Richland 2 social studies teacher wins national award

It's good to see a South Carolina public school teacher honored for doing great work.

It could be a daily occurrence, given that South Carolina public school teachers work miracles every school day. But South Carolina doesn't honor its miracle-working public school teachers; it browbeats them, adds greater burdens to their backs and begrudges them every dime appropriated for their substandard salaries, shrinking health insurance benefits and meager retirement benefits.

Yes, God bless the public school teachers who live and work in right-to-work-for-less states like ours.

And congratulations to social studies teacher Jason Yaman, whose work drew the attention of an organization beyond our borders.

“What I love about history is telling the stories and making the connections as to how this caused that,” said Yaman, who has been with Richland 2 since 2002.

But that passion for history wasn’t always something shared by his students, who would often come to class with a negative view of the subject.

“That was a real area of growth for me,” he said. “I enjoyed social studies so I thought everyone did. As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

After attending various education conferences, which included information on how the brain processes information, Yaman began thinking about the way we learn.

“There is brain research out there that supports that we think visually,” he said.

For the benefit of lawmakers, let me explain. After graduating high school and earning baccalaureate, and often advanced, degrees in college, and qualifying for certification as a public school educator under the laws of South Carolina and the policies of its Department of Education, these public school teachers often attend conferences, seminars, workshops and trainings that are designed to offer "professional development."

"Professional development" represents the philosophy that human beings are life-long learners, and that we have an infinite capacity to learn, grow and improve in our professions over the course of a career. So long as a good educator remains active, that good educator wants to know what more is being discovered about the many different aspects of teaching and learning.

Physicians and attorneys, and a great many other professionals, understand the same thing: You cannot rest on the belief that you know all there is to know about your field of work, or you'll stagnate and lose your effectiveness. Hence, physicians and attorneys attend their own professional development conferences and events.

This is why education professionals ought to be supported in attending as many of these occasions as possible.

Let's be clear: "Professional development" events are not the same as vacations or junkets, such as when corporate entities plan golfing getaways for lawmakers in the Caribbean, where they can "consult" on major issues of the day over the fourth hole. And they're not the same as when lawmakers attend conferences of the American Legislative Exchange Council, to network with like-minded conspirators and receive this year's sheaf of viral legislation.

Instead, "professional development" helps education professions get better at doing what they do, and become more effective in the classroom. For example, the award-winning social studies teacher, Mr. Yaman, learned about developments in brain research, and his new awareness led him to devise new teaching strategies that reflect the latest research.

In a nutshell, Yaman’s approach takes the state-adopted history textbook and guides students through it using pictures. He says he wants to get away from the idea that history is just memorizing dates and facts and “cramming before tests.”

“I tell them you need to have the timeframe of history,” Yaman added, “not the timeline.”

Tuesday, students were asked to draw images of what the Japanese thought of an American battleship when it was first spotted off the coast of that island nation in the late 1700s.

Students drew dragons and erupting volcanoes, as accounted in a letter by a Japanese fisherman that Yaman read out loud in class.

Over the years, Yaman said as he has developed and adjusted his style, he has seen a difference in the way his students respond.

“I think they go into the test with better recall,” he said.

Do you see this? As a result of professional development, a teacher devised new teaching strategies, and these strategies are yielding greater results in student achievement. Investment made, dividend collected.

That's how education works.

It must be working.

In January, Yaman was presented with the Beveridge Family Teaching Award at the American Historical Association’s national conference in Chicago, an award he shares with another teacher from Ohio. Established in 1995, the award is given to recognize excellence and innovation in teaching history.

Blythewood Middle School Principal Brenda Hafner said it’s an approach that’s “infectious.”

“These are the things we look for in all of our teachers but particularly how do you ignite that passion for learning,” she said. “It’s how do you encourage students to dig deeper, or delve further, and Jason is able to do that. You can’t help but feel it when you’re in the room.”

Look at that. Great teaching and learning is "infectious." Isn't that what we want in all of South Carolina's classrooms?

