No outside company has run a Springfield public school before.
Focus on Results, Inc., a Boston-based firm that specializes in shoring up troubled schools in short periods, will help run the High School of Commerce on State Street in Springfield next year.SPRINGFIELD – A private consulting group will help run the High School of Commerce next year, the latest attempt to rescue the school from the state’s underperforming list.
On a 6-0 vote, the School Committee approved an $800,000 contract last week for Focus on Results, Inc., a Boston-based firm that specializes in shoring up troubled schools in short periods.
No outside company has run a city school before, and details of the arrangement – including how much authority the team will exercise – were not disclosed at Thursday’s meeting.
The hiring, recommended by Superintendent Alan J. Ingram, comes one month after the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education refused to approve $744,592 for Commerce’s academic correction plan, citing a lack of confidence in the school’s ability to carry it out.
Eleven other underperforming schools in Springfield and Holyoke won approval for $15 million in funding, leaving Commerce the only school in the region to be rejected.
In a letter to Ingram, assistant state education commissioner Karla B. Baehr said “an alternative intervention” will be needed.
Ingram told committee members Thursday night that Focused on Results Inc. was on list of state-approved consultants, based on its record for helping schools such as Commerce.
“We have before us an opportunity that is unprecedented. Commerce has certainly had its pockets of success over the past several years, but the school has also had some very serious struggles,” Ingram said.
The consulting team will work with Commerce’s principal Paul A. Nycz, school administrators and teachers to make changes required in the state’s three-year improvement plan, Ingram said.
Details of the company’s role at Commerce will be shared with parents by letter and phone calls; for its part, the consultants first step will be performing a needs assessment, which will help develop an intervention plan, Ingram said.
Several committee members, including Peter M. Murphy, expressed concern about stability at the school, given a state order that 50 percent of the teachers must be replaced between 20010 and 2011.
Rapid teacher turnover could make improvements even harder to achieve, Murphy said. “If you’re going to move 50 percent of the teachers, that’s a lot of turmoil,” he said.
Committee member Norman Roldan said it was unfortunate that such a drastic step was necessary, but added, “We’ve all known that school ... had problems a long time ago,” Roldan said.