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Published on 03/01/1999 All articles from this issue

Homestead loses 'Leadership School' status, but reforms will continue

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By Linda Taaffe / Town Crier Staff Writer

Despite its recent loss of school reform funding and its status as a "Leadership School," officials say Homestead High School will continue its long-term goal to improve student performance.

The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, an organization that provides funding for school reform work in 87 schools in the Bay Area, withdrew $200,000 in grant money from Homestead along with its leadership title Jan. 21. The school was not meeting the progress goals or deadlines as established in the original school reform grant.

"(The collaborative) worked constructively with us, but the dilemma we ran into was that we weren't getting more staff members on board, so we weren't achieving the rate of progress that was expected for a Leadership School," said Lauri Steel, reform coordinator at Homestead.

"We were not reaching enough students. They were concerned the reforms would remain an option rather than become a school-wide thing," she said.

Homestead was part of the first group of schools to be funded by the collaborative. It received a Hewlett-Annenberg Challenge Leadership grant in 1996 and was named a Leadership School to serve as a role model in reform for other schools nationwide.

As a Leadership School, Homestead was expected to work toward whole school change, establish high standards for every student and develop a formal system to measure student performance over a five-year period, according to criteria set by the collaborative.

Steel said about 20 percent of the staff and 25 percent of the students were participating in the reform programs, but that was not enough for a Leadership School.

"I think student performance has improved," Steel said. "Students have changed the way they look at work. They're not asking, 'How do I get two more points?' but 'How can I write a stronger essay?' These kinds of things don't show up on standardized tests."

Homestead will remain a member of the regional collaborative even though it is no longer a Leadership School, said Merril Vargo, executive director at the collaborative in a press release.

"School reform is very difficult and school-wide change can take as long as a decade," Vargo said.

"Consensus is a prerequisite to change and cannot be forced or hurried. We must hold ourselves accountable ... We not only have to maintain high standards for the work of our schools, we must also pay attention to the calendar,"Vargo said.

Principal Eric Paulson said the reform programs the school has established will continue.

"I don't want the community to think all of that will go away," Paulson said. "We will continue to move forward and look for other sources of funding."

He said the school will continue to provide integrated and longer class periods, new assessments to measure student performance and continue to work on standards-based initiatives.

Paulson said the lost funds will mostly impact the relief time provided to teachers to build and develop new programs; the two-week summer institute for teachers; and professional development days, which enabled staff members to attend educational conferences.

Superintendent Joe Hamilton remained positive about the school's chosen direction.

"Refocusing their improvement efforts and gaining greater consensus is the right thing for them to do at this time," he said.