Isn't it?

Dusten Asplin who has sketched a fairly decent dragon on his computer screen, said he enjoys drawing in “Mr. Yaman’s class.”

The pictures, the 12-year-old said, have helped him remember his history lessons.

“It helps me to learn,” he says.

Of course it does.

Thanks, Mr. Yaman.

Company's recommended job cuts causing fallout in Richland 2

Today's edition of The State includes an indepth look at the controversy stirring in Richland 2 over the recommendations of Evergreen Solutions to eliminate scores of veteran educators, and the superintendent, Katie Brochu, who is implementing the cuts.

The criticism comes on the heels of an efficiency and effectiveness study Brochu commissioned this year. Among other things, the study recommends laying off roughly 140 assistant principals and other staff and streamlining some schools. Some parents fear Brochu wants to diminish some of the selective academic programs aimed at high-achieving students to focus more on disengaged students.

Brochu said that is not her intention.

Others parents, such as Gina Janvrin, who has children at three district schools, are alarmed that the study says “it’s a bad thing that all our schools are different.” But that is what has kept her and many other families in the northeast Richland County district, where a number of high-end subdivisions have been built in the rapidly growing area in the past 10 to 15 years.

The school board is publicly united behind Brochu, though member Melinda Anderson cheered some parents last week, noting the board will move slowly on study recommendations by the Tampa-based Evergreen Solutions.

“It is going to be a collaborative effort to make this thing work,” Anderson said. “We are not going to rush through anything.

Part of the controversy involves the "phasing out" of retired educators who returned to work at district schools.

Those retirees, working under annual letters of agreement, have been departing in large numbers over the past two years. The Evergreen study, released in April, recommends phasing out about 145 such teachers over the next five years. Brochu and Burgess have said that will create a smoother path for younger teachers to gain experience.

“Katie’s hand on this is not great at this point,” he said.

Flemming acknowledged there are concerns with the study’s recommendations, including its finding that schools in the 25,000-student district are too individually distinctive.

He said he does not intend to back all of the study’s recommendations.

But he added, “I think as far as getting the budget right, getting people in tune to what she wants to do, getting the design team to look at the district as a whole, it’s very positive. It has been only one year and I think, at this point, I am pleased at the progress we’ve made, even though I’m disappointed about the things that people were upset about.”

Still, two former Richland 2 school superintendents — Brochu’s immediate predecessor Steve Hefner, now the Lexington-Richland 5 chief, and his predecessor John Hudgens, who retired in 1994 — took the unusual step of writing a letter to the school board in the wake of the Evergreen study.

They emphasized the importance of retaining the choice and magnet programs that have distinguished the district for many years and made it one of the top in the state.

Why are working retirees disappearing at Spring Valley High School?

Early this week, The State published an item about parents' disenchantment in the Spring Valley High School community.

It reported that Sally Tryon, a parent and president of the Spring Valley High School Student Improvement Council, "was one of the first parents to raise concerns about the departures of working retiree teachers at her children’s school."

When veteran teachers -- especially ones who have dedicated their entire active careers to teaching, then return at lower pay to give years of their retired time to teaching too -- are pushed around, it bears noticing by all of us.

The controversy seems to come from an "effectiveness and efficiency" study commissioned by Richland 2 Superintendent Katie Brochu and conducted by Evergreen Solutions of Tampa, Florida -- yet one more out-of-state business interest profiting from South Carolina's public education budget -- that recommends baldly to "phase out" the 145 working retirees who are giving extended service to students at Spring Valley High and elsewhere.

I have a feeling that "phase out" is a euphemism for "fire." And apparently, I'm not the only one sensitive to it. Because they're officially retired, working retirees are at-will employees anyway; they work for less pay than active teachers, they have no employment rights and they are only hired year-to-year.

But according to The State's report, working retirees aren't the only targets of the efficiency experts' study: "About 140 other positions also would be eliminated, including assistant principals and school administrator positions, if the school board agreed to the bulk of the 161 recommendations in the task force study. The Evergreen study estimated about $57 million in savings over five years if all were implemented."

