Middletown school plan to set city on path toward innovation, equity – The Middletown Press

Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner has proposed a $90.7 million spending package for the 2019-20 academic year.
Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner has proposed a $90.7 million spending package for the 2019-20 academic year. Photo: Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media
Photo: Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media
Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner has proposed a $90.7 million spending package for the 2019-20 academic year.
Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner has proposed a $90.7 million spending package for the 2019-20 academic year. Photo: Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media
Middletown school plan to set city on path toward innovation, equity
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MIDDLETOWN — The schools chief’s $90.7 million budget request for the next academic year goes beyond 199 pages of line items by providing a context for the district’s innovative operating plan.
Middletown 2021: Keys to Innovation & Equity is a three-year strategy which, Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner said, intends to “cement Middletown Public Schools as the most progressive education enterprise in the state of Connecticut.”
The plan came out of the Explore Middletown project , which, over the course of five weeks, collected data from 1,358 parents, teachers, students and other community stakeholders.
Mayor Dan Drew released his 2019-20 fiscal year budget April 1, recommending the Board of Education be funded at $89.8 million, almost $1 million less than Conner asked for. His figures take into consideration a $900,000 Alliance District grant. Last year’s education package was $83.35 million.
The fiscal plan budgets a $198,790 salary for the superintendent, $182,108 for the associate superintendent and 159,478 for the director of operations.
Conner created a slideshow to Board of Education members in early March, which outlined the more important points . The panel voted to adopt the plan.
More than than half (56.8 percent) of this year’s proposed operating budget goes toward contractual obligations, such as salaries and bus transportation. Another 18.9 percent goes toward employee benefits, 13.2 percent is budgeted for purchased services, 4 percent for supplies, 1.3 percent for property, and 5.6 percent for tuition.
Health insurance cost increases are notable this year: a rise of 20 percent for 466/UPSEU members and 8.28 percent for administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals.
A total of $765,000 in capital non-recurring costs is also incorporated into Conner’s proposal. If passed, a number of projects would be funded, such as a 10-person van for the athletics department, elevator upgrades/replacements and changes to Moody Elementary School’s entrance.
Other capital non-recurring expenses include payments to be made in the first of a four-year payment plan for school air conditioning and new carpeting (each costing $100,000 of the $400,000 price tag). The high school pool will undergo resealing and repainting at a cost of $30,000, and the district plans to buy a flatbed truck with an attached plow for $50,000.
Implementation steps for Middletown 2021: Keys to Innovation & Equity are outlined in much detail over four dozen pages, broken out by monthly progress.
“It’s transparency. There’s been an ultimate call for transparency within budgets, especially in education — a multimillion dollar industry. The public and our most important customers — students and parents — need to know where every single dollar is going and how we’re spending it,” Conner said.
“The broader question is: Are we spending our money, and are we getting the true, absolute value or even more with every dollar that we spend?”
The level of detail in Conner’s operating plan is similar to those followed in the business world.
“You see that cross sector and cross section between some of the practices we normally see in high-level corporate America. You’re starting to see that crossover,” he said.
Education is still catching up to innovations nearly every other industry has adopted.
“Artificial intelligence and digital transformation is occurring in every other market except education. Education is dabbling in it — they haven’t yet fully embraced it,” Conner said.
His strategic operating plan incorporates four goals:
Teaching and learning: Improve opportunities by creating accessible, innovative, and personalized environments to close the preparation, opportunity and performance gaps to achieve equity
Operations, systems and structures: Develop a broad community of stakeholders who ensure a high level of efficiency and alignment among departments
Choice and innovation models: Establish successful educational models that promote choice and achievement through innovation
Collaborative learning environments: Create, nurturing, healthy and safe learning environments that are inclusive and engaging for all students, families and staff
“Everything you see within the strategic plan has to be funded to be able to support the continuation of our strategies,” Conner said. “The strategies are in line with the actual goals. This outlines the specific work, organizational behaviors, next logical steps to actually meet the specific goals and strategies,” he said, something that will be a multiyear multistep process.
Some findings include:
About half of all grade two through eight students met or exceeded mid-year growth in math
Nearly 15 percent of Math 180 students (a curriculum which helps students struggling in math) exceeded mid-year proficiency growth norms
Nearly two-thirds of all grade two through eighth students met or exceeded mid-year growth in reading
More than a third of Read 180 (for those struggling to read) students met or exceeded end-of-year proficiency scores by mid-year
A large focus of the district’s ambitious operating plan is to invest in student-driven learning.
“We’re in a time when students are exercising their voice, their agency. Our students are so amazing that we have to be able to align our enterprise to capitalize on this beautiful display of being leaders of their own learning,” Conner said.
For more information, visit middletownschools.org .