Whitman Elementary - Tulsa Public Schools

Timely district interventions when a school is not making progress
Focus on Results‐ In the fall of 2010, Associate Superintendent Millard House and his Executive
Assistant Jean Swanson, with the assistance of the Elementary Leadership team, carefully
reviewed the OCCT and AYP data of the elementary schools in Tulsa Public Schools (TPS). Based
on this data and observations made during visits to each campus, the schools were prioritized
in three tiers, indicating the level of need for each school. At the conclusion of this process, six
schools were identified as the highest priority for district intervention: Academy Central,
Alcott, Houston, Jackson, McClure, and Whitman.
Because these six schools had been unable to facilitate reform through existing leadership,
professional development, and student progressing monitoring efforts, the district determined
that the time for a systemic “turnaround” using an external facilitating team has come. The
intent of this decision was to move beyond triage and intervention in these schools to
developing learning organizations that “reform” and “recover” from prior limiting practices,
expectations, and poor capacity to do the required work, it was necessary that each of the six
priority schools develop systemic competence. TPS was seeking coherence from policy,
pedagogy, and programs leading to student achievement evidenced by summative proficiency
data. This project was built on the following tenets that were expressed in the stakeholder
relationships and action:
1) The learning organization is responsible to create the conditions in which students
learn.
2) Children are best engaged in meaningful work that is intellectually, emotionally, and
physically charged.
3) Students must be involved in assessing their progress, monitoring on‐going growth
and checking for mastery of objectives.
4) Adult role models can provide support and validation for learning for anybody’s
child.
5) Student success or failure is a consequence of community investment and
responsibility.
6) Collaboration, consistency in curriculum, standards based instruction, data
collection, frequent assessment, data analysis, professional development and
constant feedback are the organizational “basics” in a reform process.
After considering the proposals of several consulting groups, Focus on Results was contracted
to begin work with the six schools beginning in January 2011. When Project Schoolhouse
resulted in the closing of Alcott and Houston Elementary Schools, MacArthur and Emerson