Active parents are ready to speak up about the proposed changes to their children's schools.

“I’m getting more and more concerned because of the way it was done and the way it was presented,” said Sally Tryon, president of the Spring Valley High School Student Improvement Council.

Lynn Roth, another Spring Valley parent concerned about the study, said she is urging more parent representation on the task force. If that does not work, she and others plan to create their own shadow panel. “I think we will go through every one of those recommendations and make our own recommendations,” Roth said.

Roth, Tryon and other parents are particularly incensed that site-based management would be eliminated at schools, ending what has been a longstanding tradition of developing distinctive programs and climates at the district’s 36 schools and centers.

“These changes so far do not give us student improvement or school improvement,” Tryon said. “It has taken us in the opposite direction.”

She and members of her SIC were never consulted during the period in early 2011 when the Evergreen consultants made visits to the district’s schools and Tryon believes no other SICs had input into the study.

Who are the people making these recommendations? What do we know about them except that they come up here from Florida to help us South Carolinians figure out what we can't understand on our own?

Google shows that Evergreen Solutions is a sophisticated enterprise, with a lot of business and municipal clients. Clients all over the country have hired and paid them tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct focus groups, send out surveys, interview people and publish colorful reports, full of recommendations. A lot of those clients have been so impressed that they've posted the reports and recommendations online, where everyone can read them.

And because many of their clients are public agencies and municipalities, those reports and recommendations become public information anyway.

It only took a few minutes of Googling to learn that when a school district hires Evergreen Solutions to conduct its "effectiveness and efficiency study," people are likely to lose jobs. At least, that's one popular recommendation that surfaces time after time in the studies prepared for school districts since 2006.

In 2006, it was Evergreen's study for Monroe County, Florida, that recommended "Based upon staffing allocations and enrollment trends, MCSD should eliminate some assistant principal positions." And, "MCSD should eliminate some staff support positions to schools."

In 2007, Evergreen told the four local governments of Alleghany County, Virginia, to cut one assistant principal and 14 teacher assistants, to abolish annual contracts for classified employees, making them at-will employees without any job security, and to cut paid working hours for bus drivers.

In 2008, blogger Ernest Brown of Lithonia, Georgia, attended a meeting to hear Evergreen's recommendations to his leaders in DeKalb County. Brown writes that Evergreen's president, Linda Recio, delivered the recommendations in person, which included cutting salaries, eliminating up to 42 personnel positions in the district office, and "targeting" the 170 employees in the district who had at least 30 years' experience with an "early retirement incentive option."

When efficiency experts come offering an "option" to veteran educators extending their terms of service to their students, I get a little anxious.

The same year, Evergreen recommended lowering the boom in Needham, Massachusetts, on a number of support staff, declaring that "Needham had more full-time equivalent support staff members than any of the other communities at the elementary, middle school levels, and was only surpassed by Natick at the high school level," and apparently, that was unacceptable.

One area parent who blogs didn't share the efficiency experts' sentiments. Boston Kayak Guy wrote then, "Parents have come to rely on a certain level of 'customer service' and staff reorganization and elimination of positions will almost certainly impact parents' perception of "service'."

By late 2009, Evergreen had made inroads into the Carolinas. It delivered a study to the Burke County School Board and Board of Commissioners to consolidate "four elementary schools into two and two alternative high schools into one," and these decisions by the board led to more unpleasant ones, according to the superintendent's annual report of 2009-2010:

As the board attempted to ratify the budget by May 15 it was determined that the district had reached a point where job cuts were necessary. Every effort was made to reduce the list of those being laid off and ensure it was the absolute minimum. The administration started with a list of 126 employees that were to be laid off, they narrowed that down to 70 who received notices, and have since been able to rehire 48 (subject to continual change) employees at some level. From teachers going back to school or taking jobs elsewhere, only nine teachers were left.

