Dr. Frank Passarella was charged with making a drastic transformation when he joined the Lake Elsinore Unified School District five-and-a-half years ago. This included new leadership through 105 administrative changes and a new business model through a solid strategic plan.
The need for the changes was simple: the school district was not meeting performance standards. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Lake Elsinore was in the program improvement category, meaning the district was not meeting its adequate yearly progress (AYP) benchmark. In California, where school districts are given academic performance index (API) scores, Lake Elsinore earned a 701 out of 1,000; the state target is 800. With this number, Lake Elsinore was ranked 11th out of the 23 school districts in Riverside County of Southern California.
“Every organization in the private sector looks at profit margin. Because we do not have that, we look at proficiencies and graduation rates. There is not a better product than moving citizens forward. If we are not moving schools in the right direction, then we have a responsibility to assess what is not going well and what we need to do to ensure kids are receiving a high quality education,” said Passarella.
“I looked at each of my 22 principals and studied what they had done in their time: was their school regressing, maintaining status quo, or improving,” he continued. “I met independently with each principal to show them what I found. I got a good feel as to whether a principal was able to move a school forward.”
Word spread quickly: either produce results or step aside. Passarella said it was not about punishing his staff but rather creating awareness. With new data to assess each school, continuous improvement became the key to each staff member’s role.
However, they were not expected to go it alone. Passarella coined a phrase, “the appropriate level of push,” meaning he varies how much support he gave individual staff members depending on how much support they needed. He said that strong support also came from the five-member district governing board.
Articulation meetings are held in which all of the administrators meet as a big group then meet in smaller sub-groups. Instead of having all of the elementary principals in one group, the middle school principals in another, and high school ones in yet another, he groups them by region in the 140-square-mile district. “This way, a high school principal hears what is happening in a kindergarten classroom and vice versa,” Passarella explained.
The district also developed professional learning communities as a way to review and analyze the data from benchmark assessment tests. That data is what teachers use as their tool to decide whether to re-teach a topic or move on to the next one. Passarella believes the PLCs have helped the district fine tune its instructional programs.
Although over 100 administrative changes were made, Passarella did not just bring in 100 new administrators from outside of the district. He also promoted from within. “Our 3,000 employees are top notch people,” he said. “Now we have the finest educators in the area and I am blessed with exceptional leadership.”
Beyond four walls
In August, Lake Elsinore will open a new school—one that is free of bricks and mortar. The idea came about last December, while Passarella and the Lake Elsinore Governing Board were at the California School Board Associations symposium in San Francisco.
“We attended a workshop on virtual schools, put on by the company K12. When we left, the board said they wanted one and I had until August to put a virtual school together,” Passarella said.
With that charge, he gathered a group of administrators and teachers and they started doing their homework: the logistics of the school, what curriculum to implement, who the school would be open to. Although an online K-12 academy was a new concept for the district, Passarella did have some experience in that realm, having taught online college courses. The district also offered online classes for credit recovery this past year.
Southern California Online Academy will be a hybrid model, so students can do all or some of their courses online. The academy is open to students in grades K-12 from Riverside County as well as the five surrounding counties. It is also open to students who are currently enrolled in home school, which Passarella believes is a great way to provide parents with additional curriculum free of charge. Just as home school students are allowed to participate in extracurricular activities at the local school, students of the online academy who reside in Lake Elsinore’s district will have this opportunity.
“That is one thing I commend my school board on, they did not want to take that social aspect away from kids just because they were doing their work virtually,” said Passarella.
The goal is to have 1,000 students enrolled for the first full school year, which should not be difficult if its summer session is any indication: 800 students are enrolled in the summer session and Passarella is getting positive feedback from both students and staff.
“The curriculum is just as rigorous as in the brick-and-mortar schools, the only difference is the methodology of delivering that curriculum,” said Passarella. “I think it is new and innovative to do so, but I also think 10 years from now, virtual learning will be commonplace.”
Measuring success
Creating an online academy was just one way the district found a creative way to push itself to a higher level. This creativity and drive is leading to a continuous increase in Lake Elsinore’s assessment levels. The district has meet its AYP benchmarks the past three years, it increased its API to 814, and its ranking among Riverside County school districts is now three.
“I was excited to go from 11 to three, but I do not think my school board wants to settle for number three,” said Passarella. “The best part in all of this is that the winners are the kids because they are getting a high quality education. It is cool to see a student come into fifth grade from Mexico not speaking English go on to graduate as one of our valedictorians. We have those tremendous success stories.”
However, the superintendent—who is a product of public education—believes all public school districts deserve accolades. “Public education does not get the recognition that it should. A lot of people criticize it because we take everyone, we do not turn anyone away,” he said. “But we produce the next doctors and lawyers.”
