Description of Five Areas for Study

There are five work groups to assist on this project. These groups will assess, develop new ideas, or modify the superintendent's concept. To help each group develop its work plan, we have provided guiding questions as noted below:

1. Professional Learning. What can be done to better encourage, train, execute and sustain our professional development in the classroom? We seek to focus and embed professional learning for staff using the tripod-model: content, pedagogy and relationships. Our content must be centered on the five college-readiness competencies. The instruction will be differentiated, with emphasis on ELL and special education students, matched with real-time assessments. We want the teacher-student relationship to be based upon mutual respect, culturally appreciative and supportive of the student-becoming-a-citizen in a global environment. And for our non-teaching staff, we need to explore ways to raise their skill competencies to better support our teachers needs.

2. Teacher Career Paths. How can we encourage and support our excellent teachers to remain in the classroom with teacher career ladder options, and/or differentiated pay schedules? In the book Drive (Pink, 2009), we understand that highly-motivated staff seek to exercise autonomy, mastery and purpose in their work. We want our teaching staff to select a path which best represents the teacher's goals, performance and success with students. The superintendent has identified four-levels of teaching to consider: teacher, master teacher, lead teacher and scholar teacher. We need to sustain and monitor clear expectations for all teachers through the combination of our professional learning systems, our evaluation systems, and the possibility of differentiated pay through career ladders.

3. Salary. Does our salary schedule reflect the impact of future student-performance indicators? There is a national imperative for higher student achievement and a movement towards value added indicators. Can we build on our professional learning plans (PLPs), which include student outcome data, and pursue a course to address these areas, some of which are still in uncertain waters, and create a compensation package which recruits, supports, and recognizes excellent teachers? A strategic framework/model for determining employee compensation plans includes at least three components: internal fairness, competitiveness, and financial affordability - all of which can be quantified, and balanced. Changing from the current to new career paths requires that we phase in any adjustments to the salary schedule. The new pay scale must reflect a teacher's quality. We must also examine the salaries of our adminstrators and support-staff to ensure their pay reflects their valuable contributions to support teachers and students. We must work to develop a schedule that is simple, rational and competitive at the local, regional and national level.

4. Student Learning Time. What programs, policies, and practices must we provide to get the most of extended learning time for imroving our student learning environment? The science of learning tells us that our students benefit when teachers have more time for collaboration. ACPS will request an extended school year (two-days, start August 29) and an extended day of 21-total, additional hours for teachers in 2011-2012. We want to consider increasing the student school year by adding two days-per-year from 2011 to 2014, effectively adding six days to the student calendar. We also seek to add eight days to the teacher calendar in these same years. We will add time for teachers in 2011-2012; we will examine and discuss increasing the student day by 30 minutes in 2012-13; and possibly an additional 15 minutes in 2013-14, resulting in an increase of 45 minutes per day for the student. We must determine how best to phase in these requirements to increase the quality and quantity of learning time as part of the transformation model and in light of the federal requirement to increase time (up to 300 hours of instructional time per year) in an extended and flexible manner. (Note: this paragraph reflects recent changes as of March 2011 - not the November 2010 concept).

5. Benefits. How do we design a benefits program that is fair, financially affordable, and regionally competitive, to attract, recruit and retain quality staff? For all employees - teaching and non-teaching staff - We seek a benefits program that demonstrates internal equity for the workforce, while acknowledging the unique qualities and attributes of the various employee groups. Our program must be financially sustainable for the long-term, and adaptive to meet the ups and downs of the economy. We also want our benefits package to compete effectively within the region, while being cognizant that we can lead, match or lag our neighboring school divisions. Consequently, we will review various benefit program models(e.g. cafeteria plans) to develop the best possible benefits package for our school division. This includes an assessment and recommendation of our employer and employee-contribution requirements for the Virginia Retirement System (VRS), and the ACPS supplemental pension program. We will also examine our 403(b) and 457(b) plans, and determine how these plans might be improved.