On the Verge of Greatness?

Charlotte County Schools Excel in Testing and Educational Programs

When I retired and moved to Punta Gorda four years ago, I knew nothing about the local schools. They weren’t on my need-to-know list. However, I became intrigued when I read about the accomplishments of the Port Charlotte High School Model United Nations debate team, which always seemed to be winning some regional or national competition (and continues to today). I mean, this isn’t a university town where the schools are loaded with the brainy offspring of college professors or some Florida Space Coast community, home to NASA scientists and engineers.

 

Charlotte County is really two communities. Like me, most of the retiree population is from somewhere else. They have no real sense of loyalty to the schools, which could partly explain why the Board of Education’s half-percent sales tax proposal failed last fall.

The other community is the workforce, comprised of both bluecollar workers and white-collar office and service employees. Less than 20 percent of the county’s population age 24 and older has a bachelor’s degree or higher.

All this makes Superintendent Dave Gayler’s pronouncement in a recent interview even more startling. He said the Charlotte County School District “is on the verge of greatness.”

Perhaps one can dismiss such exuberance on the part of the district’s head cheerleader. After all, his tenure depends on how the community perceives the quality of the schools in his charge. But Gayler is no run-of-the-mill superintendent. In his seventh year at the helm, he is widely respected in the community and among his peers; his words carry weight. The average stay for superintendents in Florida is three to four years.

If anything solidified his job, it was how deftly he handled the aftermath of Hurricane Charley, which hit just before the start of school. With several facilities seriously damaged by the storm, the logistics of finding suitable classroom space for the county’s 17,000 students was mind-boggling. But Gayler pulled his teachers, administrators and support staff together, and the educational process continued unabated.

Today’s Challenges

Four years after Charley, the district still faces many obstacles, including:

• A 2008–09 operating budget of $152 million, down $10 million from last year due to the soured economy and declining state and local funding. Layoffs have been avoided so far, “but if we continue to struggle in the next two or three years, we may have to lay people off,” Gayler said.
• The loss of 250 students last year due to outward migration spurred by the economy. The district was predicted to lose another 300 this year. Those losses mean less state aid. That trend is expected to reverse as the economy rebounds.
• Anti-tax sentiments, especially among retirees. Last year’s sales tax proposal was to provide funding for repairs still needed after Charley and to replace aging structures. Now the district will have to employ a patchwork strategy with whatever funds are available. “We are not a wealthy district,” said Lee Swift, chairman of the school board.

Gayler acknowledges a disconnect with much of the county’s retired population, but says it’s vital that retirees support local schools. “I’d want to retire in a community that supports education, that educates the people who make the community tick, who serve you in many ways. The quality of the educational system says a lot about the quality of that community,” he said.

Also worrisome, the tax proposal defeat can be blamed partly on low voter turnout among the working population. Swift said he even found that only 30 percent of the district’s 2,500 employees voted. “That was disheartening.”

Achieving Greatness

So how can Gayler proclaim the district is on the cusp of greatness?

He cites a book by business guru James C. Collins for clues on how an organization can achieve greatness. In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t, Collins explores how some companies transition from being average to great. He defines “greatness” as sustained performance exceedingly better than “the market average” and says a key is to steadfastly focus the company’s resources on its field of competence. “Good is the enemy of great,” Collins writes. “We don’t have great schools principally because we have good schools.”

There is no single valid measurement tool, no test result by which a school district can claim to have achieved such a seemingly elusive goal. For Gayler, it involves several yardsticks. Among them, he said, “when we get straight A’s on the FCAT; when our upgraded technical education programs, like medical and aeronautical, start churning out successful graduates; when our up-and-coming arts and music education programs are comparable to Sarasota County’s.”

FCAT, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, measures student achievement — albeit a snapshot at a time — on statewide standards in reading, writing, math and science. Third graders must score a level 2 or higher out of 5 to be promoted to fourth grade. Students must pass the 10th grade reading, math and writing assessment tests to graduate.

“Last year, 14 of our schools received an A grade for their students’ FCAT scores, with three B schools,” Gayler pointed out.

“Our goal is to have all our schools receive an A.”

“If you look at the root standards FCAT is based on, they’re a good set of standards to teach by,” he said. “We’d be using them even without FCAT. You have to have standards to measure how you’re doing.”

