A special budget meeting with the school board is scheduled for today at 5:00 p.m. and the complete rollout of the reorganization will be shared at this upcoming Tuesday's board meeting. Nashville schools to eliminate 225 jobs at central office.
I and other board members have long said the "The central office should be a support system to the schools.” Dr. Register is right on target with the type of changes that need to be made.
Nashville schools to eliminate 225 jobs at central office
Metro Nashville Schools chief Jesse Register says he will eliminate 225 positions at the central office and restructure teacher pay to include bonuses and higher salaries for educators in hard-to-staff schools.
But even as Register rolled out plans for big changes, questions lingered about whether his would be the only ideas to transform the troubled district.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Karl Dean — who has been preparing for months to take control of Metro Schools if test scores don't improve — confirmed that the mayor has hired a Boston-based consulting firm to look at what reforms would work best in Nashville.
The Parthenon Group issued a report in favor of mayoral control before a takeover in Washington, and has worked on school reform efforts in Chicago, New York, District of Columbia and Boston — districts also controlled by their mayors.
Register, who marked 100 days as director this week, said personnel cuts at the central office would free up $15 million to create new positions at schools.
"There are too many people in the central office," he said. "Even though people have job descriptions and are doing work, it doesn't give us the highest yield. This is an attempt to restructure that."
Affected employees will be notified May 1. Cuts will come from every department, ranging from curriculum and instruction to federal programs.
At the same time, the district will post hundreds of new positions for specialized classroom teachers and math and literary coaches.
Register also plans to add a "consulting teacher" position to every school. That person will mentor new educators and coordinate teacher training for the school. He also wants to hire "model classroom teachers" who teach part of the day and coach their peers on best practices the other part.
Some to be reassigned
Displaced employees will be able to reapply for available teaching positions. Others could become principals or assistant principals and some, according to Register, will be let go.
"If a beginning teacher needs help, it needs to be someone who is not a supervisor, but someone who is there as a colleague," he said. "I want them to be down the hall, rather than at Bransford Avenue."
Connie Gwinn, a first-year principal at H.G. Hill Middle School, said with all the roles a principal and assistant principal must fulfill, having an employee to check in on teachers would be a useful addition.
"The needs are in the school," she said. "We have students with such a wide range of needs, any help we could get in the trenches would be wonderful."
Register will release a chart to the school board Tuesday that shows the new structure of the central office in more detail. The director said he wanted to remove layers between himself and principals so they have more access to him and vice versa.
The reorganization should be complete by the end of the summer.
Less clear is whether Register's plans to restructure teacher pay will gain traction this school year, or if efforts will be delayed by contract negotiations.
As part of his proposal Register wants to reward high-performing teachers with bonus pay and offer larger salaries to those who sign up to work in challenging urban schools.
Both plans are controversial among teachers, who do not believe performance pay should be tied to test scores or that one teaching position is more valuable than another.
Approval needed
Members of the Metro Nashville Education Association must sign off on any changes to the teacher salary schedule.
President Erick Huth said the group is not opposed to bonus pay or other changes, but he does not believe a plan can be negotiated in time for next school year.
"We're not going to allow any money to be paid to anybody until it is approved by our membership," Huth said. "We don't want to rush into anything to meet political whims."
Huth said the association also wants to wait and see the results of a Vanderbilt study being conducted on Metro Schools.
This is the final year of the three-year study to determine whether higher salaries for middle school math teachers affect test scores.
More details about Register's proposal will be available May 7-8. That's when he will hold the first meeting of eight leadership committees made up of teachers, parents and school leaders who will be charged with overseeing changes to the district.
Consultants from the Annenberg Institute, which Register hired in February for $140,000 to help guide the changes, will sit on the committees. They will present findings from their review of the school district at the May 7 meeting.
Dean is paying The Parthenon Group from his Education First Fund, for which he and several business leaders raised more than $3 million in private donations last year to pay for reform projects.
The mayor's spokeswoman, Janel Lacy, did not say how much Parthenon is being paid but said the report was not necessarily intended to lay the groundwork for a takeover.
"The mayor is preparing for whatever may happen this summer," she said. "He is a strong advocate for education reform. He is excited about what he's seen around the country and is going to push for those reforms here in Nashville no matter what happens."
Michael Holt is the parent of three Metro graduates and has long felt the central office was bloated and misguided.