The local newspaper covered the meeting where school board members agonized over Evergreen's recommendations and their outcomes:

The board clearly wants more data before eliminating people's jobs. Members voted 5-2 to rescind the board's previous decision to cut the number of instructional coaches from 15 to five (the board last week voted to postpone the decision until it had more facts).

The board also voted 5-2 to stop advertising 13 job openings, including seven for content coordinators in a new table of organization the board adopted based on recommendations from the consultant, Evergreen Solutions.

"We have to focus on keeping teachers, not adding Central Office administrators," insisted Susan Stroup.

However, Tim Buff said Stroup's motion seemed to him to be the kind of micromanagement "that SACS CASI ripped us for" — referring to the schools' accreditation council.

"The Evergreen (Solutions) report brought us a bunch of recommendations," Buff said. "There's a person, people, jobs and the education of our school children behind every one of those recommendations. I don't want to see one person lose a job. But we're facing some big decisions."

The same spring, Evergreen made its way to Rock Hill.

The Rock Hill School Board heard Monday night that current revenue projections for the 2010-11 school year, best case, will be around $1.5 million dollars short of the cuts already approved by the board. This could mean an additional reduction of 16 positions. Final numbers will not be known until the legislature finishes up - probably in June.

Dr. Linda Recio representing Evergreen Solutions made a report on their findings of the school district's Operations Department. She presented a number of recommendations which the administration will review and report back to the board in a couple of months. Some significant findings were:

District owns unnecessary equipment (should be rented instead)
District has too many custodians and not enough employees for grounds maintenance (both should be outsourced)
Energy costs are excessive (compared to other districts)
External communications need to be improved
Cleanliness of the schools and facilities management were some of the best seen

After an executive session for personnel discussions, the board voted 5-0-1 (Douglas abstaining and Silverman absent) to approve the administrations recommendations for Reduction in Force (RIF). The administration will now begin notifying employees who will not be returning next year because of revenue reductions.

A column in the Rock Hill Herald put it more bluntly:

Cut down on custodians, hire private grounds crews and get rid of your dump trucks, a cost-cutting expert told the Rock Hill school board Monday night.

Custodians emerged as a key focus on a list of suggestions to help school officials deal with a massive budget shortfall that could bring 100 job cuts, fewer programs and other changes.

Rock Hill could reduce its custodial staff by 43 full-time positions and still remain above the national average for custodians per square foot, said Linda Recio of Florida-based Evergreen Solutions. Currently, 95 custodians clean halls, classrooms and bathrooms, in addition to more hired through private contractors.

"Custodians is an area where you are significantly overstaffed," Recio said.

And in a final example from early this year, Evergreen's Recio herself returned to Massachusetts to tell the leaders of Hamilton-Wenham to cut teachers, to increase the teacher-to-student ratio, and to cut the remaining teachers' planning periods.

According to the Hamilton-Wenham Patch,

Recio also said the district could save $100,000 annually by reducing the amount of teacher planning time.

“It’s extensive, it’s probably double what it should be and it’s not coordinated,” Recio said about teacher planning time.

High School senior Brad Kippen, who is the student representative to the School Committee, said teachers often spend planning periods working with students.

No matter, Brad. It's inefficient. It costs money. Students can work with one another. Hallways can keep themselves clean and lawns can keep themselves mown. Teacher-to-student ratios can rise to unimaginable heights, if necessary. You see, it's all about the bottom line, and what doesn't make money, costs money. Teachers cost money; teacher assistants cost money. Custodians and secretaries and assistant principals all cost money.

And working retirees at Spring Valley High School, despite collecting lower pay than active, full-time teachers, cost money.

Efficiency experts cost money too, and they don't get paid to tell superintendents how to spend more money; they get paid to tell superintendents how to spend less money while getting the same results.

It doesn't surprise me that an efficiency expert has recommended cutting jobs to save money. This is South Carolina, where no administrator needs an efficiency expert to exercise that right. We're a right-to-work-for-less state, after all.

What surprises -- and impresses -- me is that a group of concerned parents is organizing themselves to fight it.

More power to them.