Putnam County School System was named a District of Distinction by District Administration, in large part due to the work of Jerry Boyd, Director of Schools. We had the privilege of interviewing Jerry Boyd, a distinguished Blackboard partner, about his district’s challenges, goals and successes.
Bb: What are the main challenges your district faces in 2015? What keeps you up at night?
JB: We have hard choices to make and limited resources. I work with a powerful team of committed educators and want them to have the capacity to do the things they need to do for kids. It is our goal to strengthen leadership capacity up to the district level and to work with our partners to help us connect with our parents. Our communication strategy is the most constant challenge. Most of our resources are focused on the classroom, but we don’t always effectively communicate all the good things we are doing with our staff, parents and other districts. Most specifically our website seems to be a step behind – other things continue to take priority. We want to be able to more regularly share our best practices by keeping everyone more regularly informed.
Bb: Tell us about your VITAL program specifically and how it is helping to address some of your challenges.
JB: The VITAL program is focused on meeting individualized and personalized needs for students. All students come to us with different needs and learning styles. We provide students with flexible, online learning options and always require a high quality teacher to be involved. We maintain focus on the student and offer a customized education program using digital tools to meet those needs. For example, when students are behind we put them in recovery courses and when students are advanced we provide them with innovative opportunities. Long term we are looking to provide a competency-based environment in an online capacity –anywhere, anytime.
Bb: Do you have any specific success stories or innovative best practices related to your online learning program (VITAL) with respect to student or school achievement?
JB: VITAL has cut the need for credit recovery by 50% over the past three years. We are reducing the number of lost credits that a high school student sees through an intervention type of approach. Teachers monitor the progress of students regularly through grading and in-class participation and intervene earlier to help students recover lost skills.
VITAL facilitators are embedded in the schools and serve as a resource for teachers when they need to provide a personalized intervention plan for students. These facilitator positions are repurposed, available teacher positions offered in the high school. The facilitators are regularly trained, have a strong pedagogical background, are front-runners with technology and are good at establishing relationships.
This early intervention approach has increased our graduation from 88% in 2013 to 92% in 2014.
Bb: How does your partnership with Blackboard help enable your district to embrace digital learning?
JB: The learning management system is essential. For our district we view our learning management system, particularly Blackboard’s as the core to the teaching and learning process.
Blackboard has been essential to help VITAL grow. We began with another LMS, but we needed something a little bit more robust. Blackboard’s platform was more advanced in what they offered for online learning. Furthermore, over the last 3 years we started using Blackboard for flipped classrooms. The teachers who were most interested in blended and flipped classrooms started using Blackboard right away and now it’s growing beyond just those who are just interested. We are trying to get to a place where all teachers see the LMS as central repository for all their resources as well as a communications tool that can be accessible at anytime.
Bb: What advice would you offer other superintendents and district administrators?
JB: Find a way to get teachers who have had success to share their best practices. Make sure that you regularly communicate these successes internally and externally. For example, highlight best practices on your school or district social media channels. People will see what you post and will gain interest in your successes and will begin to reach out to you.
Also, personalized learning supported by a high-quality teacher leveraging digital tools has to be a priority. Great teachers championing the strengths, interests, and needs of the individual learner with relevant digital tools truly is the best student-centered approach.
Learn more about related best practices from Lawrence Public Schools here.
Do you have a story like Putnam’s to share? Submit a proposal to present at BbWorld 2015.
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