It could be the start of a better way forward for schools where test scores are low and resources are scarce. The Chief Recovery Officer of York City School District is drafting a new recovery plan for the district.
On Wednesday the Department of Education announced it’s hiring a firm to study the progress of the district’s previous plan. The firm that the district is hiring from Boston is called Mass Insight and it studies struggling school districts. That firm will make an assessment of the previous plan and will also benchmark the school district against high performing school districts.
Chief Recovery Officer, Carol Saylor, says she’ll take data from the firm and draft a new recovery plan. Saylor says she wants to create short, 90 day plans instead of tackling the entire recovery plan all at once.
"There are a lot of very good very solid things in the current recovery plan the district just hasn't gotten to them yet. So I don't see that there will be any major differences between the things that are in the plan if we're looking long range. But when we're looking 90 days I see focusing on pieces of it at a time and moving on from there," said Saylor.
The one difference between the old and new plans are charter schools. Saylor does not intend to include charter schools in the new plan.
The assessment is expected to be complete in July and the cost of the process is unknown.
Saylor is asking for patience. She says turning around the York City School District will take years despite a strong recovery plan.