He praised the cuts to the central office and believes Register should make more reductions. "It's encouraging to see someone that has a little fiscal responsibility," Holt said. "And it appears he is more about educating kids than perpetuating the bureaucracy. That's refreshing."
A spokeswoman for Mayor Karl Dean — who has been preparing for months to take control of Metro Schools if test scores don't improve — confirmed that the mayor has hired a Boston-based consulting firm to look at what reforms would work best in Nashville.
The Parthenon Group issued a report in favor of mayoral control before a takeover in Washington, and has worked on school reform efforts in Chicago, New York, District of Columbia and Boston — districts also controlled by their mayors.
Register, who marked 100 days as director this week, said personnel cuts at the central office would free up $15 million to create new positions at schools.
"There are too many people in the central office," he said. "Even though people have job descriptions and are doing work, it doesn't give us the highest yield. This is an attempt to restructure that."
Affected employees will be notified May 1. Cuts will come from every department, ranging from curriculum and instruction to federal programs.
At the same time, the district will post hundreds of new positions for specialized classroom teachers and math and literary coaches.
Register also plans to add a "consulting teacher" position to every school. That person will mentor new educators and coordinate teacher training for the school. He also wants to hire "model classroom teachers" who teach part of the day and coach their peers on best practices the other part.
Some to be reassigned
Displaced employees will be able to reapply for available teaching positions. Others could become principals or assistant principals and some, according to Register, will be let go.
"If a beginning teacher needs help, it needs to be someone who is not a supervisor, but someone who is there as a colleague," he said. "I want them to be down the hall, rather than at Bransford Avenue."
Connie Gwinn, a first-year principal at H.G. Hill Middle School, said with all the roles a principal and assistant principal must fulfill, having an employee to check in on teachers would be a useful addition.
"The needs are in the school," she said. "We have students with such a wide range of needs, any help we could get in the trenches would be wonderful."
Register will release a chart to the school board Tuesday that shows the new structure of the central office in more detail. The director said he wanted to remove layers between himself and principals so they have more access to him and vice versa.
The reorganization should be complete by the end of the summer.
Less clear is whether Register's plans to restructure teacher pay will gain traction this school year, or if efforts will be delayed by contract negotiations.
As part of his proposal Register wants to reward high-performing teachers with bonus pay and offer larger salaries to those who sign up to work in challenging urban schools.
Both plans are controversial among teachers, who do not believe performance pay should be tied to test scores or that one teaching position is more valuable than another.
Approval needed
Members of the Metro Nashville Education Association must sign off on any changes to the teacher salary schedule.
President Erick Huth said the group is not opposed to bonus pay or other changes, but he does not believe a plan can be negotiated in time for next school year.
"We're not going to allow any money to be paid to anybody until it is approved by our membership," Huth said. "We don't want to rush into anything to meet political whims."
Huth said the association also wants to wait and see the results of a Vanderbilt study being conducted on Metro Schools.
This is the final year of the three-year study to determine whether higher salaries for middle school math teachers affect test scores.
More details about Register's proposal will be available May 7-8. That's when he will hold the first meeting of eight leadership committees made up of teachers, parents and school leaders who will be charged with overseeing changes to the district.
Consultants from the Annenberg Institute, which Register hired in February for $140,000 to help guide the changes, will sit on the committees. They will present findings from their review of the school district at the May 7 meeting.
Dean is paying The Parthenon Group from his Education First Fund, for which he and several business leaders raised more than $3 million in private donations last year to pay for reform projects.
The mayor's spokeswoman, Janel Lacy, did not say how much Parthenon is being paid but said the report was not necessarily intended to lay the groundwork for a takeover.
"The mayor is preparing for whatever may happen this summer," she said. "He is a strong advocate for education reform. He is excited about what he's seen around the country and is going to push for those reforms here in Nashville no matter what happens."
Michael Holt is the parent of three Metro graduates and has long felt the central office was bloated and misguided.
He praised the cuts to the central office and believes Register should make more reductions. "It's encouraging to see someone that has a little fiscal responsibility," Holt said. "And it appears he is more about educating kids than perpetuating the bureaucracy. That's refreshing."
Connie Gwinn, a first-year principal at H.G. Hill Middle School, said with all the roles a principal and assistant principal must fulfill, having an employee to check in on teachers would be a useful addition.
"The needs are in the school," she said. "We have students with such a wide range of needs, any help we could get in the trenches would be wonderful."
Register will release a chart to the school board Tuesday that shows the new structure of the central office in more detail. The director said he wanted to remove layers between himself and principals so they have more access to him and vice versa.
