TRANSMITTAL LETTER April 29, 2002 The Honorable Rick Perry The Honorable William R. Ratliff The Honorable James E. "Pete" Laney Members of the 77th Legislature Commissioner Felipe T. Alanis, Ph.D. Fellow Texans: I am pleased to present my performance review of the Laredo Independent School District (LISD). This review is intended to help LISD hold the line on costs, streamline operations, and improve services to ensure that more of every education dollar goes directly into the classroom, with the teachers and children, where it belongs. To aid in this task, I contracted with Resource Consultants, Inc. I have made a number of recommendations to improve LISD's efficiency. I have also highlighted a number of "best practices" in district operations - model programs and services provided by the district's administrators, teachers, and staff. This report outlines 101 detailed recommendations that could save LISD more than $17.1 million over the next five years, while reinvesting more than $4 million to improve educational services and other operations. Net savings are estimated to reach more than $13 million over the next five years-savings that the district can redirect into the classroom. I am grateful for the cooperation of LISD's board, staff, parents, and community members. I commend them for their dedication to improving the educational opportunities for our most precious resource in LISD - our children. I am also pleased to announce that the report is available on my Window on State Government Web site at http://www.window.state.tx.us/tspr/laredo/. Sincerely, Carole Keeton Rylander Texas Comptroller What Is TSPR? The Texas School Performance Review (TSPR), a program of the Texas Comptroller’s office, is the nation’s first state-level vehicle designed to improve the management and finances of public school districts. Since its creation in 1991, TSPR has conducted in-depth, on-site management reviews of more than 60 Texas school districts serving more than 1.4 million students, or 35 percent of the state’s 4 million public school students. Including Laredo, more than $650 million in five-year net savings have been identified in the 71 reviews released to date. These reviews diagnose districts’ administrative, organizational, and financial problems and recommend ways to cut costs, increase revenues, reduce overhead, streamline operations, and improve the delivery of educational services. TSPR’s overall goal is to ensure that every possible education dollar is directed to the classroom. A TSPR review is more than a traditional financial audit. Instead, TSPR examines the entire scope of district operations, including organization and management, educational service delivery, personnel management, community involvement, facilities use and management, financial management, asset and risk management, purchasing and warehousing functions, computers and technology, food services, transportation, and safety and security. Reviews can be requested or districts can be selected for a review. A cross-section of Texas school districts—large and small, wealthy and poor, urban and rural—are selected so that a wide variety of other districts can apply TSPR’s recommendations to their own circumstances. Priority is given to districts with poor academic or financial performance, and/or where the greatest number of students will benefit from an audit. More than 90 percent of all recommendations are being voluntarily implemented to date in the 45 districts that have had more than one year to implement TSPR recommendations. Key Findings and Recommendations TSPR examined Laredo ISD operations and heard from employees, school board members, teachers, students, parents, and community and business leaders. Following are the major proposals TSPR has developed to help the district address various issues: Major Proposals Accelerate Improvements in Student Performance · Create curriculum guides for all LISD courses and subjects. LISD does not have curriculum guides to support most of the courses offered in grades 9-12. The district does have academic standards that provide a broad overview of minimum standards in the core areas of language arts, math, science, social studies and technology. Creating curriculum guides for all high school subjects that are linked to the academic standards would help the district standardize course offerings and improve student performance. · Increase student preparation, participation and scores for the College Board’s Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT I) and the American College Testing Program Assessment (ACT). The percent of students taking the SAT or ACT is lower than Region 1 and the state. Further, only 5 percent of students scored at or above TEA’s criterion as compared to 10.8 percent for the region and 27.3 percent for the state. LISD’s average SAT score is 860 as compared to 990 for the state and LISD’s average ACT score is 17.6 as compared to 20.3 for the state. Increasing district efforts to encourage participation, preparation and subsequent pass rates for students taking the SAT and ACT tests would foster improvements in the academic skills deemed important to a student’s success in college. · Develop and adopt a board policy for management of curriculum. LISD does not have a specific board approved policy providing districtwide direction for curriculum management. The district has six policies related to curriculum design, but lacks a central policy that would ensure consistency and provide staff direction for improved management and delivery of curriculum. Development of a central curriculum policy will enable the district to better direct and manage its curriculum. Ensure that board members understand their policy-making role · Develop operating procedures and a self-monitoring system for the board. LISD board members have become increasingly involved in the district’s daily operations. Examples of board member involvement includes creating a new Quality Assurance committee that is directed and chaired by a board member to routinely monitor detailed activities of departments, control staff appointments and raises and question and give advice on internal operational decisions. By creating board operating procedures that each board member agrees to, board members will more fully understand their roles and responsibilities. · Replace standing committees with a Committee of the Whole. The LISD board is not using its four standing committees effectively and often reviews some of the same information in both its standing committees and regular board meetings, resulting in duplicative efforts. By replacing standing committees with a Committee of the Whole, the superintendent and his executive leadership team can conduct district business more efficiently and reduce duplicate information requests among committees. Reorganize the District’s Management Structure · Restructure LISD’s organization. LISD’s organizational structure suffers from unclear lines of authority and accountability. Many aspects of the district’s operations are not assigned to report to a specific position, creating gaps and overlapping responsibilities. The superintendent’s span of control is too large with direct supervision of 13 professional staff and three secretarial staff. By logically grouping functions and ensuring all districtwide programs are appropriately coordinated, LISD can increase the effectiveness and accountability of central administration. · Centralize the district’s grant-writing operations. The district’s grant writing is not coordinated. While some departments have been very successful in securing grants, there is no measure of how successful the district as a whole has been in meeting its funding needs. Centralizing this function would help the district more effectively secure and manage grants. · Reorganize the Information Technology (IT) Department and create a new chief information officer position for the district. The district has invested heavily in its technology infrastructure but does not have a management structure that provides for proper oversight and support for the overall system. Implementing a number of specific technology-related recommendations will balance personnel resources, remove overlapping responsibilities and help the IT Department position itself to support the district’s present and future technology needs. · Designate a cafeteria manager at each campus. The Child Nutrition Program’s supervisory structure for satellite operations does not provide effective management of cashiers and servers. With the exception of the Cigarroa Middle/High School and Martin High School campuses, cafeterias are not supervised by cafeteria managers. A cafeteria manager at each campus would provide the district more effective oversight of its food services operation. · Clarify responsibilities and ensure accountability for all personnel in charge of safety or security-related functions. The administrative units responsible for safety and security are in a state of flux organizationally, and responsibilities have not been clarified. A reorganization, the second in less than five years, has separated some of the primary safety responsibilities from those of security placing them in different administrative units altogether. It is critical to clarify roles and responsibilities quickly and ensure that the entire organization is informed of the changes. Improve Operating Efficiencies · Revise campus level staffing guidelines. LISD uses staffing allocation models as a baseline for assigning administrative and teaching personnel,