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June 1971

Memo from State
Mental Health and Some Other Health Bills
Elections & Campaign Regulations
Ethics Bills
Action - Get Out Your Pen and Send a Postcard
Testimony: Various Proposed Bills on Campaign Financing (Alice Scott)
Testimony: Ethics/Standards of Conduct Bills (Alice Scott)
Testimony: Senate Committee on Public Employment (Alice Scott)
Environment
Testimony: Public Health, Youth and Welfare (Gretel McLane)
Current Trends in Education: The Voucher System...
Study of Educational Complex Proto-Types
Testimony: House Education Committee (Helen Tamashiro)

A Study of Educational Complex Proto-Types

QUESTION: In Hawaii will the development of the "SCHOOL COMPLEX SYSTEM" bring education into closer community focus?

A STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL COMPLEX PROTO-TYPES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENT STATE OF IMPLEMENTATION WITH PROPOSAL FOR FURTHER IMPLEMENTATION UNDER REVISED SPECIFICATIONS (By: Management Services Staff, Office of Planning and Analytical Studios, Department of Education, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 1970.)

Background: It has become increasingly clear that the advantages of a statewide-educational system are not being fully exploited to manage the curriculum, the personnel, and the resources and facilities to the optimum degree. Stets and federal funds for improving education have led to patchwork innovations added to the present system rather than to a systems redesign. Under the present system, fiscal control and accountability in terms of performance achievements are difficult, if not impossible. The increase in the size of the DOE operations tend to make education less sensitive to the desires and needs of communities and provides less opportunities for teachers to participate in the process of program development. The span of control of district superintendents is further diluted by the increase in the number of schools. There is n lack of program continuity, in part due to the increased autonomy of individual schools.

In recent years, the emergence of the theory of knowledge and curriculum based on the structure of knowledge (i.e. Bruner's statement that any child can be taught any concept 2t any age in some intellectually honest form) has led to the Hawaii Curriculum Center's efforts to base curriculum development on this theory.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

The concerns noted above led to the development of the General Plan. This plan provides a " blueprint" for integrating planning of the instructional (curriculum programming) process with the supportive administrative process for administering a statewide education system. Two major research papers presented concepts developed in the General Plan.* From Savard, the General Plan adopted the definition. of educational programming as the keystone of the statewide educational system planning. From Araki came the idea of re-engineering school attendance area boundaries to coincide with 'census tracts to facilitate use of available census statistics in educational system planning.

This would enable establishment of a data bank that would provide reliable population demographic and socio-economic information that could be used in planning for the instructional as well as the administrative processes within the educational system. From this, the concept of educational complexes emerged. They are a practical way to implement statewide curriculum programs.

OBJECTIVES OF THE EDUCATIONAL COMPLEXES:

  1. To serve as a basic unit for all physical planning--capital construction, teacher supply, provision of all teaching materials, bus transportation, food service, etc.

  2. To facilitate the articulation of educational programs between elementary. junior high and high schools.

  3. To facilitate the sharing of specialized facilities among the schools within an educational complex.

  4. To move supervision closer to the classroom and avoid the pit falls inherent in largeness per se,

  5. To serve as a basis for providing specialized programs.

  6. To serve as a basis for deployment of administrators and teachers in order to maximize the utilization of their special talents; knowledge and leadership capacities.

ADOPTION OF THE GENERAL PLAN

”The adoption of the General Plan, in principle, occurred somewhat vaguely during the august, 1968 Board of Education’s deliberation over the proposed establishment of the original three educational complexes.” (Campbell, Waimea, Molokai -- Kona was added one year later).

In May, 1969 the Department’s “Master Plan for Public Education in Hawaii” was submitted to the Board of Education. The Master Plan correlates the various aspirations and desired courses of action on a more general level than the General Plan.

