As you head out for summer break, DoDEA wants you to know that our staff is busy preparing for School Year 2009-2010. Please feel free to contact us with your ideas, questions, or concerns.
There are many ways to communicate with DoDEA. From joining your local PTA to emailing DoDEA Leadership -- here's how you can share your ideas, questions, or concerns.
Dr. Miles’ End of School Year 2008-2009 Letter
Our schools around the world are preparing to wrap-up School Year 2008-2009. Many DoDEA schools in the United States have already completed the school year, with the remainder of schools in Europe and the Pacific scheduled to break for the summer beginning in mid-June.
The end of the school year provides the opportunity to review the changes that have taken place and assess our progress on new initiatives. I’d like to thank our teachers and staff for all of their hard work and for “being there” for our children. I’d also like to thank parents and commanders for their support, inside and outside the classroom. Educating our children is a community effort and you all truly exemplify the team spirit that helps our students achieve their very best.
Our mission is highest student achievement. Prior to the beginning of School Year 2008-2009, we set out to review how we accomplish our mission. We realized early on that the systematic improvement of teaching and learning was key to achieving our mission and that we needed to take a fresh look at the way we approach improvement systemically.
The concept of Continuous Improvement – Kaizen – gives us the way to take a fresh look at our organization. It allows us to examine what’s being done and how it’s being done, evaluate the results, and refine what we do to ensure the needs of all students are met. Through the continuous improvement process, DoDEA can sustain its high performance and focus on quality educational programming.
Applying continuous improvement to our mission began last April when we convened a committee of DoDEA Headquarters representatives, Area Deputy Directors, and employee association officials to review our 2006-2011 Community Strategic Plan. The committee’s work, the 2008 CSP Alignment, improves congruency and alignment among our goals, outcomes, measures and milestones. The 2008 CSP Alignment is easier to read and understand; provides clear and specific objectives; and defines measures to better match our objectives. It also supplies a specific direction for improving our efforts to provide the highest quality education for all students and ensure their success inside and outside the classroom.
During the summer break, we directed our efforts toward program evaluation. New information today can make educational programs that were developed and implemented yesterday obsolete. Some programs can be modified to make them more effective, while others may be discontinued. Program evaluation provides every level of our staff a way to continually assess data and review research to meet the needs of our students and help us continue to show gains in student achievement.
DoDEA established nine different Task Groups during School Year 2008-2009 as part of its Program Evaluation initiative. The task groups are addressing the areas of Virtual School, Advanced Placement, PreK-12 Literacy, Mathematics, Administrator Evaluation, System Wide Professional Development, Professional Technical Studies (PTS) and Counseling. They will be compiling pertinent data, analyzing their findings and submitting recommendations to me. We will decide how to best implement their recommendations and monitor our performance – all in keeping with the spirit of continuous improvement. We may not be able to implement all the recommendations at once, but we will work towards a prioritized implementation plan in the coming months. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the task force members for their thoughtful and purposeful work. Please join me in giving your colleagues a “pat on the back” for all of their hard work.
Throughout the course of School Year 2008-2009, DoDEA has been reviewing and aligning standards, curriculum, and assessments. DoDEA has contracted with the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning Organization (MCREL) to review and rate standards on the basis of breadth, depth, and clarity. These comprehensive standards reviews will help to ensure system wide alignment as well as guide school improvement plans, professional development, and program evaluations. The standards will also form the basis for gathering data for assessment of student progress and schools.
DoDEA also made great strides in its efforts to manage resources during School Year 2008-2009. At the beginning of Fiscal Year 2009, DoDEA instituted a process for prioritizing mission requirements. Managers at every level of DoDEA, with input from their staffs, submitted a prioritized list of requirements for resourcing. Every line item submitted throughout DoDEA was compiled in one requirements document and resourced according to the priority it was assigned.
Many of our facilities are in need of improvement or replacement. DoDEA worked hard with the Pentagon’s Military Construction (MILCON) representatives to secure an additional $600 million for facility improvements from FY 2010-2015.
In addition to making improvements in resource management, in School Year 2008-2009, DoDEA conducted a comprehensive review of every personnel position above the school level. Although DoDEA is one school system, there was no consistent organization in district or area offices. DoDEA realigned many of these positions to better align instructional leadership and support staff closer to the district and school level. Highlights of this initiative include:
- Refocusing the Area Director’s mission to directly manage: Command Interface; budget; MILCON and facilities; sustainment; maintenance and renovation; safety and security; logistics; and co-curricular responsibilities – thus eliminating a fragmented focus between day-to-day operations; strategic planning; and education/curriculum.
- Establishing an Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment at the Area level, allowing the Area Director to focus on Command issues.
- Establishing a Resource Manager position to relieve principals of the tasks involved in daily school operations, thus allowing them to focus on education and curriculum and educational leadership.
- Direct reporting of Area, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Procurement missions to Headquarters to ensure consistent and standardized policy development and application across the system.
DoDEA also made a commitment in School Year 2008-2009 to implementing a Virtual School Program. Hubs in Europe and the Pacific were established to support home schooled students; students in remote locations; students in transition; and students requiring credit recovery and credit enhancement. Currently we are focused on the accreditation of a 9-12 virtual school.
The Educational Partnership Branch was reorganized during School Year 2008-2009 to blend duties and responsibilities of key Partnership and Education Directorate personnel. The branch also coordinated an opportunity for DoDEA superintendents to establish partnerships with superintendents of stateside school districts impacted by the enrollment of large numbers of military students. The Partnership Branch was also a key player in facilitating the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Defense and Department of Education, committing to greater cooperation on education issues affecting military children.
Whew! We have been busy! Our most important accomplishment this past school year, however, is what goes on in the classroom each and every day and what goes on behind the scenes to support the classrooms. Our teachers encourage our children, challenge them, instill a love of learning in them, and understand the unique aspects of their lives as military children. Our staff ensures that teachers and students have what they need from books to buses to computers to lights, heat and air conditioning. All of these efforts are aimed at helping students realize their full potential and achieve their very best.
I hope the upcoming break is restful and provides an opportunity to reflect and re-energize for the next school year!
