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A chance for change: Rebuilding a school district means changing the 'Duquesne way' Second of two parts Monday, February 19, 2001 By Eleanor Chute Post-Gazette Education Writer
Distressed school districts are nothing new to Nick Staresinic, who helped turn around the financially troubled Clairton City School District two years ago.
But Staresinic, 75, a retired superintendent who now chairs the board of control in the distressed Duquesne City School District, said this situation was particularly difficult.
"There were a lot of things in Clairton that didn't need fixing. Almost everything here that you can look at and touch needs fixing," said Staresinic, who headed the Clairton board of control for more than three years.
Staresinic estimated it would take four to five years to turn Duquesne around, financially and educationally.
It was six years before Clairton was removed from the state's financially distressed list and returned to local control. Last summer, Clairton went on the state's academically distressed list.
Duquesne is facing financial and academic distress, so the district must improve achievement and cut costs at the same time.
Last week, state Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. released reports that showed the district's finances were in such disarray that no one knew, for example, how many sick days some employees had taken, and that the district charge card had been used to pay hotel bar bills and for in-room movies during a school board trip to San Francisco.
How does a school district in such disrepair rebuild itself?
Across the nation, the techniques for improving achievement vary. But the ingredients for an effective school are basically the same, whether the school is low income, such as Duquesne, or wealthy, said Craig Jerald, senior policy analyst for The Education Trust. The nonprofit education organization based in Washington, D.C., focuses on schools serving low-income students and minorities. Duquesne City School District has a 91 percent black population.
"All good schools have strong leadership; qualified, effective teaching staff; a rigorous curriculum; and a way to focus on results so they can do specific strategic planning around student strengths and weaknesses," Jerald said.
What does it take to fix a troubled school district? Can any school overcome the multiple problems of failing students, poor families, questionable management and sparse funding?
Currently, a dozen Pennsylvania school districts have been identified as poor-performing districts under the state Education Empowerment Act. Duquesne City School District also has been taken over by a state control board, making it the only Western Pennsylvania district in serious trouble both academically and financially. And a state audit last week blasted the district for "deficient management" in spending and record-keeping.
Using Duquesne's struggle as an example, this two-part series examines the complex issues faced by failing schools and whether efforts to improve can ever succeed.
Duquesne district's superintendent wants to get students 'up from under'
Duquesne's schools finally getting help on longtime financial and academic distress
Ranking Duquesne district against others in county, state
In some high-income schools, parents are able to fill in the educational gaps left by the school, making the school look better than it is.
On the other hand, Jerald said, "high-poverty schools have to be successful every single day for their kids to keep up, because there's nobody to take up the slack." Those schools might need to provide after-school or Saturday lessons to help bring students up to higher levels.
Megan Farnsworth, of the Heritage Foundation's No Excuses campaign, said troubled schools could turn around when there is consistent leadership. They also need principals who can hire the best staff and choose the most appropriate curriculum, and they need regular tests to find out what students are learning.
Duquesne has size on its side, said Ted Sizer, retired director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and a visiting professor at Harvard University. With about 940 students, the district is smaller than many high schools.
Sizer said a small school could build a school community in which each student is known as an individual and respected.
"You have to deal with it kid by kid," he said.
"There're obviously going to have to be wrenching changes, and wrenching changes are tolerable if people trust each other at least four of every seven days."
Once a school is on the road to improvement, it's difficult to keep the gains going, partly because of staff turnover, Farnsworth said.
"That's been a real problem in many high-performing and high-poverty schools. They get the scores up. Sometimes the key person involved is a principal, a charismatic leader, and that person leaves," she said.
Consistency, in fact, has been an issue at Duquesne.
The longest-term top administrator, Superintendent JoAnne Wells, who is in her first superintendency, was hired in October 1999.
Elementary Principal Jean McAteer, who is in her first job as a principal, joined the administration last school year, and secondary principal Dan Stephens, who has more than 30 years of experience, was hired for this school year.
And last fall, the powers of the school board were turned over to the state-appointed board of control headed by Staresinic.
Staresinic started in October, and the other two members were named in November: Jo H. DeBolt, senior manager of World-Class Industrial Network and former executive director of the Mon Valley Initiative; and Robert Pipkin, a former Pittsburgh Public Schools administrator who has been active in the Thurgood Marshall Charter School in Wilkinsburg.
Current efforts to improve the quality of education include a new elementary school reading curriculum, expanded course selections for the secondary school, new attendance procedures aimed at reducing absenteeism and lateness, and a discipline policy aimed at teaching proper behavior.
At the same time, Duquesne is trying to improve against a backdrop of serious financial problems.
