K. Organizational Structure and Process

The attached organizational structural charts reflect Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ administrative hierarchy for the school years 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools uses a standardized electronic grade book designed to allow teachers to securely enter grades. Parents and students can securely sign-on to the District’s portal in order to monitor their progress. Teachers can post upcoming assignments, homework tasks, and assessment grades. Faster access to data is crucial in an environment charged with the need to improve performance. An email notification system notifies parents if grades decrease below proficiency standards. Additionally, hard copy report cards are issued to parents every nine weeks. In this section, you will find sample report cards for students in elementary, middle, and senior high schools.

Although we have not developed a standards-based report card, the District implements consistent standards-based definitions of proficiency in its student grading procedures across schools for all grade levels and content areas through the Pacing Guides and the many professional development trainings conducted on the use of rubrics. A variety of rubrics shared with teachers and Instructional Coaches have been included in this section.

Also, state writing rubrics and anchor papers (samples are included) are standardized across the District in order to measure the standard of performance. Notwithstanding, in collaboration with the teacher’s union, educators are encouraged to create classroom rubrics in order to communicate expectations of quality work and delineate consistent criteria for grading.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools has a long history in providing a distributed system for decision making that ranges from schools, to regions, to the District. Stakeholders at each level have significant authority over many aspects of school management and district policy development. Listed below are samples from each of the three levels, school, region, and district. Each linked website contains a myriad of documents for each level.

School Site:
At the school site, each principal has broad decision-making authority over many aspects of his or her school. This minimally includes selection and hiring of staff, budget creation and expenditures, and curriculum selection and implementation. Parents and community members also have a role in the school’s implementation of the School Improvement Plan.

Budget Process: Each principal creates an annual budget that includes but is not limited to personnel, supplies, instructional materials, student activities, etc. The document that delineates the procedures is titled the School Based Budget System (SBBS) Manual.

Parental and Community Decision Making: The Educational Excellence School Advisory Council (EESAC), is comprised of cross-section of school-level stakeholders. The EESAC as a group plays an important role in making decisions which affect instruction and the delivery of programs.

Region:
Each school (traditional and charter) is assigned to one region: North, North Central, South Central, South, ETO (Education Transformation Office) and Charter School Operations. Processes, responsibilities, services, and numerous documents are provided within each region’s website.

District:
District and School Operations is the district-level bureau which provides support and direction for all schools. It is comprised of several offices including Alternative Education, Adult and Vocational Education, Athletics, Food and Nutrition Services, Office of Professional Standards, School Choice, and Transportation. Examples of documents which provide direction are listed on the District and School Operations website and include Attendance Boundary Procedures, Open House Toolkit, Parent/Student/Teacher Handbook templates, and Opening and Closing Procedures Guides.

Additionally, in order to maximize principal’s time and make efficient use of technology, meetings are held via Webcasts whenever possible. The webcasts provide direction and guidance to the field. Additionally, information and directives are provided to the field electronically through a Communication Center. The flow of information between the District and the schools is managed via weekly briefings, which are also electronically, posted every Thursday. A collection of all weekly briefings can be accessed via the Communication Center.

In 2005, the School Board approved an ambitious $3.3 billion five-year capital plan which established a facilities blueprint for the District that included approximately $1.7 billion for new and replacement schools and $1.6 billion for improvements to existing facilities. Based on available funding, at the conclusion of the five-year period, the District had successfully opened over 40 new or replacement facilities and over 120 additions, collectively representing over 105,000 student stations. Also completed were hundreds of improvements to existing schools, including renovations, energy efficiency upgrades and technology enhancements.

Substantial progress was made through 2001-11, although the District focused more on capacity projects to enable compliance with the voter-approved class size mandate as well as replacement schools. While numerous improvements were completed at existing schools, current deficiencies and anticipated life-cycle replacements are estimated at $1.7 billion.

With over 45 million square feet of space in over 400 campuses, the absolute need for a comprehensive assessment of maintenance needs is essential. Consequently, the District developed a campus by campus database which identifies facility needs as well as projected life cycle replacements, and identified priorities and estimated costs. Since the initial assessment, this database has been continually updated, and to this date is the repository of choice to inform project selection, prioritization and funding by the School Board.

A current school-level snapshot provides an overview of the District’s facilities needs and serves to guide maintenance and capital work at each site. This snapshot contains a variety of elements and decision-making tools such as the Facilities Condition Index (FCI), year buildings/campuses were built, estimated cost of deficiencies and inventory replacement value. The FCI represents a ratio of the cost to correct documented deficiencies to the particular facility’s estimated replacement cost. A campus with an FCI greater than two-thirds is generally viewed as a potential candidate for replacement rather than remodeling or renovation.

Managing critical incidents at school sites is a key aspect of ensuring the safety of students and staff. When an emergency occurs at a school, or in the surrounding neighborhood, the campus may be placed on lockdown. In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, lockdowns are managed centrally through the District Critical Incident Response Team (DCIRT). Protocols are in place to quickly assess security threats and provide necessary support to the principal.

A structured notification system alerts School Police and District and Region administrators regarding the nature of an incident then provides for real-time status updates via e-mail and radio communications. Lockdown information is tracked and utilized to inform planning and updating of emergency protocols as well as principal training needs. A report specific to school lockdowns was recently completed and will be used in assessing the effectiveness of current emergency procedures. A report containing data on Lockdown incidents is included in this section.

Another aspect of campus safety pertains to the condition of the physical plant. With over 45 million square feet of space in over 400 campuses, the District inspects each facility annually for fire safety, sanitation and casualty violations. Observed deficiencies are classified as Capital, Maintenance or Operational in nature. Operational deficiencies are corrected by school site staff, maintenance deficiencies are referred to the District’s Maintenance Department for resolution and deficiencies classified as Capital are incorporated into planned projects at the respective site.

Detailed site-specific inspection reports are transmitted annually to the State Fire Marshal in accordance with Florida Statutes. As deficiencies are corrected throughout the year, the Safety Department’s database is updated accordingly. Periodic status reports are provided to track the District’s progress in correcting fire safety deficiencies. Summaries of these reports are included in this section.

Additional data regarding safe schools and serious incidents is provided in section L-78.

Climate - Parent and Student Surveys

Each school year, the School Climate Survey is administered to gather information on the perceptions that students, their parents, and school staffs hold concerning their schools and their performance. In 2010-2011, the survey was distributed to approximately 92,000 parents, 48,000 elementary, secondary, and adult students, and 25,000 staff. The staff survey is administered on-line through a third-party vendor. Unique passwords, unique IDs and links for the survey are provided to all instructional staff members at the school site. The attached report includes the questions addressed on the survey.

The report on the link summarizes selected major points from the results of that survey, as they pertain to the Pre-K through 12th grade program. In addition to district wide averages, results are broken down by regional center. Information identical to that summarized for the district is reviewed for the regular schools of each region. Alternative, special education, and vocational/adult schools are treated elsewhere in separate item-specific reports.

The “Interactive Link for School Climate Survey Results” is an interactive web page where visitors can retrieve climate survey results for the district and individual schools for multiple years. The survey results are included for Students, Parents and Staff.

Climate Survey data and reports may be found at https://drs.dadeschools.net/SchoolClimateSurvey/SCS.asp.