Executive Summary For six years now, the Texas School Performance Review (TSPR) has been helping public school districts across the state rise to an increasingly difficult challenge--keeping their scarce education dollars in the classroom, where they belong. Executive Summary A Texas School Performance Review of the Spring Independent School District The Comptroller's Texas School Performance Review (TSPR), created by the Texas Legislature in 1990, is guided by one mission above all--to help school districts large and small deliver high-quality, low-cost service to their customers. Who are the customers? They are the children whose future is shaped in large part by what they learn in public school classrooms. Parents and families are customers, too, and so are the teachers, principals, and other employees who work with admirable dedication in thousands of schools across Texas. Ultimately, too, the many vital property taxpayers who annually dig into their pockets to support their local schools are customers. Without their aid, Texas schools could not continue to serve more than 3.7 million pupils every year. At a time when Texas faces the critical challenge of how to pay for the education of its schoolchildren, all these customers deserve to know that their schools are accountable both for the cost and the quality of the education they deliver. Only then will they be willing to invest the time, energy, and resources to support and enhance the most important task society faces today--ensuring the educational well-being of all future Texans. TSPR in Spring, Texas In April 1997, TSPR began its review of the Spring Independent School District (SISD). As in previous reviews of 23 Texas school districts, the review team came to Spring in response to a local call for assistance; in this case, the Spring ISD Board of Trustees joined then-Superintendent Gordon M. Anderson in requesting a review. With the help of experts steered by WCL Enterprises, a Houston firm, the TSPR team interviewed district employees, school board members, students, parents, business leaders, and representatives from community organizations. In addition, the review team fielded comments in letters to the Comptroller and through calls to his toll-free hotline. The Spring public schools posed an unusual challenge for the Comptroller's review team, which recognized from the start that the district ranks as a beacon in Texas and the United States. Compared to peers in other districts, SISD's teachers are deservedly well-paid. Its administrative leadership, essentially intact for 15 years, is stable and admired. And perhaps most significantly, as detailed in the chapter on Educational Service Delivery and Performance Measures, SISD students outperform their peers by every conventional measure. Despite shifting demographics of the student population, the review team found, the district's teachers, principals and administrative leaders continue to bring out the best from students. Notably, as an example to Texas and the nation, Spring's brightest students outscore their peers in the rigorous Advanced Placement exams required to earn college credit before attending college. So TSPR's challenge became to find ways to keep SISD performing at peak levels, while recommending steps that would lift the district to greater heights. Key recommendations hinge on more teamwork among teachers, principals and support staff, including district-driven efforts to identify superior programs in other districts and apply them, as appropriate, to SISD. In a very real sense, SISD stands out as an educationally wealthy environment; its daunting task is to keep that wealth from slipping away, while adding fresh indications of superior achievement. Public forums at the district's two high schools on April 1 drew some 40 Spring community residents, while more than a dozen focus groups yielded valuable comments from current and former district employees, parents, community leaders and students; in particular, focus groups of student leaders in high school and elementary school brought out direct comments on teaching practices, transportation, food services, and disciplinary issues. A written survey of 602 students, 249 teachers, and 247 families commissioned by the district under the supervision of a Texas A&M University professor also provided detailed background information. And ultimately, numerous one-on-one interviews helped the review team fine-tune its findings and recommendations. Details from the interviews and focus groups are provided in Appendix A through C. Besides conducting extensive interviews, the review team consulted databases of comparative educational information gathered by the Texas Education Agency-the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) and the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS). To draw useful comparisons, the review team also asked SISD to select similar, or peer, Texas school districts. The district chose the Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Duncanville, Fort Bend, Goose Creek, Klein, Richardson, and Spring Branch districts, whose student enrollments are compared to