The district expects to get $519,075 after the state approves a school improvement plan designed by the district's empowerment team. That team was appointed by the elected school board after Duquesne was named an academically distressed district under Pennsylvania's Education Empowerment Act.
Searching for funds
Wells said the district was trying to become more aggressive in applying for foundation grants, something it has done little of in the past.
But more help is needed. The district ended the last school year with a deficit of about $202,000. The $10.9 million budget the elected school board approved for this school year included $2.4 million of expenses which it had no way of paying. Staresinic said the deficit could reach $3.2 million by the time the school year is over.
The district twice last year couldn't make bond payments, so the state helped out by paying a total of about $1.4 million. That money should come from future state subsidies, but Staresinic said he had asked the state not to deduct it yet "or we couldn't operate tomorrow."
Staresinic said the district had three serious financial problems: the out-of-balance current budget, the construction fund and money owed to creditors.
The district floated four bond issues totaling $19.3 million for renovating and expanding the Duquesne Education Center so it could house all students in one up-to-date building. That was far more than the $11.6 million budgeted in 1995. The cost rose through various delays, including the discovery that the building lacked a proper footer.
As a result, the district must pay more than $1.4 million each year in bond payments.
Staresinic said the bonds still didn't provide enough money to cover all of the construction costs. He said the district also owed about $580,000 to other creditors, who generally have agreed to be patient.
The district is appealing an arbitrator's award of $770,000 to Able-Hess, the general contractor, which filed a claim for $1.2 million. Deductions include the potential cost to repair some floors where tiles have come off, exposing rotted wood.
Solicitor Jack Cambest said the district was challenging the inclusion of penalty and interest charges.
There is also a punch list of about 250 problems being developed involving various contractors.
"It's just a mess," elected school board President Jackie Moran said. "If this were your home, you would never pay the contractor, believe me, until he redid it."
More than money
While the board of control was set up to handle financial problems, financial control is interwoven with the way programs operate.
The board of control started out blocking any new hires, including filling the vacancy for a special education director, a middle school principal and the two-day-a-week job of personnel director, from which Gary Matta resigned last month.
The board also drew up an organization chart, giving Wells responsibility for special education, curriculum and personnel and giving. Staresinic has responsibility for sorting out the construction problems. Now district business manager Dennis Cmar, who came onboard last spring, reports to Staresinic.
Wells said she was grateful that Staresinic is working on the construction problems.
"Having the board of control here, it's almost like a weight being lifted off," Wells said. If anyone wants to spend money, she said, the board of control demands the expense has a definite justification and impact on student achievement.
That's a change from what Wells called "the Duquesne way" of operating. She said she wanted things done the "right way" instead.
Seth McAllister, who has been on the elected board for a year and made the motion to ask the state to declare the district financially distressed, said, "I can see that things will get better under Dr. Staresinic's guidance. He's really doing a remarkable job now. There is so much structure now. There's so much accountability."
Staresinic isn't surprised by most of the problems. He served on a team that looked at the district's finances in 1998-99 and believes that "practically none" of the recommendations was followed.
But Staresinic said he was amazed to find how many supplies -- paper, pens, books, science equipment, bookcases -- the district had in storage at the John F. Kennedy Elementary School. The school was built in the mid-1960s but hasn't been used for many years.
He said some of the materials were put there when students were moved to five locations during the school renovation.
"It was almost as though it was stored and forgotten," he said.
Poor students, poor schools
Ronald Mento, who was superintendent for seven years before Wells, said that students in poor school districts "get shortchanged."
"There are social problems, emotional problems, academic problems, and the school district doesn't have enough money to address all those needs," he said. "You have the kids who have the most need getting the least attention from state funding."
Mento said if he could change one thing, he'd change the state's method of funding special education. In 1998-99, Duquesne spent about $1.6 million on special education but received $292,089 from the state for it.
That year, Duquesne spent 29 percent of its instructional dollars on special education, compared with an average of 18 percent in the county, according to state figures.
With the demise of the steel industry, property values have shrunk to the smallest tax base of any school district in Allegheny County. One mill of property tax brings in about $16,000.
Duquesne's loss of real estate value had qualified it to receive special state funding -- as much as $1 million in 1994-95 -- but that subsidy was gradually reduced and eliminated.
Many believe that more money is critical to solving Duquesne problems, but some problems will take more than money alone. They will take deliberate changes in the way the district operates.
"What you're going to do has to be thought through well," said Charles Gorman, executive director of the Tri-State Study Council at the University of Pittsburgh who has worked with Duquesne City School District.
"These are problems in the schools where Band-Aids do not work."
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