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Source: St.儲存 Louis Post-DispatchOct. 04--BEL-NOR --Inside a fourth-grade room at Bel-Nor Elementary School, a boy studied two numbers on his worksheet: five and three. Superintendent Ty McNichols crouched beside his desk trying to help the pupil determine which one was greater.The pupil was clearly struggling. McNichols made note of that. As he walked the room, he and two administrators also took note of how well the 17 other students were grasping the same concept, and to what degree their teacher, Melissa Murphy, was engaging them."We're trying to get in the rooms and see what they're struggling with, what they're doing well," McNichols said in a hushed voice.For McNichols, it was day No. 85 on the job -- one that was also filled with meetings with central office staff and a bond debt adviser.His role as Normandy superintendent was radically redefined just weeks before he filled the post. That is when the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the school transfer statute, triggering the transfer of about 2,200 students in the unaccredited Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts to higher performing schools throughout the region.Even before the ruling, McNichols faced the daunting task of turning around a school district with the lowest performance rating in the state.Now, he must make improvements as the district faces an estimated $15 million in tuition and transportation costs for more than 1,000 transfer students.To stop the transfers, Normandy must regain at least provisional accreditation. To do that, McNichols must figure out how to improve learning in classrooms.But he's not after sudden and massive transformation. Instead, McNichols is strategically zeroing in on a few areas, such as literacy, science and math, hoping that modest gains will be enough to pick up needed state accreditation points.Much of what consumes his time and energy has less to do with learning than challenging public perceptions.Inside his district, that means using public forums and other events to improve the district's image to keep students and to draw others back.Outside the district, that means telling groups such as a joint legislative committee in Jefferson City on Tuesday about the impact the transfer law is having on his district.The job is bigger than just Normandy, McNichols said.Across Missouri, 11 school districts are provisionally accredited, putting them at risk of receiving the state's worst rating in a couple of years if their academics, attendance and graduation rates decline even further.In Normandy, the education of about 3,000 children is at stake, the vast majority of whom perform below grade level in reading and math. Whether the Normandy district can afford the staff and programs needed to get them up to speed will in part hinge on the choices McNichols makes this fall."The reality is he has to continue to give confidence to people in this community that he's up for the task," said Chris Krehmeyer, chief executive of Beyond Housing, a nonprofit group that's trying to address education, housing, health and other area concerns within the district.SHARING THE MESSAGEMcNichols has spent hours outside his north St. Louis County school district participating in more than a dozen panels, forums and public meetings about the transfer situation.His message -- which he amplifies in the media -- is that the migration of students from Normandy schools is not sustainable, particularly if the district must finance tuition costs plus transportation expenses to at least one other district."It's easy to say give families choice and let them go wherever they want," he said. "It's not as easy as it sounds."McNichols' high-profile approach to the transfer crisis is in contrast to that of Scott Spurgeon, the Riverview Gardens superintendent, who speaks much less frequently at public forums and in the media about his district's predicament.McNichols' appearances have caused some to ask him if his time would be better spent working on Normandy's academics. He addressed this a few times last week at community forums."I have to be in the community and in the news because I don't think our story is being told," he said.He introduces himself to community groups as a native St. Louisan who graduated from Christian Brothers College high school. He began his career as a teaching assistant in the University City School District, and then became an elementary school teacher in St. Louis Public Schools and in the Pattonville district. Over time, he worked as an administrator in the Clayton, Kirkwood and Hazelwood districts.McNichols shows a photo of his family. And then he lays out his strategy for turning around Normandy schools. It requires more support from parents. It involves an intense focus on literacy, and on science, technology, engineering and math.In one audience was Bobbie BoClair, whose son and daughter attend Normandy schools. She and her husband had prself storageyed about whether to transfer them to another district. But their children wanted to stay. BoClair says she's happy with that decision."It seems like something has clicked" in Normandy, she said.BoClair, like many parents whose children remain in Normandy schools, believes that the district will stop its decline.McNichols doesn't promise them transformational change. Instead, he speaks of improving academics in bite-sized increments."If we shoot for 3 percent improvement in all the content areas, we will be -- if not at the provisional accreditation mark -- then pretty close to it," he says.SMALL STEPSThat strategy of modest improvement may strike some as inadequate.After all, the district earned just 11 percent of the 140 points possible on the state's annual performance report -- the lowest of any district in the state. To be in range of provisional accreditation, it needs more than 50 percent of the points.But that same scale also rewards school districts that are making improvement -- even if performance still lags state averages.McNichols often describes his district as climbing out of a basement. In some academic areas, he says, the district is just a step or two from reaching the basement door.McNichols and his central office executive learning team are looking for "pockets of success" in their schools -- things that are working well that could be easily replicated in other classrooms -- that would help the district walk through the door.So each week, he enters several of the district's seven schools with Assistant Superintendent Candice Carter Oliver, who takes notes on her iPad. They walk the hallways with the principal. They visit classrooms. Their eyes scan the walls, looking for objectives and evidence of students' work. They watch the teachers. Almost instantly, they can assess the level of expectations and whether learning is taking place.Then they kneel beside students to see what they're working on, quietly asking them to explain the lesson."Children should be able to articulate what it is that they're learning," Carter Oliver said.Later in the hallway, the principal evaluates the teacher and the classroom environment -- and what must be done to improve it. McNichols, hands in his pockets, listens. He is also assessing the principal.McNichols calls it "support from the trenches."It's the kind of work he'd like to do more of. But the transfer situation, he said, is draining the amount of time he has to spend in classrooms."It has required us to spend more time looking at finances, staffing patterns, programs in a lot more detail that we would have if we were just planning for the school year," he said.TAKINGS STEPSMcNichols said his schools have been steadily gaining students since Aug. 19, when the school year began. But if no budget cuts are made, Normandy could face financial insolvency by March, according to state education officials. The education department is asking for a $6.8 million supplemental budget request to help Normandy get through the end of the school year.More fundamentally, Normandy must improve while potentially cutting programs and teachers to help the district remain financially stable.This month, McNichols plans to identify which cuts he will make to attempt to get through the current school year.In all, 1,046 students have transferred out of the Normandy district -- though several hundred of them have never been enrolled in its schools, McNichols says.The school district says the impact on its total enrollment has been offset by new students moving into the Normandy area. All told, Normandy reported only 360 fewer students to the state this year than last. State enrollment figures, however, point to an enrollment drop of about 1,000 students.Regardless, the financial hit from the transfers is sizable. McNichols says tuition and transportation costs for those students "are going to use more than a fourth of our resources."But despite all those challenges, McNichols says improvement is still possible.And changes, he tells parents and the public, are already afoot.At Normandy High School, he said, steps are being taken to crack down on disruptive behavior. Cellphones are no longer permitted during the school day. Later this year, security cameras will be installed outside restrooms, where several students last year disrupted learning for everyone by setting a rash of fires.Three schools have new principals -- the high school, Normandy Middle School and Barack Obama Elementary. McNichols has increased his top administrative staff to five, from three, to help support every principal and be more responsive to parents."Everything here is fixable," McNichols told a crowd in Pagedale last week. "It takes time. It can't happen overnight. But it can be fixed."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷利倉