DODDS-Pacific chief's plan for student
achievement: Four main goals, five years
By Mark Oliva, Okinawa
bureau
CAMP FOSTER — The top Department of Defense Dependents Schools educator in the
Pacific recently unveiled a new five-year plan to improve student achievement across the
Pacific.
Dr. Nancy Bresell, director of DODDS-Pacific and Domestic Defense Elementary and
Secondary Schools on Guam, said the plan re-prioritizes goals for educators and provides
guidelines for everything from the way budgets are planned to increasing the number of
high school graduates applying for college.
The plan, which took about 18 months to develop, "puts the first focus right where
it belongs, which is on the students," Bresell said. "Everything is really
feeding into highest student achievement."
The plan is based on four goals: Boosting scores, redefining operations, hiring
effective, diverse teachers, and partnering with the communities.
Boosting scores
Bresell said community support, from both parents and military commands, is essential
to boost scores. She said without support, teachers’ efforts won’t be completely
successful.
Bresell said she envisions "communities investing in success for all
students."
Bresell wants a program to get parents more involved in their children’s
schoolwork. But she realizes, especially with the demands of military deployments and
extra duties, parents on Pacific-area bases already are stretched thin.
"We’re in the process of trying to identify a training program that we can
use for parents," she said. "We can help parents know what they can do at the
home … with their children to help their children improve and learn to set aside time
for studying. We’re looking for a program we can use because we think parents would
like something like that … [and] I think that they could see big dividends in
academic progress of their own children."
Bresell also said some courses, particularly at high schools, will be overhauled.
She said there are disparities between the same classes offered at different schools.
"High school parents were saying that in their high school, some of the teachers
had really good syllabi, the description of what they’re going to teach over the
whole year," Bresell said. "These parents knew exactly what their kids were held
accountable for."
Similar courses in other schools, however, were less structured and left some parents
questioning what studies their children would be responsible for mastering.
"My folks took on the project of standardizing those high school syllabi,"
she said. "Right now we’re only doing four classes. Next year we’ll take on
a lot more."
Bresell was quick to add the efforts aren’t meant to produce cookie-cutter
education.
She said she hopes there still will be room for teachers to tailor courses to their own
teaching styles and to their students.
Bresell said student testing is likely to stay the same, with the addition of one or
two more standardized tests in the next five years. Students now take the Terra Nova exam,
a norm-referenced test for students in grades three through 11, rating their performance
on a bell curve. It tests whether students are learning what they are being taught rather
than where they stand against students in the rest of the nation. For those figures,
students take a test given by the National Assessment of Education Progress, a nationwide
exam.
Bresell said DODDS also will continue to use writing assessment tests for certain grade
levels because those tests give administrators a better idea of whether students are
digesting what they’re taught.
Still, more accurate tests are being considered here.
"There are several different," tests, Bresell said. "Some are geared to
high school. They’re going to end course exams and some will also be done at the
elementary level."
Bresell said exit exams for graduating seniors have been discussed, but there are no
plans to implement them yet. She said it would be difficult to implement the exams in
DODDS because of the transient student body.
"It would have to be a [Department of Defense Education Activity] system-wide
decision, because our children go between this schools system and Europe, and the
States," Bresell said. "We really want to make sure what we do is done in
concert. I can tell there are people who are interested in doing it and it’s being
looked at. There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to doing something like that,
especially with our population, which is so mobile."
Bresell said she wants to find a better way to educate her educators.
One possibility is arranging for summer programs teachers could attend while on
vacation in the States. She said it’s too costly to send teachers on training trips
during the school year.
Redefining operations
Bresell said DODDS can expect changes in how it manages information and data, as well
as how it budgets.
Some functions will be centralized, taking duties from individual schools. Others, she
said, will be farmed to the local schools to offer more flexibility.
"Automation changes things and yet we may not have adapted," Bresell said.
"We may still be doing stubby-pencil stuff when we have automation that can provide
us with much of the data and so many answers. We think if we can have that data more
readily available and use it when it comes down to decisions of how we’re going to
use our resources, where are we going to put this money we were able to save from
transportation."
That means administrators can get resources to classrooms faster, with decisions made
today benefiting this year’s students instead of waiting until next school year
before new assets, such as computers, are sent to the classrooms. Better management of
funding, she said, also could lead to increased student activities.
Bresell said football in South Korea seriously is being considered, and some regional
activities available to students only once every two years could be annual events.
"Those are important things, even though they benefit a small number portion of
the student body," she said. "It’s something that I think is important that
I want to be able to be responsive to what our students need and want to make them
competitive with their colleagues in the United States."
Hiring effective, diverse teachers
Teacher recruitment is taking on a new priority in the Pacific.
Bresell estimates the average DODDS teacher’s age is in the upper 40s or early
50s, and the person is moving toward retirement.
Bresell said there is an anticipated shortage of nearly 2 million teachers nationwide
within the next eight years.
To ensure they stay fully staffed, DODDS is recruiting.
Bresell said there also is a concerted effort to recruit a more diverse teaching staff
that more accurately reflects the student body, including more Asian-Americans, blacks and
Hispanics.
"We’re sending some folks to Dallas for recruitment and one of the things
we’re going to be looking for are teachers who are good teachers. That’s the
first criteria," Bresell said.
But, she added, "We’re also looking for teachers who match the ethnic
backgrounds of our children."
One of the options to draw in fresh talent is to expand the student teacher program.
"If we can increase the number of student teachers that we get out here, I think
we would be broadening our applicant base because they would see how nice it is to live in
Japan or Korea and they might be more interested in coming here," Bresell said.
"I’ll tell you for us as a system, the greatest recruitment challenges are here
in the Pacific. They’re reluctant to come out here and we know why."
Partnering with the communities
Bresell said it’s important for the schools to partner with base communities and
commands for mutual support and asset sharing.
DODDS has saved thousands of dollars across the Pacific by sharing buses with military
commands.
"We share our buses with military folks and they’re able to use our buses and
drivers and we share the cost," Bresell said. "That sort of partnership …
is beneficial to all."
Bresell said military commands also are adopting schools, allowing parents and single
troops the chance to volunteer in the classroom.
"I think that our system is incredibly fortunate that we have a military command
that is so responsive," Bresell said. "Some of our schools have up to 2,000
hours a month in support."
Bresell hopes to expand the partnership with the base by bringing information
technology experts into the classroom.
Bresell said there is an expectation of meeting the goals DODDS has set for itself with
its strategic plan.
"These are the benchmarks or milestones we’ve set for ourselves," she
said. "They’re real black-and-white goals."
Failure to meet the goals would be a failure in the promise to educate the children,
Bresell said.
"We’re putting a strong focus on our first goal of increasing student
achievement. The rest of the goals will aid us in achieving that first goal. Every child
can succeed. We’re just putting all our eggs into that one basket."
Back to November stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from October, 2001
Stories from September, 2001
Stories from August, 2001
Stories from July, 2001
Stories from June, 2001
Stories from May, 2001
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
