Jason Horne
← All writing
Data & Research

Six years of Improvements in Campbell County

June 5, 2024 · 13 min read

I only have a few weeks left in Campbell County, and I wanted to reflect on it. I want to write about the improvements that we have made since I’ve been here. In district supervisor positions, you’re always on a continuum of change and improvement. The truth is the job is never finished.

The other truth is that you never do this job alone. I have been part of one of the strongest teams I can even imagine. So please don’t read this blog that these are my accomplishments. I’ve only been fortunate to have been part of them.

It is a team effort that is led by the Director of Schools. If you don’t have a strong Director, then it is tough to get anything accomplished. In this situation, I had a very strong Director in Ms. Fields who pushed all of us to balance improvement while considering the already strenuous workload on teachers, principals, and students. Ms. Fields also reminded us regularly not to forget what it’s like to be in a classroom and to lead a school. She encouraged us to be empathetic to our people but to have high standards for our outcomes. This balance is what has allowed all of us to be successful.

In no order of importance, I thought I would reflect on some of the accomplishments that come to mind.

Collaborative Conferencing

Being involved in PECCA was a great experience. It really put me in touch with the past, present, and future of Campbell County. When I initially came on the Administration Team, there were a lot of employee organization leaders who had been involved in Collective Bargaining prior to 2011. I remember these folks and their work, and I noticed the MOU felt more like the Collective Bargaining Agreement than an MOU.

Something else that became obvious to me is that most teachers had no idea that they had an MOU and that they had all of these people working on it. It is hours of work after hours for which no one is getting paid anything extra. It is truly a labor of love, and for employee organizations, it is the most direct form of advocacy that they have. 

While I agreed with most of what was there, there were some glaring loopholes that needed to be closed. For example, the MOU originally read that a teacher could take up to 20 consecutive days of unpaid leave before they were put on unpaid leave by the Director of Schools. This meant that a teacher could take 19.5 days off, come back for half a day, and then take 19.5 days off again. This means a teacher could keep their position while only showing up for 8 days a school year. It wasn’t until this was being discussed that I saw an employee test these waters, but we finally changed it.

The section on unpaid leave is now more in line with policy and procedures. It states, “To prevent being placed on automatic leave, in cases where the teacher cannot apply for leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, the teacher must provide documentation to the Director of Schools to justify their unpaid leave. “This was a lot of work and discussion by the PECCA Members from both the Admin Team and the Teacher Team. I consider it a huge accomplishment that we got this done, and even added a definition of sick leave which was completely missing.

Let me be even more emphatic about it: there was no sick leave policy for certified employees at all. This is why it was being abused and people had an entitled attitude about “their days.” These days technically belong to the state which is why you get to transfer them from system to system, and the state is very clear about how they are to be used. Scanning other systems’ policies for sick leave showed just how restrictive they were elsewhere, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels trying to solve Chronic Student Absenteeism when I couldn’t solve Chronic Teacher Absenteeism.

It is very satisfying to look back on that work to see that everyone in the group saw that this wasn’t a tenable situation for a school system that wanted to be whole and healthy. At our best, we had everyone working together. There were some long evenings and not everyone saw eye-to-eye, but in the end, we got things done, and I will always be proud of that.

Test Scores

To be clear, the test scores always belong to the students. After all, they’re the ones who take the tests. Even though this is true, test scores are the backbone of school accountability, and even though that changed dramatically with the school letter grades, we’ve been getting school report cards for a long time.

For those who aren’t in education, there are two ways to look at your progress in test scores. One way is called “Achievement” and the other way is called “Growth.” Achievement is the percentage of students who score “proficient” on the TCAP or EOC. Growth is a complex measure that predicts what a student’s test score should be, and then whether it is above that or below it, it is considered positive or negative growth. When put all of that together, you get a teacher’s growth, a school’s growth, and so on.

In Campbell County, our Achievement has improved every single year. As you can see from this School Board Data Presentation, it has improved every year.  

District Achievement Overview

The provided charts illustrate the trends in district achievement over time, specifically focusing on the growth in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math across different grade levels: elementary (grades 3-5), middle (grades 6-8), and high school (grades 9-12).

