During the August 23rd Emergency Richmond School Board meeting a lot of words were exchanged between all members of the Board and Superintendent Kamras. To an onlooker unfamiliar with the internal politics of the Richmond School Board - specifically a split vote over control of school construction in April 2021 - the rhetoric and indirect accusations must have been extremely confusing. While the Superintendent shared more detailed data that shows most of the decline in RPS student scores were actually less than the state average for many sub-groups by demographic data, no specific recommendation became policy despite the urgent nature of the meeting.
With support from School Board Member Jonathan Young, Board Member Kenya Gibson put forth the following motion:
“Related to the curriculum, RPS will implement new internally-developed curriculums by the end of the 22-23 school year to meet the unique needs of RPS students. This process will begin by establishing a working group by subject that will provide initial recommendations and budgets by October 31, 2022. As such, the existing off the shelf curriculum will be phased out by the end of this school year. Effective immediately, teachers will not be disciplined for veering from curriculum as deemed appropriate.
Related to teacher retention, the superintendent will provide the following items to the Board and public by October 31st, 2022 The VDOE approved climate and culture survey report findings from teachers from the past three years. Provide plenary data from the past three years and a projection of the most recent data.”
The motion failed on a 5-4 vote with members White, Doerr, Page, Jones and Burke voting against and Gibson, Harris-Muhammed, Rizzi and Young voting in favor. The rationale for voting against seemed to be a lack of time for community and constituent input, as well as the upheaval that such a change could cause for both teachers and students. Those in support recognized the curricula, particularly the EL curriculum, which is used in all K-8 Language Arts classes, is unpopular with teachers, and teachers have even reported being reprimanded for veering from the curriculum to meet student needs.
Do both arguments from the opposing sides of the vote have merit and validity? Yes. Has there been documented support via public comment for changing the curriculum or at least allowing teachers flexibility? Yes, for several years now. Should Board members do their due diligence to gain community feedback and follow School Board policy that requires two readings of a resolution or a two-thirds majority before it is passed? Yes.
The School Board would be wise to heed the wisdom of the African proverb of the Igbo people, “Wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it.” This means there is no one way to anything, or no absolutes. Both sides of the vote present clear and legitimate concerns. It’s paramount to the success of our students that Board members truly hear each other. The spirit and aims of Gibson’s motion are applaudable and mirror the concerns that many rank-and-file workers have raised with the School Board and RPS administration.
Whether the School Board members that voted against the motion were unwilling to vote against the wishes of the Superintendent or unable to due to lack of time for community input, remains to be seen. Regardless, rather than allowing the divisiveness and confrontation to take over, the Board would do well to build consensus around issues, such as the existing curricula, by looking at root issues first, and starting with clear and direct changes to policy. For example, an easy starting point that the Board could take going forward, if members do in fact want to begin to tackle the issue of curricula, would be in this line of the motion Gibson put forth:
“Effective immediately, teachers will not be disciplined for veering from curriculum as deemed appropriate.”
Let’s start there. Although it would be wise to define “as deemed appropriate” as something along the lines of “as long as they are aligned with Virginia SOLs”, this simple one sentence policy change would allow teachers to make decisions in their daily instruction that best meet the needs of their students. Further, it would clarify to coaches and building level administrators that they should be gauging the effectiveness and quality of a teacher’s instruction rather than how precisely they are following the off the shelf curriculum. The Superintendent and his cabinet have shared their willingness to be flexible with the curriculum, but that messaging does not align with what some teachers experience in their worksites. Teachers report observations being weaponized against them, sometimes with three or more administrators and Central Office staff in the room, as well as irrelevant “dinging” of technicalities in their lesson plans after asking for flexibility or support with the curriculum.
The Richmond Educator affirms that teachers should have the autonomy to make decisions based on the needs of their students. With that said, such autonomy could mean some teachers choose to continue using the framework of the EL curriculum, which is free and open source. Others, however, favor an internal curriculum in which the content area specialist for RPS works with experienced teachers to build a curriculum, units, and lesson plans with resources and activities embedded that come from the teachers themselves. These teachers providing their expertise should be fairly compensated for their contribution to the curriculum. This type of internal curriculum isn’t novel–Henrico County Public Schools uses a similar model. Even within RPS, most high school content teachers do not use an off the shelf curriculum and have more autonomy in their lesson planning.
The next action item for the Board relevant to the failed motion from Tuesday night would be the VDOE culture and climate surveys. These surveys were completed at the end of each academic year, including 2021-2022, by teachers and staff about the effectiveness of their building level leadership. Rank-and-file workers have advocated to School Board members publicly and privately for this information to be released. The data would likely shed light on the causes behind schools with abnormally high turnover rates and low SOL scores.
At the end of the meeting, two rather large elephants in the room were sidestepped: teacher retention and the housing crisis. As The Richmond Educator has previously reported, both issues are critical to address if we are to improve academic outcomes for our students this coming school year. Although the housing crisis is the Mayor’s and City Council’s responsibility, we continue to call on the School Board and RPS Administration to create and implement a teacher retention plan that includes the changes staff themselves want. Previous reporting by the Richmond Educator outlines many of these.