We may just be on the verge of excellence in our school system | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Over the last few years we know of no one who has been any more critical than have we about Beaufort County Schools. Most of those complaints were directed at the former superintendent. Fortunately in our opinion, he resigned. After a short stint by Bill Rivenbark as Interim Superintendent the Board hired Dr. Don Phipps in December, 2009.

    Friday (7-23-10) Dr. Phipps gave something of a "year-end report" and reviewed his plans for the coming year and even dared to dream a bit. We were impressed.

    Dr. Phipps indicated he is working with an architect to finalize the plans for a Facilities Study. This is something long needed in Beaufort County as we have previously documented. We have shown how poor planning cost the taxpayers of Beaufort County more than $11 million. Finally it appears that we now have a superintendent, that if the school board will cooperate with him, would have saved all that money and we would not be in the fix we are now.

    Beyond developing a legitimate facilities plan, Dr. Phipps announced that the hole in the School Food Service bucket has been plugged. He reported he expected them to finish in the black this year. That is another $100K or so he has already saved the school system in just six months.

    He also presented a set of goals he intends to pursue next year. You can review them by clicking here.

    We call your attention to Goals 6 & 7 which promote community involvement in the school system. He has already achieved a remarkable example of this in how he and his staff have responded to the state's mandated revision in the sex ed curriculum in the school system. He opened up the decision-making process to anyone in the community who wished to participate. And while those who did most likely do not agree with everything about the new changes, they appear to support the final product. They voted unanimously on the proposed curriculum the Board will no doubt adopt. Dr. Phipps did the same thing to defuse the firestorm the state created with its recent proposal to strip the founding period from the U. S. History curriculum. Again Dr. Phipps brought in the community to participate in convincing the state to revise the boondoggle the state created.

    But what pleased and impressed us the most—of everything he has done—was his proposal to revise the way the testing program is used so that it tracks how much progress each student makes each year compared to how much progress that student could reasonably be expected to make. See Goal 1. He proposes to make that plan the cornerstone of the instructional accountability program. If he succeeds in doing that he will have done more to help more kids than anything we can think of he could possibly do. If he succeeds that will be the most significant transformation in our schools since computers caught on.

    Dr. Phipps is a no-nonsense, practical, straight shooter. He is afflicted with the esoteric jargon of educators but not nearly as much as many, and particularly his predecessor (Jeff Moss). He may use words others don't fully understand, but they are not simply hollow buzz-words.

    But beyond that, we have found him to be open, candid and honest. We just don't think that is too much to ask for but it is far more than we have gotten in the past. We think he is an honest man and we think Beaufort County is lucky to have such a man leading our schools.

    Dr. Phipps has been a superintendent for only eight months. That is not long enough to declare him a superlative. But what is obvious to us is that it is sufficient to say that he is on the right track and he seems to have the "right stuff" to deliver on what he has begun.

    This is not to say, as we suspect he would be the first to say, that he has "arrived." There is still much to be done as Goals 3, 4 and 5 illustrate.

    In Goal 3 he proposes to "recruit, train, and retain quality teachers and administrators." In Goal 4 he seeks "competence." That's inadequate. We do not want just "quality teachers" we want the best we can get. We would suggest that his objective should be to expect every employee to be the best they can be at what they do and they are not "the best" if someone else is better. A "quality" job is not good enough. It's got to be better. Better this year than last. Better next year than this. Excellence. That is what we need and that is what we should expect. Dr. Phipps expects that of himself. That is obvious. He now needs to instill that commitment to excellence in everyone in the system. We realize that commitment to continuous improvement is a characteristic of "quality" but for too many, "quality" means adequate; good enough for government work. We need more.

    And in the most important goal (#1) he needs to specify measurable objectives based on data. We suspect that is coming, but not soon enough.

    Finally, Dr. Phipps ran a dream up the flag pole in his presentation to the board. He mentioned the need for a training center. (We know, you train animals; but it sells better to use that term). He mentioned the need for a place that supports teachers and other employees learning to get better at what they do. He said he wanted to see it properly equipped and setup to promote professional development. We agree.

    He has already put many things into place that will return dividends in the future. But his biggest task going forward is going to be the professional development of all school employees. To do that there must be a place designed to do it. The place must have the necessary materials and the place should be state of the art technologically. Then he must see to it that the "trainers" are exemplars of excellence. He has several of those already, but they work under tremendous handicaps.

    If Dr. Phipps is successful in instilling a commitment in each person to be the best at what they do of anyone they know, then he and we are going to have to support there being able to do that.

    And the school board members need to recognize that such "dreams" are much more important than some of the other things they've spent money on in recent years. Give the man what he needs and we'll get a good return on the investment.

    We may just have an excellent superintendent. It's too soon to declare that so, but we need to give him every chance in the world to make us the best.

    Welcome to Beaufort County Dr. Phipps. We are glad to have you and your family here.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.