The School Board of Lee County heard some bleak statistics on student success last week, a starting point in a conversation for a transformation that will bring regional associate superintendents to the organizational chart to help student achievement increase, rather than decline.

Interim Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage said since the 2009-10 school year, the school district earned its lowest ranking — ninth — in the top 10 ever for the 2022-23 school year. Other data showed that the district ranked 25 out of the largest 25 districts in Florida for kindergarten readiness for 2016-17.

“That ranking started to climb — during that same time period, the third-grade achievement ranking went in the opposite direction,” he said from the 13th to the 22nd. “Those two don’t match.”

For the 10 largest districts for math, the school district ranks ninth.

For graduation for the 2022-23 school year, the district had an 85.1% graduation rate, which gave it a 47th statewide ranking. Savage said the year the district had a record graduation rate, the entire state waived the state testing requirements.

“Were they truly successful graduates, or less accountable to prior standards?” Savage said. “We are still in the bottom third of the state.”

He said Pasco County, which has an elected superintendent, had the highest outcome for the 10 largest districts of 91.1% for the 2022-23 school year. The average superintendent tenure in an appointed environment is between two and two and a half years. An elected increases beyond four years.

Savage said the district does not have official results for the 2023-24 school year and will not receive those until the end of July. With early reporting, the district’s gaps continue to widen in most cases.

“What we will find is pockets of significant improvements — the overall system is not narrowing the gaps,” he said. “We have not been competitive in gains either.”

Savage said it is important to note that the D and F schools are 90% elementary schools because they do not have acceleration categories to offset the overall achievement. It makes it harder because they have the third-grade achievement as its own separate category.

In order to have a more school supported model, the district is now entering into an academic transformation that includes four regional associate superintendents, all of whom were approved at the board meeting on June 26 — Angela Nadar, Cheryl Neely, Cherise Trent and Charles Vilardi.

“We have been neglecting children for 12 years. Our job is to identify deficiencies and do something about it,” Board Member Melisa Giovannelli said. “The data is quite clear and for me I have always spoken about identifying the problems and taking ownership. I am prepared to move forward today because we can’t waste another year. Let’s do something about it. I don’t know how you go about making a meaningful change without really doing change. It’s about the children. We failed because the data shows that.”

Savage said a regional model provides the opportunity for people to get to know families and work vertically through the system — integrating instead of siloing positions. Challenges are not happening at the central office, they are happening at the schools.

The top sentiment from principals is the district should act as a team, and not the district verse schools.

“It’s broke, so we need to fix it. The data is clear, to do nothing is not responsible for this board,” Board Member Armor Persons said.

Board Member Cathleen Morgan, who supported the regional concept, had a lot of questions about how it would be implemented because she did not believe it would be successful as presented.

“We all agree we want the regional concept. What we want to talk about is how is it going to work and how is it going to matter. Three elementary principals responsible for 15-20 principles with no predecessor to know what the job is, what the expectations are, clarity for the role,” she said. “They are going to be reporting to three people. We will end up with four school districts run by people making it up as we go.”

Morgan said she loves the concept but wants the people who created it to run it — Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Cupid-McCoy and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Jeff Spiro.

“I am so afraid that this structure is so fragile and so disorganized in terms of multiple people responsible for — responsible across multiple lines,” she said. “In the first year under Dr. Cupid-McCoy working with the vision that she and Dr. Spiro created, there is a good chance there will be a solid foundation with clear lines of authority, clarity about expectations, accountability, and professional development. We are going to end up with four independent operators. I don’t believe in this. I think this is a prescription for failure of a fabulous plan.”

Board Member Chris Patricca said it was a massive change to the district during a time when they have an interim superintendent and an elected superintendent to take the position in November.

“I am surprised to find us here,” she said, adding that there could be more disruption again in five months, which would be devastating to the students.

Savage said in order to implement the transformation in time for the next school year it had to be done by July 31.

“We have to make changes. I am not willing to wait for this. I am excited we are going into the change,” Board Chair Sam Fisher said. “This is how we can do it and affect change. Our number one priority is student achievement.”