District staff proposes cutting Title I schools from 14 to 10 and redirecting funds to teacher training

Cathy, a district staff member who oversees Title I programs, told the Washington County School District board at a Jan. 9 working session that she is proposing to reduce the district’s Title I schools from 14 to 10 and redirect the freed funds into a package of curriculum adoption, assessments and teacher professional development intended to raise student performance in high-poverty schools.

"It’s a funding source from the federal government to level the playing field between children growing up in poverty and children growing up in middle class or affluent homes," Cathy said, describing the purpose of Title I funding and why she was presenting a district plan to the board.

The proposal arrives after two distinct periods in the district’s recent Title I history: an earlier restructuring around 2010 that Cathy said produced substantial gains, and a more recent slide. Cathy told the board that in 2010 Title I funding grew from about $1.2 million to $4.5 million after new census data and one-time federal stimulus dollars, and that a set of districtwide changes — including a common curriculum, site coordinators, preschool additions and new instructional software — produced improved school performance by 2013. By contrast, she said, the district’s Title I schools were clustered near the bottom of performance measures in 2017, with two schools at risk of designation as state-targeted "focus" or "priority" schools.

Cathy outlined the specific components of her plan: adopt and require district-provided materials (she named MyMath and Reach for Reading as the common curriculum), deploy common assessments tied to those curricula, provide intensive pedagogy, behavior and trauma training, add four contracted training days for Title I teachers, and fund in-school lesson-design coaches who would work directly in classrooms.

"I want to provide pedagogy, behavior, and trauma training for the teachers in Title I schools," Cathy said, adding that the training would be "job embedded" and that coaches "will spend all their time in classrooms." She said the intent is stronger and more consistent Tier 1 instruction across Title I schools and better follow-up after training.

Cathy presented cost estimates for the plan: summer professional development for all Title I teachers at slightly more than $300,000; substitute teachers for job-embedded training during the year at about $278,000; and instructional coaches at about $675,000 — roughly $1.0 million in new costs. She said eliminating four Title I schools would free about $1.14 million in discretionary and nondiscretionary funds and that the state Title I director and the district’s Title I finance director had approved the district’s plan.

Board members raised concerns about students and schools that would lose Title I designation. When asked whether schools such as Red Mountain, Enterprise, Hurricane and Sunset would "fall through the cracks," Cathy said, "It will. It will," and acknowledged the proposal would be painful for those communities. A board member asked for the dollar value of the change; Cathy provided the cost and savings estimates during the session. Several board members agreed to continue the conversation immediately after the public portion of the meeting.

Cathy also said WestEd and a district review in earlier years produced recommendations to reduce the number of Title I schools and that state officials had pushed the district for a smaller, more concentrated Title I program in prior reviews.

No formal board action on the Title I reclassification was recorded during the working session; board members asked staff to return after the meeting for further discussion and follow-up.

The plan as presented would change how federal Title I funds are allocated across the district, shift discretionary dollars from four schools into a concentrated professional-development and curriculum strategy, and rely on site coordinators and classroom coaches to implement the new approach if the board approves the change.