LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Young Elementary School Principal Erica Lawrence said she can accept constructive criticism of her leadership style, but when the Kentucky Department of Education recommended that she should not stay in her job, she was devastated.
“I never would have thought when seeking the principalship and wanting to move into a position to be able to foster learner growth in a wonderful school, ‘Do you think that it could turn out to be professional homicide, that you will be publicly humiliated?’” Lawrence said Tuesday.
“That’s hurtful. It’s quite hurtful without also understanding the full story of our school and how we’ve evolved in these last three years that I’ve been here.”
Lawrence is one of nine principals in Jefferson County Public Schools who, according to the state, lack the capacity to lead their schools’ turnaround efforts.
Young Elementary was among eight low-performing JCPS schools who recently received diagnostic audits from teams led by KDE, the reports of which were released Monday. In the latest batch of reviews of schools identified for comprehensive support and improvement, Lawrence was one of three principals deemed unfit to lead their schools’ turnaround efforts and recommended for reassignment.
Whether the principals will be reassigned or remain in their schools is up to Superintendent Marty Pollio.
Lawrence said she has not met with Pollio about her future yet, and she paused when asked whether she wanted to remain at her school given the public recommendation from KDE for her removal.
One principal previously deemed unfit to lead her school’s turnaround strategy in the initial batch of audits released Jan. 16, Mill Creek’s Michelle Pennix, decided to take a voluntary reassignment rather than wait for a decision from the superintendent.
“That’s really a tough question because if the value of the work is not fair, then as a team we’ve got to think about what the best place is,” she said, adding that she “absolutely” feels supported by Pollio and his administration.
“That's really strong language that someone doesn't have capacity now and will not have capacity in the future, because there's evidence that the professional learning that I've participated in as a leader has impacted our school and our learners,” she said. “So to go forward and say that I am incapable of learning anything new is quite sobering.”
Young Elementary Principal Erica Lawrence's door is covered with positive notes she's received from her staff.
KDE leads audits for every CSI school identified in the state, and its principal recommendations have come under scrutiny this year after its initial round of audits.
Pollio has called the process unfair, and legislation that would have prohibited KDE from handling the audits and barred principal recommendations from being included in those reports was amended in the Senate Education Committee last week.
Senate Bill 158 – which is sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, R-Greensburg, and scheduled for a Wednesday vote in the upper chamber – keeps KDE as an auditing option for CSI schools and allows auditors to continue recommending whether principals should be replaced.
KDE Associate Commissioner Kelly Foster said the state’s principal recommendations are based on six criteria in state regulation, such as whether they are committed to high expectations in learning, have leadership styles that promote student performance and adequately allocate resources needed by students.
That means even if a school scores high in classroom observations and its principal gets better marks than their peers in leadership evaluations, they can still be recommended for reassignment by the state.
Foster said principals should understand the criteria by which they’re judged. The state leads informational meetings and trainings on the CSI auditing process for affected schools and their principals, she said.
The principal capacity regulations are reviewed at both, she said.
“I feel like the department has done an excellent job of communicating that criteria to principals,” said Foster, who co-authored the 2018 book Without Trumpets: Continuous Education Improvement, Journey to Sustainability that explores the topic of school turnaround following the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990.
Foster said she also stresses that these are simply recommendations when she delivers the diagnostic reviews to principals and superintendents, who ultimately decide whether principals recommended for reassignment should stay in charge of their schools.
“I think that when you’re looking at making change or you’re looking at making school improvement or school turnaround, the leader is the key piece to making significant changes in a building to processes, procedures, structure, instruction, intervention,” she said.
“Having the right person as a leader in that building is really what's going to make a difference in determining long-term, sustainable change.”
While the audit of Young Elementary found well-behaved students in class and shrinking discipline numbers, the diagnostic review team questioned the administration’s communications strategy that left some staff members feeling “confused and misinformed.”
They also criticized the school’s frequent professional development opportunities and planning sessions, which at times meant pulling teachers from their classrooms and impacting instruction.
“School leaders need to prioritize the protection of instructional time so that students have licensed, qualified teachers in their classrooms as much as possible,” auditors wrote in their report.
Lawrence feels like she can change her approach as a principal to alleviate auditors’ concerns about Young Elementary. She noted that the school’s efforts to boost achievement for students, such as implementing a new French immersion program for kindergarteners, won’t show dividends on K-PREP for years.
Jamie Vescio, a French teacher at Young Elementary, goes over a math lesson with her class as part of the school's French immersion program on March 3, 2020.
Students begin taking the statewide standardized test in third grade.
While proficiency in math and reading at the Title 1 school have lagged on recent K-PREP tests, Lawrence says student growth on that standardized test and Measures of Academic Progress exams show her students are making progress toward their academic goals.
“There are things that you can absolutely say, ‘OK, this is an area where we can strengthen. This is something that I can improve as a practice,’” she said. “And then there's some things that are less clear, but I absolutely feel as though I have the capacity to learn new things and learn from this report and implement those things within the work environment.”
Lawrence isn’t alone in her frustration. Sabrina Moore, a Young Elementary parent, said she was “dumbfounded” by news that her foster daughter’s principal isn’t fit to lead the school’s turnaround initiative in the eyes of auditors who spent days at Young Elementary during their evaluation of the CSI schools.
Her foster daughter is now in second grade, and Moore has seen dramatic improvement since she arrived at Young Elementary as a kindergartener.
Moore credits Lawrence’s patience and willingness to work with changing the young girl’s behavior over the course of three years. Without her, Moore says her foster daughter likely would have ended up in one of the district’s alternative schools.
“When she first came to kindergarten, she was throwing things, flipping tables, screaming,” Moore said. “There was a lot of crisis.”
But with the help of Lawrence and others who worked with her foster daughter, Moore said her foster daughter’s perception of school changed. The transformation, she said, has been “amazing.”
“She loves class, and she's paying attention, and she's behaving,” Moore said, adding that losing Lawrence as principal would “devastate” her.
“I'll be very fearful of what would happen with my foster child just because she's very intentional on making sure that the teachers know my foster child's history and knows where she came from and what she's been through,” she said.
Young Elementary teacher Ethel Martin reads with her students on March 3, 2020.
Lawrence declined to comment on the potential political ramifications of the audit’s recommendation that she no longer lead Young Elementary. She’s running as a Democrat for the Indiana House of Representatives to represent the New Albany area in a seat current held by Republican Rep. Ed Clere.
Lawrence said she wanted to keep her school work separate from her political endeavors for this report.
Other JCPS principals who have been recommended for reassignment this year are:
- King Elementary Principal Stephanie White
- Roosevelt-Perry Elementary Principal Kimberly Marshall
- Wheatley Elementary Principal William Bunton
- J.B. Atkinson Academy Principal Stephanie Nutter
- Doss High School Principal Todd Stockwell
- Engelhard Elementary Principal Ryan McCoy
- Trunnell Elementary Principal Stephanie Smith
JCPS Communications Director Renee Murphy has said Pollio will meet with the affected principals and determine next steps at a later date.
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