The reorganization should be complete by the end of the summer.
Less clear is whether Register's plans to restructure teacher pay will gain traction this school year, or if efforts will be delayed by contract negotiations.
As part of his proposal Register wants to reward high-performing teachers with bonus pay and offer larger salaries to those who sign up to work in challenging urban schools.
Both plans are controversial among teachers, who do not believe performance pay should be tied to test scores or that one teaching position is more valuable than another.
Approval needed
Members of the Metro Nashville Education Association must sign off on any changes to the teacher salary schedule.
President Erick Huth said the group is not opposed to bonus pay or other changes, but he does not believe a plan can be negotiated in time for next school year.
"We're not going to allow any money to be paid to anybody until it is approved by our membership," Huth said. "We don't want to rush into anything to meet political whims."
Huth said the association also wants to wait and see the results of a Vanderbilt study being conducted on Metro Schools.
This is the final year of the three-year study to determine whether higher salaries for middle school math teachers affect test scores.
More details about Register's proposal will be available May 7-8. That's when he will hold the first meeting of eight leadership committees made up of teachers, parents and school leaders who will be charged with overseeing changes to the district.
Consultants from the Annenberg Institute, which Register hired in February for $140,000 to help guide the changes, will sit on the committees. They will present findings from their review of the school district at the May 7 meeting.
Dean is paying The Parthenon Group from his Education First Fund, for which he and several business leaders raised more than $3 million in private donations last year to pay for reform projects.
The mayor's spokeswoman, Janel Lacy, did not say how much Parthenon is being paid but said the report was not necessarily intended to lay the groundwork for a takeover.
"The mayor is preparing for whatever may happen this summer," she said. "He is a strong advocate for education reform. He is excited about what he's seen around the country and is going to push for those reforms here in Nashville no matter what happens."
Michael Holt is the parent of three Metro graduates and has long felt the central office was bloated and misguided.
He praised the cuts to the central office and believes Register should make more reductions. "It's encouraging to see someone that has a little fiscal responsibility," Holt said. "And it appears he is more about educating kids than perpetuating the bureaucracy. That's refreshing."
Register will release a chart to the school board Tuesday that shows the new structure of the central office in more detail. The director said he wanted to remove layers between himself and principals so they have more access to him and vice versa.
The reorganization should be complete by the end of the summer.
Less clear is whether Register's plans to restructure teacher pay will gain traction this school year, or if efforts will be delayed by contract negotiations.
As part of his proposal Register wants to reward high-performing teachers with bonus pay and offer larger salaries to those who sign up to work in challenging urban schools.
Both plans are controversial among teachers, who do not believe performance pay should be tied to test scores or that one teaching position is more valuable than another.
Approval needed
Members of the Metro Nashville Education Association must sign off on any changes to the teacher salary schedule.
President Erick Huth said the group is not opposed to bonus pay or other changes, but he does not believe a plan can be negotiated in time for next school year.
"We're not going to allow any money to be paid to anybody until it is approved by our membership," Huth said. "We don't want to rush into anything to meet political whims."
Huth said the association also wants to wait and see the results of a Vanderbilt study being conducted on Metro Schools.
This is the final year of the three-year study to determine whether higher salaries for middle school math teachers affect test scores.
More details about Register's proposal will be available May 7-8. That's when he will hold the first meeting of eight leadership committees made up of teachers, parents and school leaders who will be charged with overseeing changes to the district.
Consultants from the Annenberg Institute, which Register hired in February for $140,000 to help guide the changes, will sit on the committees. They will present findings from their review of the school district at the May 7 meeting.
Dean is paying The Parthenon Group from his Education First Fund, for which he and several business leaders raised more than $3 million in private donations last year to pay for reform projects.
The mayor's spokeswoman, Janel Lacy, did not say how much Parthenon is being paid but said the report was not necessarily intended to lay the groundwork for a takeover.
"The mayor is preparing for whatever may happen this summer," she said. "He is a strong advocate for education reform. He is excited about what he's seen around the country and is going to push for those reforms here in Nashville no matter what happens."
Michael Holt is the parent of three Metro graduates and has long felt the central office was bloated and misguided.
He praised the cuts to the central office and believes Register should make more reductions. "It's encouraging to see someone that has a little fiscal responsibility," Holt said. "And it appears he is more about educating kids than perpetuating the bureaucracy. That's refreshing."
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