Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Back to School
Transcript
- Rick Outzen: This Gowson and this is Rick's Blog Live. School is starting again. It's an exciting time. I've got two grandkids. are the youngest, the one we call the terrorist. Brooks is starting pre-K. Gregory is gonna be in fifth grade. It is, and their mom is teaching in middle school. So it's an exciting time all the way around. We've got with the superintendent of schools for Escambia County, Keith Leonard. Keith, thank you for joining us. I School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Bye. Rick Outzen: wanna read something to you. And I know this is always scary. Any interviews are scary, but we talked to Don Gates and Don Gates had a great quote about you. said, improvement is not attributable to one person, but a school system and a school can't improve unless there's leadership that demands, supports, and rewards performance. Superintendent Leonard is that kind of leader. He's placing a premium on performance as opposed to looking for excuses. We have a superintendent who understands there's significant challenges in proving school, but I believe he's more interested in doing better than in trying to explain away poor performance. That's pretty, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kaye. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Man. Pretty good. Rick Outzen: Well, he understands it. He's been a superintendent. Yes, he does. And I think, you know, we've had an amazing performance year. Yes. And with being our first time to get an A, saw a lot of schools perform. There's a different, there's such a positive feeling. I mean, there are a lot of challenges and we've talked about them from the vouchers to, know, trying to, you know, attendance to, you know, keeping good teachers. There are tons of challenges, but what made this last year special? School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Well, I tell you one thing, it was a lot of hard work by a lot of really, really good people. Our students were focused. They showed up every day, every day ready to learn. We have some incredible teachers that put students first. Of course, that's what you've got to be able to do. And it wasn't just about academics. It was each and every day where they built relationships. Their students knew they could trust them. They knew they were going to be there for them. And then with the community support, it's just been poured into our school district is second to none. Our community cares. We may get mad at one another and bicker and fight about what's going on, but when it's time to pull together, this community does it better than anybody I've ever seen. We don't worry about those obstacles. We don't worry about those challenges. What we're concerned with is what's in front of us every day and doing the best that we can. I as their leader, I try to stay focused in that. If there's anything bad that has to be dealt with, what I tell them, put that on me. You do your work, you teach the kids, you be the principal at the school, you be the assistant superintendent of operations, you make certain everything's going the way it needs to go. And if there's problems or there's issues, that's my responsibility. I think that's what we should do as leaders, and I try to do that. But those statements by Senator Gates are... very humble. They make me feel very humble. Rick Outzen: People recognize it. People recognize it. And I think that the challenges are immense. mean, is public schools are under more scrutiny than any other. Parents have a lot of options, but no one's under scrutiny like the public school system is. I would agree with you. And I think one thing that y'all have done, that I've been impressed with is, and you and I have talked several times, is you really track the numbers. You're looking at performance, you're looking, you you have gotten, you know, I've called them pockets of poverty. you, School Superintendent Keith Leonard: corridors of concern. Rick Outzen: right, yeah, you have a much more positive way of looking at, but, but you, you're tracking it and seeing it and, and see when kids, you know, the kids that are, have more housing challenges and move from school to school or neighborhood to neighborhood, there are a lot of challenges. And y'all have set up a system now that I think does probably as good a job as anybody at tracking what's going on with each kid. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Yeah, thank you. We've been doing that all throughout the summer. We've been looking at from a leadership standpoint, leadership team standpoint, where each kid at each school, where they performed well, where they have their deficiencies. I know you're going to get aggravated at me when I go back and tell you this, but I really take it back to when I was teaching and coaching when I was in school. I did the same thing. Our team's doing the same thing now. That's what you do. You watch the video to see where you could get better. Well, we're doing that with data, student data. We have a data scientist, but we spent all summer. And then during preschool, we had our administrators conference two weeks ago. We talked about each student at each school. And now those principals are communicating with their teachers. Now those teachers, they'll actually meet their students either end of this week or the beginning of next week. And they'll go right into working with them on where they were when they finished the year, which really makes sense. That's what we're supposed to be doing. getting them where they need to be which is proficient, whether it be in English or whether it be in writing or whether it be in math, but it's to each individual student because we've got to make a difference with each individual student. Rick Outzen: and people may not realize is that you have the same curriculum at every school. So a child at AK Souter and Montclair has the same curriculum. Right. So the quality of education is very good at both. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Add on to that the other thing that we've done and really focus on it is not just is it the same curriculum? Because we have a lot of mobility a student may be at Weiss one week and then be a global night Rick Outzen: People don't realize that, but that is one of the School Superintendent Keith Leonard: We do is we also create what are they're called pacing guides. So your daughter teaches social studies, right? So if she's in teaching world history and a kid moves in and she's on Hama Robbins Law Code, well, if that kid was at another school in that particular district and came to her class, they should be very, very close to being on Hama Robbins Law Code. We do that all throughout each and every of our 52 schools. A pacing guide to make certain that a student's not going to get left behind. or be so far ahead that they can't either catch up or they end up being bored and don't focus on class. Rick Outzen: Now one thing that y'all have tried and I'd like to get a little more background on it is some of the elementary schools you've added middle school classes. The goal is to make it go all the way through eighth grade. How's that working? School Superintendent Keith Leonard: So at West Pensacola, Cordova Park, and Longleaf last year, we had sixth grade. And West Pensacola and Cordova Park, that was actually their second year to have sixth grade in elementary school. We're seeing that those sixth graders at the elementary schools are outperforming the sixth graders at middle schools. Longleaf this year, we're also adding seventh grade. Longleaf will be our first K-8 model. beginning in 27, 28. And to say that those sixth graders, that those elementary schools outperformed the other sixth graders is really a pretty big statement because you know our middle schools had the number one middle school acceleration two years ago in the state. This year they were number three and we ended up with five A's in our middle schools which I don't know if anybody's ever been able to that. Rick Outzen: No, no, no, and that's always been a challenge. The middle schools have been a challenge for 20 years now. Yes. Yeah. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: It's what I'm calling it now is not a challenge. I'm calling it's an opportunity where our our community can see we have made a difference. When you say there's five out of the eight middle schools that have an A, that's pretty significant when you think about where they were. Rick Outzen: Right, definitely is. What can we expect this year? School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Well, here's what I want you to expect for the first three or four days of school. We're going to come back on August 12th. There's going to be a lot of school buses on the road. Slow down, be patient. Whether you're in a car rider line or you got your kid riding that bus, let's those first couple of days, let's be patient. But here's what I can tell you. can expect you can expect us to keep putting our best foot forward every day. The state has raised the game a little bit. This grading scale has moved up and we're OK with that. We're ready to step up and do that. What I will tell you, I won't try to procrastinate or tell you that we're going to have 19 A's like we had this past year, but we had 83 % of our schools either perform at the same level or better. Our goal is to be about 86, 86.8 % because if we do that, we'll remain an A. But we'll have to wait and see the proofs and the pudding as they say. Rick Outzen: Numbers are a strange thing. You could live or die by the numbers. I talk to Sheriff Chip Simmons a lot of times and Chief Winstrum with the city. It's a difficult, the numbers can change, but what you want to see are the trends. And the trends have been unbelievable. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: that trajectory to keep going up. Rick Outzen: What are you projecting on enrollment? School Superintendent Keith Leonard: This morning we were at 31,572, which is about what we had projected to have. We just hope that holds firm. As you know, last year we were projected to only lose like 380 students and we lost 1,000. I read an article today where Broward County has 50,000 empty seats. Public school something is near and dear to my heart. I know how you feel about it. We appreciate your support. We need every student to be there on day one and we need every student to be there on day 178. We're going to give your students everything we can every day. So just trust the Iskandar County Public School System to do the best we can. Rick Outzen: Well, I think the proof's in the pudding. I think it's been happening that way. It'll be exciting to see the year go on. And one thing I truly appreciate is the transparency and the communications that we have. I really appreciate it. if anything comes up, I'll call you. And you can always call me. I School Superintendent Keith Leonard: Thank you very much, sir. Rick Outzen: really appreciate you being here. Yes, sir. We're going to take a break. We'll pay a few bills. We'll be right back. Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender. Early voting starts August 8th. There's some things to look out for when you go to the vote. School Superintendent Keith Leonard: you