In August 2000, the Comptroller of Public Accounts’ Texas School Performance Review (TSPR) staff and consultants completed a comprehensive school review of the Smithville Independent School District (SISD). During November 2001, TSPR staff returned to assess the district’s progress in implementing the recommendations.
Since 1991, TSPR has recommended more than 5,500 ways to save taxpayers more than $600 million over a five-year period in 63 different public school districts throughout Texas. TSPR also conducts follow-up reviews of districts that have had at least one year to implement recommendations. These 40 subsequent reviews show that 90 percent of TSPR’s combined proposals have been acted upon, saving taxpayers more than $109 million, with the full savings estimated to grow in the future.
Improving the Texas School Performance Review
Soon after taking office in January 1999, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander consulted school district officials, parents and teachers from across Texas and carefully examined past reviews and progress reports to make the Texas School Performance Review (TSPR) more valuable to the state’s school districts. With the perspective of a former teacher and school board president, the Comptroller has vowed to use TSPR to increase local school districts’ accountability to the communities they serve.
Recognizing that only 52 cents of every education dollar is spent on instruction, Comptroller Rylander’s approach is designed to give local school officials in Smithville and in other Texas communities the ability to move more of every education dollar directly into the classroom. Comptroller Rylander also has ordered TSPR staff to share best practices and exemplary programs quickly and systematically with all the state’s school districts and with anyone else who requests such information. Comptroller Rylander has directed TSPR to serve as a clearinghouse of the best ideas in Texas public education.
Under Comptroller Rylander’s approach, consultants and the TSPR team will work with districts to:
- Ensure students and teachers receive the support and resources necessary to succeed;
- Identify innovative ways to address the district’s core management challenges;
- Ensure administrative duties are performed efficiently, without duplication, and in a way that fosters education;
- Develop strategies to ensure the district’s processes and programs are continuously assessed and improved;
- Challenge any process, procedure, program or policy that impedes instruction and recommend ways to reduce or eliminate obstacles; and
- Put goods and services to the “Yellow Pages Test”: government should do no job if a business in the Yellow Pages can do that job better and at a lower cost.
Finally, Comptroller Rylander has opened her door to Texans who share her optimism about the potential for public education. Suggestions to improve Texas schools or the school reviews are welcome at any time. The Comptroller believes public schools deserve all the attention and assistance they can get.
For more information, contact TSPR by calling toll-free 1-800-531-5441, extension 5-3676, or see the Comptroller’s Website at www.window.state.tx.us.
TSPR in the Smithville Independent School District
In March 2000, when TSPR began its performance review of the Smithville ISD, TSPR found a district facing several challenges including older facilities in need of replacement and/or major renovation and fluctuating student performance. The board and superintendent had developed a multi-phase facility plan, but the community was divided about the nature of needed facilities and where those facilities should be located.
Based upon more than five months of work, the report identified SISD’s exemplary programs and suggested concrete ways to improve district operations. If fully implemented, the Comptroller’s 34 recommendations could result in net savings of $339,072 over five years.
The Comptroller’s office selected WCL Enterprises, a consulting firm based in Katy, Texas, to assist the agency with the review. The TSPR team interviewed district employees, school board members, parents, business leaders and community members and held a public forum in SISD’s Junior High School. To obtain additional comments, the review team conducted focus group sessions with parents, teachers, principals, business leaders and representatives from community organizations. The Comptroller also received letters from a wide array of parents, teachers and community members, and staff received calls on the Comptroller’s toll-free hotline.
Fifty-five campus and 11 central administrators and support staff; 10 principals, assistant principals and professional support staff; 73 teachers; 110 parents and 138 students completed written surveys as part of the review. The review team also consulted two databases of comparative educational information maintained by the Texas Education Agency (TEA)—the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) and the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS).
SISD selected peer districts for comparisons based on similarities in student enrollment, student performance and community and student demographics. The selected peer districts were Bastrop, Columbus, Elgin, Giddings and La Grange. TSPR also compared SISD to district averages in TEA’s Regional Education Service Center XIII (Region 13), to which SISD belongs and the state as a whole.
