results of tests results from 2016-17. An audit will also be conducted on the district overall.

The state Department of Education will reimburse reasonable expenses to the district for audit work and turnaround work.

Any of the seven schools that don’t improve will receive more rigorous intervention, tailored to the specific problems the school is having such as low reading scores.

In a separate effort, students at CSI schools and others will be able to participate in the YMCA’s summer program called Power Scholars Academy to eliminate a “summer slide” in learning, said Mendy Mills, who works with the federal high poverty Title 1 program in Fayette County. That YMCA program combines academics with enrichment and community service.

Also, the system will work with community groups to improve conditions in low income neighborhoods where children live who attend the schools. The neighborhoods are generally near each other, Caulk said.

Parents at 25 other Fayette County Schools, some generally perceived as high performing, might take note. If the achievement of one or more student groups such as black, Hispanic, disabled or low income at those schools don’t improve after three years, those school will get the designation of CSI and will face significant intervention.

For now, those 25 schools have the designation called Targeted Support and Intervention which means they are receiving early warnings because at least one student group performed as poorly as schools in the bottom 5 percent.

If a school remains a Targeted Support school for three years, it becomes a CSI school.

Five out of six of Fayette’s main high schools, all but Lafayette, will get targeted support from the district and some help from the state because at least one student group — English language learners, black, Hispanic, disabled, or low income — performed poorly compared to other students.

So will 10 Fayette middle schools, including Beaumont, Bryan Station, Crawford, Edythe J. Hayes, Leestown, LTMS, Morton, Southern Middle, Tates Creek Middle and Winburn .

The 10 elementary schools are Ashland, Cassidy, Dixie, Garden Springs, Julius Marks, Lansdowne, Breckinridge, Northern, Southern Elementary and Squires.

This story was originally published November 1, 2018 at 10:11 AM.