Sunnyside schools chief: student achievement is top priority

Improving student performance is the top priority for Sunnyside Unified School District, its superintendent said.

"All of our efforts have to be in service to that goal," Steve Holmes said. "That’s the core of our business."

In a State of the District speech Tuesday night to a crowd of district employees and community members, Holmes emphasized the importance of restoring trust in the district among community members and district staff, ensuring financial stability and boosting academic performance.

The district spent the first half of the school year identifying what works and what doesn't, working as a team and defining goals for the future, he said.

During that process, the district learned some good and bad things about itself, Holmes said. Among the findings were low morale among staff, communication issues, declining enrollment, shortage in teachers, low student performance and poor student attendance.

This school year, the district lost between 400 and 600 students, he said. Enrollment decline was especially an issue at the kindergarten level.

"Every student we lose, we lose money," he told the crowd.

The superintendent also acknowledged that Sunnyside is one of the lowest performing school districts in Pima County. "That's not acceptable," he said.

In his proposals for solutions to the challenges that the district is facing, Holmes said it would focus on data-driven practices that ensure that money is being spent on things that are proven to work.

"We’ve got to be much more driven by metrics that actually define what success is," he said. For example, if the district is spending money on resources for a reading program, students' reading scores should be improving.

But the added accountability isn't meant to be punitive, he said. It's intended to inform the district so that it can make better decisions.

"It’s not a hammer," he said. "It really is a tool to support improvement."

Holmes also discussed improving communication channels by creating sub-groups within schools and district offices that meet more frequently, developing a districtwide web dashboard to support the strategic plan and involving the people who would be impacted in the decision-making process.

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Another point of emphasis for Holmes is to establish financial stability. Every superintendent in Arizona knows of schools' financial struggles, he said. "Not being able to do it all is reality," he said.

But the district must find ways to do better with less money and live "within our means," he said. Sunnyside has done a budget prioritization process, including reviewing programs for their effectiveness to better align resources.

One way the district hopes to save money is to utilize open source education content, as opposed to subscription-based content, he said.

"Subscription-based stuff is going to have to boil down to a few that we know we’re going to use," he said. "It’s the right thing to do."

Despite all the challenges, Holmes said the district has the capacity for great success.

"There’s no doubt that we can have the success that we desire and that we know we can make happen for our schools," he said, pointing out that the district has a community and staff members who are committed and passionate.

His vision is to always put students first and believe that every student is capable of learning at high level, he said. He wants to raise the bar of expectation for every student and provide the resources necessary.

Eddie Islas, principal of Santa Clara Elementary School, said he sees vision in Holmes' words. "Listening to him, there's hope," he said.

On the increasing accountability measures, he said, "Accountability has had a negative connotation because there were maybe negative things tied to it, like sanctions or taking over schools."

"If you want to know how well you’re doing, you have to have some way of measuring it," he added.

There may still be some residue of mistrust for the district in the community and even among staff, he said. It was made evident when the maintenance and operations budget override failed last November.

But the district has come a long way with the leadership change – first with Eugenia Favela, who took over as interim superintendent when Manuel Isquierdo left the district and now with Holmes, Islas said.

"There’s a lot more to be done, but it’s doable," he said.