Smithville ISD in Profile
Smithville ISD is located in Bastrop County approximately 40 miles east of the city of Austin. SISD served 1,871 students in 2000-01. SISD has one high school, one junior high school, one elementary, one primary school and one alternative education campus for a total of 5 campuses. Enrollment for 2001-02 is 1,867 students.
In 2001-02, SISD’s student enrollment is 17.5 percent Hispanic, 70.7 percent Anglo and 11.8 percent “Other.” More than 43 percent of SISD’s students are classified as economically disadvantaged.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) awarded the district an Academically Acceptable rating in 2001. TEA also rated all of SISD’s schools Academically Acceptable.
In 2000-01, 86.3 percent of all students passed the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS); 90 percent passed the math portion; and 81.8 percent passed the writing portion.
In 2000-01, the district employed a staff of 274 employees, with teachers accounting for 142 or nearly 52 percent of SISD staffing. The district had expenditures of $12.3 million in 2000-01 including 35.8 percent of SISD’s revenue generation from local taxes, 5.6 percent from other local and intermediate sources, 56 percent from the state and 2.6 percent from the federal government.
In 2000-01, SISD spent 52.5 cents of every tax dollar on classroom instruction compared to the state average of 52 cents. SISD’s 2000-01 spending pattern was an improvement over 51.8 cents in 1998-99.
Significant Changes Since the Original Review
In March 2001, voters in SISD passed a $14.1 million bond issue by a 16-vote margin. The bond will be used to build a new high school to handle the district’s growing enrollment. The high school will be located on a 100-acre site south of the Smithville city limits. Construction will begin in February 2002 with a scheduled completion date of August 2003.
Following TSPR recommendations, the district included a community facilities committee in the facilities planning and negotiations prior to the bond election for construction funding. District administrators reported the committee worked cooperatively with SISD officials and was instrumental in resolving many issues, as well as, the negative perceptions in the community concerning the district’s planned building expansion.
The district also took some positive steps to refine its program evaluation system including hiring a new director of Special Programs under a rewritten job description. This professional cooperates with the director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology to systematically review and monitor the district’s special education programs. In addition, the director of Business and Finance assumed all financial duties, which were formerly the responsibilities of the director of Special Programs.
District technology specialists cooperated with Maintenance Department staff to develop and implement a computer-driven work-order system, which is both easy to use and efficient. The district also purchased equipment and software to assist in educational data analysis. Cooperation among administration, staff and community continues to be a positive force in the district.
The district’s Technology Department also obtained a $200,000 Technology Infrastructure Fund (TIF) grant in October 2000, which was used to place a network computer in every district classroom and to update an obsolete computer lab.
In November 2001, TSPR team members met with the SISD officials responsible for implementing each recommendation, evaluated their progress and provided additional information when administrators identified obstacles to implementation. Subsequently, TSPR staff compiled this report to illustrate the district’s progress toward implementing TSPR’s recommendations.
While the district still has a lot of work to do, both SISD staff and TSPR team members have a sense of steady progress. Twenty-eight recommendations have been implemented, two are in progress and one has not been addressed. SISD officials rejected three recommendations because they believed implementation was either not feasible or applicable at the time. (See Appendix A for details on the recommendations' status.)
Smithville ISD Report Card
Chapter # of Recommendations Complete In Progress Not Implemented Rejected Percent Complete/In Progress Rating District Organization and Management 2 1 1 0 0 50%/50% Satisfactory Educational Service Delivery 6 6 0 0 0 100%/0% Excellent Facilities 3 3 0 0 0 100%/0% Excellent Financial Management 5 3 1 0 1 60%/20% Satisfactory Asset and Risk Management 3 2 0 0 1 67%/0% Needs Work Operations 15 13 0 1 1 87%/0% Satisfactory Overall Grade 34 28 2 1 3 82%/6% 88% Excellent = More than 80% complete
Satisfactory = 80% to 100% complete or in progress
Needs Work = Less than 80% complete or in progress
Exemplary Programs and PracticesTSPR identified numerous “best practices” in SISD. Through commendations in each chapter, the report highlighted model programs, operations and services provided by SISD administrators, teachers and staff members. Other school districts throughout Texas are encouraged to examine these exemplary programs and services to see if they could be adapted to meet local needs. TSPR’s commendations from the original report with italicized updates from 2000-01 are listed below.
