What California's 10 Largest School Districts are Doing to Ensure
that all of their Students have access to "Highly Qualified" Teachers

SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Interview conducted on October 28, 2003
Interviewer: Ken Futernick
Interviewee: Carol Mignone, Chief Personnel Officer

KF: Do you expect to comply with the NCLB’s requirement that all teachers in Title I schools be “highly qualified” by 2005-06?

CM: As the definition stands now we expect to be compliant by 2005-06. And, as long as they do not include special education teachers we will be okay. Our partnership with CSU to obtain more interns in our special education classes should help in this area.

KF: Do you know what percentage of teachers at each school meet the federal definition of “highly qualified”?

CM: Approximately 1 - 2% are currently working on emergency permits.

KF: How about the percentage of teachers at each middle and high school with appropriate subject matter background for the subjects they teach?

CM: We are making a concerted effort in this area but that’s where we have had the majority of our problems. Again, we are working with CSU Sacramento to get high school teaching interns into our schools--something that has been very successful at the elementary level.

KF: Although not a requirement of NCLB, do you know what percentage of teachers at each school are interns and beginning teachers (something the TQI takes into account)? Does your district have an official position and/or specific goals for limiting the number of beginning teachers and interns at each school?

CM: We try to achieve an equitable distribution of our teachers and our site principals have a lot to say about this. Our intern program is very successful but we do not want to overload any one school with them. We really look for the best match, but in some of our low socio-economic schools, we do have more of a challenge keeping the numbers of interns and beginning teachers down.

KF: Does your district have a strategic plan to ensure that all students will be assigned to qualified teachers?

CM: During the past two year we have taken a number of steps to reduce the number of teachers on emergency permits. We have worked closely with CTC (Commission for Teacher Credentialing) and Project Pipeline on a major recruiting effort. We also were awarded a TAP (Teaching as a Priority) grant which helped in this area. We met with all of our emergency permit teachers two years ago and told them that if they did not enter a teacher preparation program they would not be re-hired the following year in Sac City. But we also brought in university people and made sure these teachers knew how to get into a credential program. Our Board of Trustees was fully supportive of this plan. My guess is that there were about 50 teachers who were not rehired.