Part 1 of 2
By Jackie Hardy, NDG Contributing Writer
Bear Creek Community Church of Irving hosted a luncheon over the summer for concerned parents, school officials and community activists to hear keynote speaker Dr. Robert Sanborn, President and CEO of Children’s At Risk non-profit organization and co-author of the Texas Public School Ranking Report , share strategies to improve the recent low ranking received by the District.
According to the 2014 Texas Public School Ranking Report, Irving ISD ranked 89 out of the 92 total school districts comprising the North Texas region and last among the 11 larger (student body of 30,000 or more) North Texas districts which included districts from Fort Worth ISD, Arlington ISD, Dallas ISD and Frisco ISD.
The Texas Education Agency, a government agency responsible for managing all of Texas public education, uses the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness; commonly known as STARR, to track a school’s  academic performance.  STARR is a standardize test that annually assesses students’ achievements and knowledge learned per grade level .
Children At Risk, facilitator of the Texas Public School Report Ranking, compiled data from TEA based on STARR test scores from Spring of 2013. Â Qualifying indicators were established to form a comprehensive report and from those indicators the following school ranking methodologies were defined: Â Student Achievement Index, Campus Performance Index, and Growth Index.
“It is very difficult to isolate a single cause of a low ranking, written comments Sanborn shared with North Dallas Gazette when asked what he believed were some of the greatest contributing factors to the District’s low ranking.
Funding issues, diversity challenges, school leadership, teacher quality, and parental involvement all contribute greatly to academic achievement, and in turn the success of a district,” adds Sanborn.
Newly hired Irving ISD Superintendent, Dr. Jose L. Parra feels reducing distractions that do not promote student achievement is one hurdle the District faces on the road to improvement.
“Eliminating distractions that keep us from focusing on student success and where we’re going,” he feels is one of their main hurdles the District must overcome.
According to Lesley Weaver, Irving ISD Director of Communication, many of the Irving ISD Trustees were unable to attend the luncheon due to learning about the meeting well-after they had registered to attend the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) conference, a conference held twice a year where board members attend to get their required annual school board training.
“Our board members had been registered for that conference for at least a month at that point (from when they received the invitation), so I just think we didn’t have much notice,” advises Weaver when asked the reason there were no school board representation at the June luncheon.
Sanborn gave a presentation on educational reform strategies according to Maurice Walker, Parental Involvement Coordinator and one of the few District employees in attendance.
“He (Sanborn) talked about in terms of reformed strategies that we always want to have the most effective teachers that we can get those with a passion–particularly a passion to work with the kinds of youngsters that we have in our school district…he also talked about having a strong collaborative leadership within our administration particularly within our central administration…,” shared Walker.
PIC was a position created six years ago to satisfy the “No Child Left Behind” legislation, according to Walker; whereas public schools who receive federal funding are required to have a component to address parental involvement.
Walker is one of three PICs within the District where he serves the Nimitz High School cluster and its feeder schools.
“Our primary function is to help  bridge the gap between the student, parent and school–primarily what we try to do, is to make sure we can educate the parents as well as we can through parent classes, parent academies, and something we call parent universities…
Without question, we have put more of an emphasis on the all important role that parents play in educating their children. Â In fact,{we are} selling the idea that the parent is the first and most important teacher that a child will ever have,” adds Walker.
Walker also feels more parent involvement is needed to help advocate for change especially in the area of more early childhood development programs as he strongly agrees with Sanborn regarding the need for high-quality pre-K four day programs. Â According to Walker, currently the District has three to four half a day pre-school programs.
“These are the kind of issues where the community and the parents are going to have to step up. Â Quite frankly, our community has been relatively dossal in terms of total involvement that we need to have. Â Parents who have little babies right now; they are the ones who need to be petitioning for all day pre-school programs,” advises Walker.
“Education reform strategies such as expanded learning opportunities and high quality early education programs, as well as intensive parent advocacy are key to turning a district around.
Over 70 percent of Irving ISD students are enrolled in ‘D’ or ‘F’ schools (according to the report). This means that over 70 percent of Irving ISD parents should be vocal advocates for improving their child’s schools,”  commented Sanborn.