The decision to establish the three proto-type complexes achieved only one part of the objectives of the model education complex as conceived in the General Plan: the confirmation, through field testing, of the administrative practicality of educational complexes. The complex as a means of implementing statewide educational programs was deferred for future testing (this has been a controversial element, particularly the concept of Lead Teachers -- Lead Teachers will be master teachers in their respective disciplines. They will provide the Complex Manager with curriculum expertise for formulating, implementing and evaluating complex-wide curriculum programs.

IMPLEMNENTATION OF THE PROTO-TYPE COMPLEXES

The actual implementation shows some differences from the conceptual framework of the General Plan. Complex boundaries are not necessarily congruent with census tract, internal organization of complexes is determined by the Complex Manager, complexes are to be activated by District Superintendents, ''There appears to be a lack of continuity or placement of total responsibility for overseeing the process of abstracting from theory to working model. As a result, the reliability

and validity of the working model to the theoretical model is compromised

In spite of the short duration in which the complexes have been operating, the general ambiguity surrounding the role and authorities of the Complex Manager, the limited resources assigned to the Complex Manager, and other practical restrictions affecting the four proto-type complexes, the present and potential achievements of the complexes are promising enough to consider the Education Complex as a valid concept for improving the management structure of the statewide school system.

The Educational Complex is a mini-system or a module containing all the elements rind processes of systems management to be found at successively higher levels of management in the statewide educational system. The Educational complex, properly implemented, will serve ns building blocks for an integrated statewide school system.

*William G. Savard, "The Hierarchy of Curriculum and Instruction System Documentation and the Cycle of Curriculum and Instruction Functions.' 9/20/67

Charles Araki, "A Study to Determine the Feasibility of Redefining Present School Attendance Area Boundaries to Coincide With or Otherwise Relate Logistically to the U.S. Census Bureau Tracts.” 10/11/67

SUMMARY OF COMPLEX ACHIEVEMENTS IN PHYSICAL PLANNING

CAMPBELL

  1. Reviewed and assisted in formulation of CIP proposals for Complex schools.

  2. Realigned school enrollment boundaries for two elementary schools to achieve mere equitable pupil-teacher ration, obtain better utilization on complex-wide basis.

  3. Established Instructional Media Center to serve complex schools.

  4. Controlled deployment of resource teachers, Beginning Teacher Supervisor, media specialist.

  5. Monitored purchase orders to ensure conformance with curriculum improvement objectives.

  6. Followed through on work order requests, determined priorities.

  7. Inventoried special equipment and materials.

  8. Re-deployed textbooks between schools.

  9. Coordinated budget preparation.

  10. Established liaison with other community agencies.

WAIMEA

  1. Directed planning for Waimea "Middle School" and new elementary school.

  2. Reviewed CIP and Repair & Maintenance requirements, determined priorities, performed follow up.

  3. Coordinated implementation of state and district programs: Teaching English As a Second Language, Statewide Dropout Program.

  4. Monitored purchase orders.

  5. Established liaison with other community agencies.

  6. Established liaison with other community agencies.

  7. Deployed, on complex-wide basis, Beginning Teacher-Supervisor, Traveling Music Teacher, Outreach Aide, Diagnostic Teacher, Salience Lead Teacher, Language Arts Coordinator. Established liaison with other community agencies.

  8. Systematically reviewed equipment and facility utilization.

MOLOKAI

  1. Preliminary planning for Multi-media Center and staff.

  2. Developed requirements for Special Services program.

  3. Initiated procedure for coordinating Repair & Maintenance work order requests,

  4. Participated in development of Master Plan for Molokai High and Intermediate School.

  5. Coordinated teacher housing requirements.

  6. Compiled substitute teacher referral register.

KONA

  1. Assisted in planning Kona's four-quarter school year.

  2. Participated in development of Master Plan for Kona Complex,

  3. Conducted survey of middle grade needs.

  4. Coordinated teacher housing and school transportation service. 5. Coordinated Repair & Maintenance work order requests.


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