All school districts are under pressure to produce high test scores, but none face more scrutiny than Halifax County, which is ending its first year of intensive state oversight intended to reverse its academic slide.
After years of dismal scores, the district and the state aim for ambitious results from the state Department of Public Instruction's intervention: 10 percentage point increases in passing rates each year for three years. If the plan works, the district's scores will progress from near bottom to about average.
The district got an early hint of how it was doing with the results of high school students' fall-semester tests in math, social studies and science.
Scores increased at one of the district's high schools, moving from about 28 percent to about 34 percent passing. But at the other high school, Northwest, the numbers barely budged.
The disappointing result came after weeks of summer refresher courses for teachers at all schools and administrators at all levels, layers upon layers of coaching for school and central office staff, and frequent evaluations of teachers.
The entire effort is being overseen by the Department of Public Instruction, after a court order last year required the state to take control of the district. The state made Halifax hire coaches for teachers, while coaches employed by DPI work with schools and the central office.
State staff members keep track of details as tiny as whether principals evaluate teachers on schedule.
The court order requires full cooperation with DPI, and if the local Halifax education board doesn't agree with what the state wants, members must go to court to explain why.
"The pressure has been a lot more this year than last year," said Aaron Guest, a history teacher at Northwest. "The kids feel it. The teachers are under the gun a lot right now."
The county, home to about 55,000 people, supports three school districts: Halifax, Weldon City and Roanoke Rapids Graded School District. The county district enrolls 3,951 students, 84 percent of whom qualify for subsidized lunch. The county is in the bottom 10 for median household income.
Halifax schools were in trouble long before the court ordered the state to intervene last year. High dropout rates and low test scores had its high schools under scrutiny for years. The state works with other schools and districts on improvement plans, but the relationship with Halifax is the deepest.
Classroom confusion
State reports in months and years before the takeover describe teachers who used all their class time having students fill out worksheets, students who were afraid to ask questions and didn't know what standards they were expected to meet, and little parent involvement in schools.
"Students are not provided a rigorous or relevant curriculum, leaving them unprepared for extending their education beyond high school," last year's report on Northwest said. "When asked how they know how well they are doing, student response was almost unanimously, 'We don't.'"
Tests do more than show whether students know class material. These days, teachers get reams of test data on students that they're supposed to use to tailor lessons and shore up weak spots.
In Halifax, there was little evidence that happened.
"Teachers have good relationships with students, but expectations are very low in most classes, and lessons are not well planned or sufficiently rigorous," said last year's report on Aurelian Springs Elementary School in Littleton. "As a result, most students underachieve."
'Succeed or go'
People haven't been told explicitly that they'd be fired if students don't do better, but it's clear from the court order and state officials that school careers in Halifax hinge on whether learning improves. A court exhibit that lays out the Halifax improvement plan includes this goal for staff: "Succeed or go."
Looking at the fall semester test scores, it was clear that some teachers better understood how to reach the higher standards, said Pat Ashley, executive director of the DPI office that works with troubled schools and districts.
"There's a gap between some teachers who got it and some teachers who don't," Ashley said. "Our task is to do one of two things, help the teachers who don't have it get it, or not teach."
Getting rid of teachers and principals could present a problem in Halifax, a sprawling county about 80 miles northwest of Raleigh, and other rural districts that already have trouble finding effective teachers.
Turnover trouble
Changing principals and staff as an improvement strategy doesn't work on its own, said Gary Henry, director of the Carolina Institute for Public Policy at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. A district needs to commit to attracting effective teachers, taking steps to improve working conditions and offer pay incentives.
"You might get a good principal that comes with turnover, and you'll see a two-year jump. Then the principal or associate superintendent for curriculum leaves, and it goes right back," he said. The usual strategies "cannot produce sustained improvement in places like Halifax County."
Halifax teachers have gotten better this year in teaching the state curriculum, said Bill Harrison, who as State Board of Education chairman goes to Halifax about once a month to visit schools, talk to teachers and administrators, and attend meetings.
The next steps are to have classes that are engaging and challenging, Harrison said.
"Unless you have those three components in place, it's going to be hard to get what you want," he said.
Word of another year of bad scores is circulating through the county, though Superintendent Elease Frederick would not give details of the unofficial results. The state releases scores for all schools in August, but superintendents in districts that did well are already hinting about their success.
State criticized
Gary Grant, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Tillery and a member of a district committee trying to increase parent involvement, questioned the value of state intervention.
"What have they done that we're still coming out with these kinds of scores?" Grant asked.
Susan Evans, who has five grandchildren in Halifax schools, said the biggest change this year has been all the talk about end-of-grade tests. Her grandchildren wavered under the pressure, she said, and scored low.
"They had been doing well with regular grades," she said. "It's just stress from the testing."
The district was changing before DPI stepped in, and not in ways that made people happy. Two middle schools and one elementary closed last year, angering parents and some community leaders.
As a result, some students must ride buses more than 90 minutes one-way across the sprawling, rural county to get to school.
With school shutdowns came principal reassignments. The superintendent resigned soon after the school year started, becoming the third person to leave that job in four years. Frederick, an associate superintendent, stepped in while the district looked for a new leader. She became superintendent in December. Almost all the district's top administrators are new to their jobs, and Halifax is still looking to fill high-level vacancies.
The ripples reach into the classroom, where teacher turnover is higher than the state average. Last year, about 27 percent of the district's middle school teachers left, as compared to 14 percent statewide.
Midyear departures are not unusual. New hires jump on a running treadmill and must learn about their students while picking up on the district's new, detailed teaching plans.
Morale suffers
While test scores at one of the two high schools, Southeast, were improving, teacher morale was plunging. Less than 6 percent of teachers said there was "an attitude of trust and mutual respect at this school," on this year's working conditions survey. The first-year principal was reassigned a few weeks ago.
One of the Halifax job openings is for a chief financial officer, a job that is vital because the district has serious financial constraints. A few years ago, the district overspent its state accounts and is repaying more than $1 million, with interest. Classroom technology is hard to come by in the cash-strapped district, which cannot afford teacher incentives that add to the state's base pay.
The district will share a Golden LEAF Foundation grant that will help pay for technology. After a time, some students may get loaned laptops they can take home. Teachers from a few Halifax schools are teaming up with counterparts in another district to learn how to use technology in their classrooms.
Brent Lubbock, who helps run a local business, said he is encouraged by progress he has seen this year.
Lubbock, marketing director for a waterfowl park in Scotland Neck, is a member of a district committee looking for ways to increase parent involvement in schools, literacy for third graders and graduation rates.
"I have confidence," Lubbock said. Much of that confidence is based on Frederick, a 39-year district veteran.
"She's been in every part of the school system," Lubbock said. "The way the schools are around here, with all the things that are going on, you need someone who knows all aspects of it."
Next year will be the first that Frederick will have a full central office team in place, said Ashley, the state's turnaround chief. She's confident that Frederick is setting the right tone for the district and that the intervention will work. She said it generally takes three to five years to change a school.
"It will work," she said. "I have absolutely no doubt the children in Halifax are very capable and as capable as children anywhere - that it's just getting everything lined up to bring that capability forward."
In the meantime, teachers and principals will spend another week this summer in professional development workshops.
As for Frederick, she isn't ready to downgrade the district goals. If there are any adjustments, the goals will be set higher, she said.
"It won't go down," she said. "We will show much improvement in three years."
News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.
