Decatur High Principal to Become CSD Director of Secondary Education
Decatur Metro | January 14, 2014
According to Decaturish, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards made a “surprise announcement” at tonight’s Board of Education meeting.
Decatur High Principal Lauri McKain will become CSD’s new Director of Secondary Education. McKain will remain Principal of Decatur High through the end of the 2013-14 school year.
The move comes less than a year after it was announced that Oakhurst Principal Mary Mack would become CSD’s Director of Elementary Education.
More info as we have it.
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Hey there. Just updated the story. Some more info about the new job can be found at this link: http://decaturish.com/2014/01/14/decatur-high-principal-promoted-to-director-of-secondary-education/
From the update in the comment above:
McKain will oversee both the middle and high school (grades six through 12) for City Schools of Decatur. The Director of Secondary Education is a new position within CSD, she said.
She said she will officially become Director of Secondary education in the fall, but that could change of CSD finds a new principal for the high school before the end of this school year.
Sincere question: why do we need these new positions–Director of Primary and Director of Secondary Education? (Especially director of secondary ed, with only two schools.) Besides the extra cost, it looks like we’re moving out two excellent principals. One thing I like about CSD is that it isn’t top-heavy with layers of administration. I’m happy to listen to reasons for why adding these positions will benefit our kids, but my initial reaction is wary.
+1 to Tok If the two principals were thinking of leaving the CSD for retirement or the promise of a better job, than so be it. To create two jobs into a school system that is reported to be one of the better systems in the county for the sake of keeping them on the roles says to me that 1. There is a belief that there is no one qualified to take over for them and the schools (children) will suffer for it 2. We are willing to accept the cost of these two positions for the next number of years on the “promise” that they would be a worthwhile investment. But once the positions are created, there will be no going back, one more layer of administrative cake.
+1 to TOK’s comment. I would like to see an explanation of why this position is necessary.
Total speculation on my part: This was a good way to keep the skills, experience, and energy of two special CSD staff who might otherwise retire or move elsewhere. if my guess is correct ,and it probably has a 20% chance of being correct, the problem will be if the positions outlast the special staff in them. CSD has a history of not filling or doing away with positions if it doesn’t need them or can’t afford them. Dr. Van Soelen’s position is an example.
Ms. Mack basically told me this was a retirement delay for her. Yet I still wonder why these positions are necessary,
These are just my thoughts; there are no facts behind it.
One of my frustrations with F.AVE is that none of the teachers in the same grade coordinate with each other like in my kids’ K-3 school. It seems every curriculum, pace, homework strategy etc. is different from class to class. So maybe these positions will help bring about that consistency and build a steady platform and set of expectations from which all curricula flows.
Agree with your observations about inconsistency from class to class at FAVE. I hope you’re onto something with what the Director of Primary Education might do.
I heard the same conversations at the bus stop when kids compared teacher assignments. Sure, teachers may have different styles, but we parents were surprised at the variability in required homework vs no homework, mandatory reading vs no required reading, etc. Two kids living nearby, with similar academic track records, and astoundingly different day-to-day classroom expectations.
Of course, this is coming from the kids, who have their own filters.
(and I’m not anti-FAVE — her 5th grade teacher was awesome. But our own experience is that there does not appear to be much inter-teacher coordination on material and progression)
I should add that with kids at Renfroe and DHS, I see a lot of inter-teacher coordination and communication. Definitely not a problem (to us) at the higher levels.
Years ago, there were central office curriculum folks. At that time, that didn’t seem to be enough to ensure consistency across our elementary schools. The quality of each school seemed to be very much dictated by the principal in charge and the neighborhood the school was in. Hence the 2004 reconfiguration as an indirect way to address consistency. But we are in very different times now and it may be more appropriate to use these kind of positions to ensure consistency across schools. Plus who is in the positions is key. Some people walk on water and bring good things to whatever position they take.
Although this was one of the stated goals of having a 4/5 over each K-5 school having 2 classes per grade and every school teaching differently (even covering different subjects sometimes in the old days (interject good or bad – depending on your viewpoint)), I agree that it has been a problem. I always assumed the IB Coordinator at the 4/5 would ensure consistency similar to the ICs at each K-3. However, that was never the role of the IB Coordinator at either the Glennwood 4/5 Academy or FAVE.
This seems like a typical bureaucratic move. How is it that we cannot have teacher’s assistants in
all of our elementary classrooms, but can afford two six figure jobs that were not even on the radar two years ago. If CSD really wants better results, spend it in the classrooms. Not in a bigger bureaucracy.