- SISD is developing a sound planning process that ties budget allocations to the district and to campus improvement strategies that are designed to improve student performance. Before 1996, the district had not seriously addressed site-based decision-making. Since school started in fall 1999, every campus site-based committee has received annual training in the roles and responsibilities of the district and campus site-based committees.
Since the review, the district has continued to support the vital role that each site-based decision-making committee plays in both campus and district decisions. The district has taken advantage of every opportunity to improve the campus site-based committees and has changed the groups’ leadership when necessary. These committees continue to promote the district’s budget planning process and focus their attention on ways to improve student performance.
- SISD directly linked its budget to its strategic plan in 2000-01. Planning has become a year-round effort with major revisions in the district and campus improvement plans occurring in the spring of each year so budget development can reflect the priorities identified in the improvement plans.
The district continues to link its budget to its strategic plan including revisions and necessary additions based upon actual assessments of need. Since 2000-01, the district also conducted a comprehensive maintenance needs assessment in the spring of 2001 and used the information when developing the annual budget.
- SISD uses Regional Education Service Center XIII’s (Region 13) Personnel Services Cooperative to expand the pool of available teacher applicants. The cooperative has 24 member school districts and assists school districts in recruiting, selecting and hiring teachers. SISD pays a one-time membership fee and an annual maintenance fee; both are based on average daily student attendance. As a result of its membership in the cooperative, the district has reduced its paper costs because the cooperative uses an almost entirely electronic application and distribution process. The district also has saved staff time devoted to recruitment and applicant processing, while it has increased the number of applicants it could have generated by itself. Moreover, the information is available to districts seven days per week, 24 hours per day. SISD fills 15-20 teacher vacancies each year.
Region 13 continues to provide valuable services to the district. All vacancies were filled for the 2000-01 school year, many with applicants received through the Personnel Services Cooperative. The cooperative has been a useful and cost effective service for Smithville ISD.
- SISD is undertaking a series of initiatives to address the needs of its non-college bound students. Tech Prep is a program that leads students toward associate or baccalaureate degree programs and helps students prepare for high skill, high wage jobs in at least one field of engineering technology, applied science health or business through a planned, sequential program of study. SISD participates in the Capital Area Tech Prep Consortium and enters into articulation agreements with three junior colleges: Weatherford Junior College in agriculture; Austin Community College in business and Blinn College in home economics/child care, business and technology. Students take a sequence of courses while in high school that will earn them credit in escrow at colleges with which the high school has articulation agreements.
High school administration and district instructional staff annually review and update articulation agreements to provide college credit options for students. Counselors work with students to develop high school plans that prepare students for post-secondary opportunities.
- SISD’s Maintenance Department is responsive to the needs of the schools and provides quality services. The district has a manual work-order system with three levels of priority: emergency, priority and routine. The principal determines the priority, and the director of Maintenance usually agrees with the principal’s determination.
During 2000-01, the SISD Maintenance Department implemented a computer tracking system for work orders to improve the department’s responsiveness to campus requests. The system also allows the district to analyze maintenance costs by campus and building systems to determine and predict replacement schedules for specific building equipment.
- SISD prepares informative budget analysis reports every month for the board and the public. Budget reports are included in the monthly board meeting packets, which provide data on variances from the amounts budgeted. Business Office personnel routinely answer detailed questions concerning the budget at the monthly board meetings. The monthly board report also includes the district’s ongoing budgeted amount, actual financial results and variances from the budget at a specified level of detail.
During 2000-01, the district added a monthly financial investment report to the other financial reports provided to the board and the public.
- The district implemented a Food Services Quality Assurance Review team during the 1999-2000 school year to improve services. The members of the team include parents and other community representatives. A checklist and report have been developed to assist with the review and provide measurable results. The summary report contains information on food quality, service, facilities and schedule, a general evaluation and follow up, along with team comments and recommendations. Each response is rated on a scale of one to five, poor to outstanding. The reviews are unannounced, and the results are shared with the Food Service Department for corrective action.
