New Haven Independent

The model is not a charter, not a magnet, but a “CommPACT School.” It promises to close the achievement gap and restore the joy of learning, and it won’t cost an additional dime.

So claimed Gene Chasin, of the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He said the key element is “ownership” or “buy-in.” The CommPACT school model would be the first time not only in Connecticut but the country in which the teachers unions, the principals and districts, and parents along with the State Department of Education come together at the outset.

The schools are going to be selected primarily based on the commitment of teachers, staff, parents, and local community to reorganize in the most grassroots, local way to achieve goals. That is the “buy in” or “ownership” that Chasin (pictured) called the sine qua non for success.

The acronym expresses the buy-in: Community, Parents, Administrators, Children, Teachers.

The basic idea is to take a school and have the teachers, parents, the districts, and community go through an assessment, setting of goals, and application of what Chasin called “evidence-based best practice” to restore genuine learning, at the same time as the school will meet all testing goals of the state.

Translated out of educationese, this means that choice of curriculum, governance, even the length of the school day, all governance and budgeting will all be done locally by the agreed-upon group of teachers, district, principal, parents and community in concert.

Initiated by the teachers unions and the principals, the state has given UConn staff $500,000 in a pilot project to send its school-change gurus to six schools in the state. The commitment, said Chasin, is to stick with the chosen schools for five years, because, he said, “three to five years are the minimum required for systemic change.”

“And we are facing a real crisis in the schools, and we all know it,” Chasin said. “More than 50 percent of teachers leave the profession after a few years, and it’s generally not because of low pay. It’s because the culture in a school is not one where the teachers have an equal sense of ownership. Creating that culture is what this model is all about. When the culture is there, the application of best practices can succeed. Without the culture, no.”

Statewide, so far there have been 13 applications for the six slots. None yet from New Haven, although discussions have been under way since the fall among Chasin, Superintendent Reggie Mayo and a handful of New Haven Public Schools that Mayo thinks might be suitable.

Dave Cicarella, the president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers Local 933 (pictured here with Davis Street Magnet School Principal Lola Nathan), said the response among teachers he has talked to is “super excited.”

“We’re for the first time,” he said, “equal partners with the district, with the superintendent. On March 1, when the application is due, Dr. Mayo has to write a letter and so do I. If during the planning stages there’s a problem, we don’t agree, any party can opt out. Usually what happens in school reform is that the teachers have input, but then it’s left to the district to administer and so forth. In this model, we are equal partners in the marriage.”

For the teachers, what is new about the CommPACT School model is they decide among themselves, for example, if extra training requires them to come in on Saturdays, or to have summer retreats.

“All that,” said Cicarella, “is set up in side agreements to the contract, so everyone knows what is expected in advance. “It’s really not about money, because the district may find the extra money or the teachers may do it on their own time, but everyone’s clear at the outset, from the teachers to principal, to the state.”

Chasin stressed that “buy-in” from the teachers at a school, plus the principal, parents would be critical in deciding which six would be the first schools to be accepted.

The reorganized schools have, he said, a sense of ownership by all participants, and that is the key to success. “Evidence-based methods for teaching,” he added, “often fail because the method might be good, but if the conditions at the school are not right for method x, for example, it could fail. Then best practice z might be the choice. This kind of choosing the best ways to teach reading or math — and the attendant budgeting, staffing, and governance — are precisely what Chasin and his staff bring to the schools.

All the UConn staff would not breeze by casually, he said, but be “embedded” in the school, its classrooms, and daily life.

He said the state is committed to each of the schools it chooses for five years. The first batch deadline for applying is March 1; they will be selected April 1, when the initial phase, the reassessment will begin immediately. Reorganized schools on the CommPACT model will be set to go in September.

Board members — pictured at the top of the story, from right to left: Michael Nast, Susan Samuels, Frances Padilla, and Carlos Torre — were more than intrigued by the prospect, although one member did point out that this has never been attempted before.

Superintendent Mayo said, “New Haven is a system of choice, with many options. I hope that one of our schools will apply and be accepted.” The schools applying have to be elementary.

Although officials wouldn’t reveal which were the leading candidates, Chasin apparently has talked to at least a half-dozen schools — their teachers and principals — beginning in the fall. Since the initiative is targeted at high priority urban districts it’s likely one school in New Haven, and according to some at the BOE meeting, two might be in the first group.

For more information on the initiative, contact Chasin here.