SISD in Exhibit 1. Exhibit 1 SISD and Selected Peer District Enrollments 1995-96 District Enrollment %Change In Five Years* Carrollton-Farmers Branch 20,343 19.6 Duncanville 10,126 (0.7) Fort Bend 40,223 28 Goose Creek 17,876 4.0 Klein 29,324 14.6 Richardson 33,984 4.4 Spring 20,246 10.2 Spring Branch 29,543 9.2 Source: AEIS, 1995-96 *Represents five years through 1994-95. The TSPR review team visited each SISD school, targeting 12 areas of operation: · District organization and management · Educational service delivery and performance measures · Community involvement · Personnel management · Asset and risk management · Financial management · Computers and technology · Purchasing · Facilities use and management · Transportation · Food services · Safety and security Acknowledgments TSPR and WCL Enterprises wish to thank SISD's Board of Trustees, former Superintendent Gordon M. Anderson and new Superintendent John Folks, and school district employees, students and members of the community who provided information and assistance during TSPR's work in the district. Special appreciation is accorded Superintendent Anderson for providing office space, equipment, and meeting room facilities; Jane Reed and Jerry Smith for coordinating most data requests and providing relevant financial information; and Sharon McNeil, who assisted in scheduling and coordinating focus group sessions and other interviews. SISD History, Enrollment Trends Some 20 miles north of Houston, Spring ISD stretches north and south along Interstate 45 and east and west along Cypress Creek and FM 1960. The district was created in 1935 from the merger of two smaller school districts, Spring and Harrell, and served a homogenous, largely rural population for nearly 20 years. While SISD did not build its first new school, an elementary, until 1959, the following decades brought an explosion of growth with an influx of newcomers to the Houston suburbs. As the district's student population grew, its demographic mix also shifted, moving from largely Anglo to a Texas-like mix of Anglo, African American, Hispanic, and Asian students. In 1982-83, Anglo students comprised 85 percent of the student population. In 1995-96, the district was 44 percent minority, with 20 percent of the students African American and 18 percent Hispanic (Exhibit 2). Exhibit 2 SISD and State Student Ethnic Composition 1995-96 Ethnic Group SISD Texas Average African American 19.8% 14.3% Anglo 56.1% 46.4% Hispanic 18.0% 36.7% Other 6.0% 2.6% Source: AEIS data, 1995-1996. During 1996-97, SISD's 2,500 teachers, administrators, and support staff served more than 20,000 students in 21 schools on annual revenues of about $110 million. The student population continued its steady increase, up 10 percent since 1990-91 (Exhibit 3). Exhibit 3 SISD Enrollment 1980-81 through 1995-96 Source: SISD Curriculum and Instructional Services Department For about 20 years, Spring ISD has been distinguished by high student achievement encouraged by teachers, administrators, support staff, and parents committed to continual improvement. Anderson Elementary School and Spring High School have been designated Blue Ribbon schools by the U.S. Department of Education, while student marching bands from Westfield and Spring high schools have won the 5A University Interscholastic League state championships five of the last eight years. Alumni of SISD include actress Crystal Bernard and Gerald Fauss, inventor of the numeral one foam hand often seen at sporting events. Biggest Challenges By dint of its tremendous growth, SISD is coming to terms both with enrollment pressures and demands for more school buildings and improved facilities. Board members requested a performance review from TSPR as they sought voter approval of a $99 million bond issue in 1996; the issue was rejected at the polls. During this review, the TSPR team noted a need to focus efforts on computers and technology and to replace the aging and inefficient school bus fleet. More generally, an outstanding commitment to long-term planning needs to continue as new leaders assume positions long held by experienced individuals who may soon retire. Such planning should include a renewed effort to recruit teachers and other staff of different ethnicities. Texas School Performance Review: A History of Savings For more than six years, the Texas School Performance Review (TSPR) has been trying to help public school districts across the state rise to an increasingly difficult challenge--spending their scarce education dollars in the classroom, where they belong, rather than on red tape, paperwork, and needless bureaucracy. Created by state lawmakers as part of the state Comptroller's Office in 1990, TSPR accepts invitations from public school districts of every size and shape-- large or small, rich or poor, rural or urban. The team settles in for months of detailed study, at no charge to district taxpayers. With the help of outside management experts, they consult a wide range of administrators, principals, teachers, parents, students, community groups, and business leaders. They solicit suggestions from front-line district employees.