District Achievement Over Time

District-wide Performance in ELA and Math

Elementary School Performance

Middle School Performance

High School Performance

Comparative Insights

  1. Elementary School Improvement:
  1. Middle School Improvement:
  1. High School Improvement:

Growth

Growth tells a different story than achievement. While many of our students are performing better than they were in 2017, the overall district growth decreased from a level 3 to a level 1 in 2023. The reason for this is because of so many large negative growth scores. This suggests that students are not performing their best on the test. Given their benchmarking scores suggest they are capable of performing better than they did, it suggests that students are just not trying on the TCAP and EOC tests. We are putting in a lot of programs to make that happen.

Here are high school growth levels over the past three years:

The analysis of high school growth indices for the subjects Algebra I, Algebra II, English I, English II, and Geometry over the years 2021 to 2023 reveals several trends and insights.

  1. Algebra I:
  1. Algebra II:
  1. English I:
  1. English II:
  1. Geometry:

Overall, the high school data reflects a mixed performance with notable areas for improvement, especially in maintaining growth in Algebra I, Algebra II, and English I, and reversing the decline in English II. The positive trend in Geometry is encouraging and may serve as a model for other subjects.

Here are growth rates for Math and ELA in Grades 3-8:

Subjects: English Language Arts (ELA) and Math

The analysis of growth indices for English Language Arts (ELA) and Math for grades 4-8 over the years 2021 to 2023 provides insights into student performance and areas needing attention.

  1. English Language Arts (ELA):
  1. Math:

Overall, the data for grades 4-8 highlights the need for sustained efforts to improve and maintain growth in both ELA and Math. While some grades show stability, others indicate significant areas for improvement, particularly in grades 6-8. Focused interventions and continuous support are essential to reverse declining trends and enhance overall student performance in these critical subjects.

One of the biggest changes we’ve made is the transparency with data. When I came on board, I was told that AMOs (Annual Measurable Objectives) were handed out on a sticky note. I was also told that they would present whatever they wanted about data before the board. While testing accountability wasn’t as hot and heavy as it now, they still had the same numbers to give the board.

Ultimately, more students are performing better on their state tests, and that is good news for the students in Campbell County. This is a group effort from students, teachers, principals, and central office administrators.

ACT

Campbell County improved its ACT average from 16.6 in 2020-2021 to 17.3 in 2022-2023. Also, the county the most students with an ACT over 21 in its history in 2022-2023. Also the participation rate for ACT is 99%. It had fallen below 95% in 2017-2018.

Ready Graduate

The percentage of Ready Graduates has increased from 26.5% in 2017-2018 to 40.1% in 2023-2024.

CTE Concentrators

The percentage of CTE Concentrators improved from 36.5 in 2017-2018 to 54.3% in 2022-2023.

PostSecondary Going Rates

  1. Pre-Pandemic Growth:
  1. Impact of COVID-19:
  1. Post-Pandemic Recovery:

Processes

There have been so many processes that have improved since 2018. It is impossible to list them all, but here are the ones that come to mind. Again, these are all group efforts.

·      A comprehensive VOIP telephone system for the entire county.

·      A modern website with an app.

·      A robocall system for absences and emergencies.

·      Upgraded technology for every school.

·      A Facebook page for the district and every school.

·      Teacher of the Year recognition

·      An online application and HR system

·      Compliance with the new counselor standards

·      Updated 504 procedures

·      Enrollment Dashboarding

·      Conduct Data Collection

·      A Tiered System for Truancy

·      Data and Accountability updates for principals

·      Weekly TEAM reports

·      Ayers training for Academic Coaches

·      Regular meetings for Academic Coaches

·      A leadership academy for teachers.

·      A process for awarding and tracking tenure.

·      A solid chain of command structure.

·      McREL Training

·      SREB Training

·      Interventionist Positions

·      Increased AP and Dual Enrollment participation

·      Vans for CTE and for Homeless student transportation

·      Ayers Scholars Program

·      FAFSA Frenzy

·      Turf fields at both high schools (JHS is currently being planned.).

·      We trained over 250 substitute teachers while I was there.

·      We built an online platform during COVID.

·      We had some of the fewest COVID closures in the state.