Another measurement is a district’s graduation and dropout rate. Charlotte County schools graduated 81.6 percent of their seniors in 2006–07, the latest figures available, compared to 72.4 percent statewide. Of the state’s 67 school districts, only 18 had rates of 80 percent or greater that year. Charlotte’s rate was 68 percent in 2002–03, Gayler’s first year, followed by 80.4 in 2003– 04, 76.7 in post-Charley 2004–05 and 78 in 2005–06.

Among Hispanic students in 2006–07, Charlotte showed a graduation rate increase of 17.3 percent, from 68.1 to 85.4, the highest percentage hike for that ethnic group among all Florida districts. The graduation rate for black students rose from 64.2 to 74.2 percent that year. Gayler attributes the increases to the district’s “heavy emphasis on reading, language acquisition and differentiated and individual instruction for those kids.”

Over the last nine years, the district has shown a steady decline in the number of students who drop out before completing high school, from 3.2 percent in 1998–99 to 1.6 percent in 2006–07. That’s among the lowest dropout rates in the state.

Furthermore, half of its graduates go on to complete a college degree, most having taken advanced placement courses in high school. “I think that’s pretty good,” Gayler said, especially given the district’s demographics. By comparison, in Brevard County — home to NASA engineers and scientists — 60 percent go on to complete college.

How do Charlotte students fare in college compared to others? Florida Gulf Coast University provides a glimpse. There were 380 Charlotte students enrolled at FGCU in the fall of 2007. The average SAT and ACT scores for entering Charlotte students last year was 1,024 and 22.4, respectively. Those were slightly above the average for all entering freshmen. The average GPA of Charlotte students as they matriculate on the FGCU campus was 3.12 at the end of the fall 2007 semester, compared to 3.02 for all students. “Charlotte County students certainly hold their own with the overall population of students,” said Audrea Anderson, FGCU’s associate vice president for community relations and marketing.

Attracting Teachers and Expanding Programs

The quality of instruction in any district is only as good as the quality of its teachers.

According to Florida Department of Education data, 41.8 percent of Charlotte County’s teachers have advanced degrees and an average of 14.5 years of experience. That’s among the highest in the state on both counts. The statewide average is 33.9 and 12 percent, respectively.

To attract good teachers, salaries must be competitive, Gayler said. “In 2004, our starting teacher salary was $26,000. Today it’s $34,700. In 2004 we were getting killed in recruitment, so we worked hard to raise those salaries. Now we’re generally in the top 15 percent among districts statewide.”

Another area in which the district is trying to excel is technical and career education.

In 2003, the district held 30 public meetings to gather community input on what the schools should look like. “One big concern was that there wasn’t enough career and technical education,” Gayler said. Consequently, the district upgraded and expanded career programs offered through its Charlotte Technical Center.

Among other improvements, it expanded the health sciences program to include practical nursing and dental assisting and added aviation training, which includes maintenance, flight and engineering. The aviation program is offered in collaboration with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Also added in recent years are art and design programs, desktop publishing and the mechanical arts, Gayler noted.

With the training these dual-enrollment programs provide, students can either enter the workforce directly after graduation or have their credits accepted by community colleges and universities. Currently there are 680 students taking courses at the center, said Gary Bernardo, the district’s coordinator for dual enrollment. The center also enrolls adults looking to upgrade their work skills.

Most of the high school students enrolled in the newer or expanded programs are only now beginning to graduate. Ironically, given the dearth of jobs locally due either to the poor economy or lack of diverse employment opportunities, those wishing to enter the workforce immediately must expand their job search well beyond Charlotte County.

There are bright spots, said Board Chairman Swift. For example, there has been considerable demand locally for dental assistants, and nursing is strong with four hospitals in the county. Furthermore, he said, “our culinary arts graduates have a nearly 100 percent placement rate all over the state.”

Don Root, director of the Charlotte County Economic Development Office, would like more input into the Technical Center’s agenda. His vision for a more diverse Charlotte economy focuses heavily on manufacturing competencies, such as machine design, medical devices and plastics technologies. He’s hoping the county can lure more contract manufacturers, companies that can adapt to producing a variety of products.

Still, he thinks the center is “pretty impressive.” He said the Embry-Riddle aeronautical program was a plus in luring Arcadia Aerospace Industries to the county.

Gayler, 55, sums up the future of the district this way: “We are on the verge of being great. I know that. In a way, Hurricane Charley was a catalyst. It brought us together more. After 33 years in education, I ought to be tired, but I’m not. I feel good about where we’re headed.”