It’s only 1 new position because Dr. Van Soelen’s Asst. Superintendent position wasn’t refilled. Or 0 new positions if there’s other unfilled senior level positions sitting around Central Office. I get the sense that Central Office has a fixed budget and it plays around with which positions it fills depending on which good candidates are available and what the needs of the day are. If the total Central Office budget holds steady and doesn’t grow at the expense of classroom positions, and all fair promotion and hiring policies are followed, that seems like a flexible, strategic way to operate. And we have to realize that, as the total student population grows, the Central Office workload will increase and we’ll have to expect modest growth there. (I said modest, not proportional. A 30% increase in students doesn’t necessarily need 30% more administrators. It does need 30% more teachers though.)
But completely agree that there is no better use of our tax dollars than good paraprofessionals in elementary school classrooms. You can get at least 6 for the price of one senior administrator.
We received an email from the DHS principal today that said in part “Though the title is a new one in the district, the position is a restructured one. In the past there was an Associate Superintendent and two curriculum directors. In order to tackle the complex challenges in our state and community, Dr. Edwards restructured the instructional services department.”
Let it be said what a great principal we’ve had at DHS in Lauri. She will be missed.
+1 on that. Tis a thankless job for sure.
Let me be the first to say that Bruce Roaden would be an AWESOME principal for the high school. He walked into Renfroe and turned that place around. He’s just an incredibly talented administrator.
Since preteens/early teens have been his forte, I agree that teens are likely to be a good fit.
Whoever takes the position will be coming in during a critical transition time–getting IB off the ground in a way that it is successful with all students, not just the 10-20% that are likely to complete an IB diploma. Between the IB diploma program, career academy, DeVry Program, and a new IB/Career program that is developing, never mind special education, tracking is in full swing at the high school (and middle school too since you have to be ready for the high school track you want). Ask the kids who they see every day in their classes–it’s a small proportion of the student body because of scheduling. Ensuring that tracking doesn’t become the divisive, labelling, narrow experience that it was in the old days of “high, medium, low” tracks will take excellent leadership and a commitment to all students and not just those who make DHS look good score-wise no matter what happens to them. Tracking has to be 1) flexible so students aren’t locked into an unescapable pathway when they have barely hit puberty; and 2) well-understood by everyone, not just the administrators–every teacher in every track, the students, the parents, the case managers, the counselors, the paraprofessionals, the coaches, everyone has to understand so that students make good choices that support, encourage, and challenge them properly. All students, not just the ones that are easy to support or the ones who win games or awards.
Yes, IMO the high school is now as much or maybe more tracked than it was before IB. This is ironic considering how deeply dedicated Ms. McKain was to de-tracking Decatur High.
More tracked for sure. And I think the combo of detracking and then retracking has ended up having a particularly large unintended impact. We took out the track that was most comfortable for students who were serious and conscientious about school but not at the top of the class. We haven’t replaced it. This was all done with good intentions but I think a large body of students are at risk for falling between the cracks. We need to go look at other IB high schools that have already figured this out. Maybe this is what a new director of secondary education can do.
Yep, the feeling among the DHS kids I know is that you are either top 10%-15% and are willing to give up or dramatically scale back your passions outside of school (i.e. you are a IB Diploma Candidate) or you’re pretty much nobody, at least academically. Your classes are either extremely difficult both in content level and homework load, or they are kind of a joke, and you can phone it in and still get an A… or a 6 is the correct term I believe.
This coupled with a school calendar that makes a lot of summer employment or other extended, eye opening summer experiences/commitments nearly impossible seems to have the unintended consequence of closing doors for a large number of great but not outstanding students who have a lot to offer.
My hope is that a shift in leadership on the school board, at DHS and at the admin level can change this and make sure all of our students who want to achieve great things can do so.
And moving him away from F.AVE would also be a positive. I think running schools with students older than 11 would be a better fit for him.
I second that. I’ve always thought Mr. Roaden would be great at the high school. I totally dig that guy.
In my opinion CSD central offices have been heavy on staff for too many years. The new titles are positions in large systems such as Dekalb and Gwinnett, but with our small system is it really necessary? It’s hard to say how many people we have at the central office when their website has an incomplete listing of people there. It would be helpful to have an updated list on the website.
I agree that one result of IB is tracking of students and CSD pays for this tracking.