During 2000-01, slight changes have occurred in the Food Services Quality Assurance Review process. Cafeteria visits are still unannounced, but they are scheduled to occur within a specific week by the superintendent.
The following are some of the key recommendations that administrators and staff said they believe had the greatest impact on district operations. The highlighted recommendations are organized by chapter and by the area of operation as contained in the original report. The comments came from district administrators during the TSPR team’s follow-up visit to the district.
District Organization and Management
Recommendation 1: Increase teacher participation in the site-based decision-making process by allowing them to serve as chairs of campus site-based decision-making (SBDM) committee. Two teachers have served as chairs of SBDM teams during 2000-01 and 2001-02. Administrators said having teachers in this role has increased teacher awareness of the SBDM process. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) awarded SISD commendations during a 2001 District Effectiveness and Compliance visit for the involvement of the district’s SBDM committees in the creation, implementation, evaluation and promotion of both district and campus goals and achievements.
Educational Service Delivery
Recommendation 3: Use TAAS data to identify student and teacher needs and to improve student performance. The district purchased a $3,600 scantron and software that helps analyze and distribute TAAS results to district administrators, principals, site-based decision-making committees and campus staff. Student needs are identified, alerting teachers to academic changes and alerting staff and administrators to the need for possible program adjustments. The district continues to prioritize students and their performance.
Recommendation 6: Evaluate the English As A Second Language (ESL) program and make changes to better meet the needs of ESL students. The director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology reviewed the ESL program following the report and established an annual evaluation process. Students in this program had a 71 percent passing rate during 2000-01. Following this evaluation, the director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology began systematically reviewing all district programs with the assistance of the new director of Special Programs. The disaggregated TAAS data provides information necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of all of the district’s educational programs.
Facilities Use and Management
Recommendation 9: Refine the facilities plan by including a community review of the plan, a schedule for completion and financing alternatives. The district created a community facilities committee in August 2000 that was instrumental in the passage of a $14.1 million bond in March 2001 to fund construction of a new high school. The committee reviewed the facilities plan, cooperated with district officials and the community and resolved many points of contention between the groups. Construction will begin in February 2002 with a scheduled completion date of August 2003.
Recommendation 10: Develop an ongoing process that ties maintenance needs to the budget. The district developed a customized computer maintenance program capable of tracking costs per building and per system within each building and per maintenance employee on an annual basis. The district uses these costs in actual budget projections each year. The district can project and schedule future maintenance repairs and replacements and has, for example, placed all facilities on a four-year repainting cycle.
Asset and Risk Management
Recommendation 17: Aggressively pursue modifications to the depository agreement and cash investment policies to provide a “sweep” of idle cash balances into higher yielding investments on an overnight basis. The district aggressively pursued recommended banking agreement modifications. As a result, the district obtained a higher interest rate from First State Bank that will compensate the district for its lack of an established sweep account. SISD administrators are willing to continue to obtain overnight sweep investments if the opportunity arises in the future.
Operations
Recommendation 20: Increase meal participation by eliminating operational barriers and implementing new programs. The district completed menu evaluations and menu improvements and instituted a tabbed system that students use in their notebooks. These improvements in conjunction with a new combination line opened in the full-service cafeteria have increased student participation rates. Additionally, staff training and procedure changes have improved customer service and increased employee production speed.
SISD has made steady progress in implementing TSPR recommendations, with almost 88 percent of TSPR’s recommendations having been implemented or are being implemented at the present time. District administrators have not implemented four of the report’s recommendations and have provided the reasons for their delay, inaction, rejection or modification. This section addresses the key areas TSPR believes require additional attention.
Facilities Use and Management
The district contacted the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO), requesting an energy review. The final report pointed out a number of major and minor repairs, retrofits or renovations that are needed to maximize energy savings. The district is planning to implement some of the suggested improvements through its maintenance department. District officials are aware they need to replace compressors, but administrators said they could not afford a complete system overhaul at this time. TSPR encourages the district to critically analyze the costs and benefits of continuing to pay higher than necessary energy costs versus immediately investing in repairs, retrofits or renovations. The district may also wish to explore all of the potential advantages of the state’s LoanSTAR program as a financing option. Part of the LoanSTAR program provides loans for energy improvements to participating state agencies including a four-year or less repayment plan based on estimated energy savings. In most cases loan repayment is made from savings generated by the cost-effective retrofit measures. Additionally, program interest rates dropped from 4 percent to 3 percent in December 2001. State agencies, including school districts, are authorized to repay these loans from general revenue funds budgeted for utilities.
