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

SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Excerpted from San Diego Unified's No Child Left Behind Implementation Status Report:

Eliminating the use of under-qualified teachers:

The district’s forward thinking on teacher credentialing and alternative certification puts the district far closer to compliance with the likely NCLB definition of "highly qualified" teacher than any other large district in the state of California.

The law requires that all teachers hired on or after the first day of the 2002–2003 school year to teach in a Title-I supported program must be ”highly qualified.” It also requires that all teachers teaching core academic subjects be “highly qualified” by the end of the 2005– 2006 school year.

The law requires paraprofessionals hired after Jan. 8, 2002, to have a high school diploma or equivalent and to have done one of the following:

• completed two years of study at an institution of higher education.
• obtained an associate’s degree (or higher), or,
• met a rigorous standard of quality demonstrated through a formal state or local assessment.

All paraprofessionals hired before Jan. 8, 2002, must meet these criteria by January 2006. By most standards City Schools is especially well positioned to meet the requirements. For the 2002–2003 school year, for example, we anticipate having only 15 teachers district-wide working under emergency long-term permits. Even with this low number of emergency long-term permit teachers, the law is likely to create challenges for our district and every district in the state to comply. Additional information will be provided to the board on this topic in the September board report.

As this status report clearly indicates, much of the implementation of the NCLB Act in San Diego City Schools is under way, but much work remains to be done at the federal, state and local levels to ensure that the NCLB is implemented in a way that provides the best opportunity for our students to succeed. Future status reports and policy recommendations to implement the NCLB will come forward to the Board of Education at its regularly scheduled meetings this fall.

Report Prepared by the NCLB Leadership Team
(619) 725-5503

Click here to read full report.

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Interview conducted on November 14, 2003
Interviewer: Ken Futernick
Interviewee: Ruth Peshkoff, Chief Human Resources 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?
RP: Yes.

KF: Do you know what percentage of teachers at each school meet the federal definition of “highly qualified”? How about the percentage of teachers at each middle and high school with appropriate subject matter background for the subjects they teach?
RP: We do not because we have been waiting for direction from the State on the definition we will be using.

KF: Do you have an idea of how your highly qualified teachers are currently distributed throughout your district?
RP: Because of the lack of accurate data, we do not really know what this looks like right now.

KF: Does your district have an official position and/or growth targets for providing qualified teachers to all of its students?
RP: Yes, our plan is to have all teachers in the district be NCLB compliant, not just those who work in Title I schools. And we expect to accomplish this before the 2005-06 deadline.

KF: Although not a requirement of NCLB, do you know what percentage of teachers at each school are interns and beginning teachers?
RP: Not exactly, but because we implemented an early retirement program last year, we lost about 700 veteran teachers. And, close to 1400 new positions were filled. That means we have a lot more new teachers working for us this year and many of them are teaching in our hard to staff schools. We hope these new teachers will be energetic and open to change.

KF: Was the early retirement program implemented to cut costs? Is there a concern, despite the fact that the new teachers may be more energetic, that you have lost so many experienced teachers who can provide support for those who are just beginning?
RP: Yes, but we had no choice given the critical budget shortfall we faced last year. At least we avoided making layoffs of classroom teachers. The layoffs we did make were as far away from the classroom as possible. But this year we will again have to deal with additional budget cuts.

KF: Does your district have an official position and/or specific goals for limiting the number of beginning teachers and interns at each school? If so, what?
RP: We are concerned about this but the seniority transfer clauses in our collective bargaining agreement prevent us from doing as much as we would like on this. Our more experienced teachers tend not to want to leave schools in the suburbs.

KF: Does your district have a strategic plan to ensure that all students will be assigned to qualified teachers?
RP: Not to my knowledge at this time, but we do expect to be in high gear on all of this by January or February of next year. We are still waiting for accurate credential data from the county office of education so we can be sure who is NCLB compliant. We are in a quandary, however, with our middle schools because they are all configured so differently. Figuring out exactly what these teachers need to do to be NCLB compliant is going to be very difficult.

KF: Does the district have an explicit plan (or is it contained in the strategic plan) that addresses teacher retention?
CP: As a large urban district, it has always been important to us as a retention strategy to offer a competitive compensation package with full rating-in on the salary schedule, quality professional development offerings, the opportunity to participate in cutting edge reform, and because of our size, a myriad of career opportunities. However, like most districts in California, we are being forced to operate in an increasingly challenging financial environment which is depriving us of vital resources. As a result, last spring we elected to offer an early retirement program which enabled us to retain our newer teachers but it did result in a significant number of veteran teachers choosing to leave the district. Their collective expertise and commitment to our students was an enormous loss.