The Kyrene School District is one of the most successful in the state, serving more than 17,000 students while maintaining a consistent “A” rating.
Rather than resting on their laurels, Kyrene administrators recently implemented a blueprint which lays out specific goals that will be monitored each year.
In addition to standardized state tests that will indicate whether Kyrene’s broad goal of learning is being met, the district has implemented four focus areas it will concentrate on that contribute to achieving the overall goal.
Organizationally, Kyrene is focused on improving the work environment for its employees as well as maintaining its rank at number one in classroom funding among school districts in Arizona.
Although only four of the district’s seven departments reported growth in employee satisfaction, Kyrene did manage to maintain its rank as number one in classroom spending.
Kyrene’s second crucial pillar of success is its staff focus area.
Although one of its goals of decreasing teacher absenteeism was met, two having to do with employee engagement and compensation were not. With budget cuts, there was no increase for the identified staff positions, which likely could contribute to the stagnation of employee engagement. The thinking is that employees should hypothetically be more committed when they are paid more.
The district had yet another half victory when it came to the environment focus area. Nearly 100 percent of Kyrene’s remodeling and renovations were completed last year. Superintendent Dr. David Schauer was proud of this fact because of all the remodeling that had to take place at various schools’ front offices. However, the other goal, which depended on a survey to judge if students and the community felt safe in school, was not met, possibly due to a discrepancy in the survey.
Kyrene’s fourth and final focus area concerns increasing the quality of life for its students and the school community. Unfortunately, none of the goals having to do with things such as district enrollment and parent satisfaction was met. A likely discrepancy in the survey even caused one metric—measuring non-parents who rate Kyrene as an “A” school district—to drop to 50 percent from 86 percent.
Schauer attributed this to a change in the survey that Kyrene is now working to correct.
At a glance, Kyrene clearly has its work cut out for it.
Even when controlling for the faulty surveys, Kyrene still met three out of nine goals. However, a closer look certainly makes appear better what otherwise might be seen as a lackluster performance.
Although many of its goals were not met, the high bar Kyrene sets for itself should be kept in mind. Goals of 90 percent completion of projects and stakeholder satisfaction indeed are lofty ones, and to the district’s credit these and other goals were missed by only a few percentage points.
For a blueprint that has been around only a couple of years, these results are promising. When many school districts may set low bars just so they can say they met their goals, Kyrene is admirably challenging itself.
“We aren’t afraid to fail,” says Schauer, matter-of-factly. With such a fearless attitude, lowered expectations certainly shouldn’t be expected any time soon.
–By Johnny Coronel
Dr. Schauer is, in my opinion, truly an exemplary Superintendent.
He has delivered on every expectation I had as a Kyrene parent.
The reason for the perceived short comings is because the district is working proactively to maintain the high level of success they are known for.
I have little worry that the Kyrene District will remain an excellent choice for Arizona families.
I am grateful that we have such a well-intentioned and effective leader, thank you for your excellent service to our community Superintendent Schauer!