Financial Management
TSPR recommended that SISD establish an interlocal agreement with other school districts in Bastrop County to make purchases using each other’s bids. District administrators rejected this recommendation saying they did not see any advantage to placing bids with other Bastrop County school districts, other than those bid through the Texas Buy Board and the Regional Education Service Center Cooperative. While savings occur through cooperative purchases, TSPR encourages administrators to monitor their purchasing options in the future.
Asset Risk and Management
Although the district modified TSPR’s recommendation to use sweep accounts, TSPR commends SISD on its initial efforts to obtain overnight sweep accounts by rewriting its bank depository agreement bid to reflect that language. District officials said all three local banks did not have any established overnight sweep accounts available, and they wanted to continue a banking agreement with a local institution. District officials also said they would be willing to approach a larger institution with this request should such a bank establish a local branch in Smithville. Galveston ISD (GISD) was presented with a similar situation in which no local institutions offered a sweep investment account. GISD officials collaborated with bank officials and instituted an overnight sweep account for the school district and other local entities. TSPR encourages the district to approach its bank administrators with this proposal and institute overnight sweep investments to benefit the district and other large local institutions.
Operations
TSPR recommended that the district purchase an automated fleet maintenance system, which the district rejected as too costly. However, TSPR learned during the visit that the superintendent developed a customized maintenance software program to track maintenance requests, which might be adapted for use by the Transportation Office. Using a simple database to automate fleet maintenance and then adapting it for the district’s small transportation system can improve manual record keeping efforts and provide quick and easy information from records and reports to the director of Transportation. Data entry can also take less staff time than manual written reports. Transportation Department employees may welcome the opportunity to automate their reporting system and learn new or additional computing skills.
SISD’s Ideas for Improving the Texas School Performance Review
The Texas School Performance Review team does not assume that its process for performing school reviews works so well that it cannot be improved. Therefore, as part of the progress report preparation, TSPR asked Smithville ISD staff members and administrators what went right and what went wrong—and how the process could be improved.
The feedback TSPR has received from other districts led to improvements in the review process. For example, early reports did not include implementation strategies, and districts told TSPR they needed help in getting started. As a result, the reports now include implementation strategies and timelines to complement the recommendations. Districts have told TSPR these blueprints are invaluable to achieving the desired results. It is important for TSPR to continually be mindful of those things that did not work as intended so that the review process can be continually improved.
A Smithville ISD board member said that the review fairly portrayed the exemplary programs and challenges facing the district and acknowledged the district has saved money as a result of the review. He also thanked the review team for the time and effort they put into the findings and report production. The board was pleased with the savings received from the restructured banking agreement and acknowledged the challenge of continually improving student performance.
Since the release of the review, the board said there has not been a significant change or improvement in the district’s business operations, public perception of the district and in the working relationship between the board and the administration. The board suggested TSPR focus on finding ways to help districts fund recommendations that result in no savings. TSPR continues to focus on the implementation strategies portion of the reviews and to include more details and concrete examples for recipient districts to use when implementing recommendations.
Several administrators said they were dissatisfied with the attention that the consultants paid to the individual aspects of and details of each of the school districts included in this countywide review. SISD officials were frustrated with the consultant’s presentation of data that frequently was comingled with data from neighboring districts. For example, the implementation strategies and timelines reference the director of Personnel and the deputy superintendent, positions that do not exist in SISD. TSPR acknowledges the challenge of producing multiple district reports at the same time during a countywide review. To address this issue in recent countywide reviews, TSPR assigned a single project manager to each of the districts within a county to ensure the integrity and individuality of each district is maintained.
SISD officials also believed there were instances in which the report was not sensitive to the district’s size. Administrators said they did not have sufficient personnel, for example, to implement some of the recommendations. Several administrators also believed that future reports should include more implementation examples and industry practices targeted toward small districts rather than large ones.
