Knox County Schools unveils "Region 5 Way" to improve low performing schools

Knox County Schools (KCS) Superintendent Jon Rysewyk unveiled a new strategic plan at Monday’s school board meeting to improve schools in the district’s Region 5 in west and north Knoxville.The five-year plan dubbed the “Region 5 Way,” intends to transform the outcomes of students by establishing a clear, aligned mission for excellence throughout the region.“Recognizing that KCS has not always articulated a clear vision of success for its Region 5 schools, we have spent months working alongside students, families, community partners and educators, to develop the Region 5 Way — a five-year strategic plan to transform outcomes and futures — for every student in Region 5,” said Rysewyk.At the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year, the district organized schools into five regions based on feeder patterns and geographic proximity. Each region is supported by a team of leaders that includes a director and supervisor, and experts in fields across every subject from math and reading to special education.Region 5 contains 13 elementary, middle, and high schools, including four that are among the lowest performing schools in the state. The region has performed inconsistently over the years and has faced many persistent challenges and gaps in achievement.“A little over a year ago, we talked about, just kind of the need in the feeder patterns in Region 5 in both Fulton and Austin-East. Those schools have had inconsistent performance over the years, some high years, some low years. One school is on the reward list, one is on the state list for correction, that sort of thing. And so, one thing we committed to was really just trying to look at how do we stabilize, how do we as a district — we’ve kind of always left it up to individual schools to figure that out — but how do we work with the schools? And how do we as a district come around and build a five-year kind of strategic plan for those individual schools,” said Rysewyk.The goal of the “Region 5 Way” is to have the region’s students learning from elite educators, kindergarteners entering first grade school-ready, each student reading and performing math at or above grade level, and students graduating high school ready to pursue their career of choice by 2028.The district began developing the plan last fall when it hired a third-party consultant group to aid its creation. The planning process then went from December 2022 to March 2023 through a series of community engagement, data analysis and responsive research.“We really got into the community and asked, ‘what are you willing to commit,’ to come and walk alongside us as we engage in this work. This is not going to be a recycling of just pockets of successful work that we’ve seen over the years,” said Assistant Superintendent of Student Success Jason Myers,The strategic plan will align with KCS priorities for their schools and students by:

• Holding high academic expectations for all students through more access to quality Pre-K, consistent high-quality math instruction from K-12, and giving students instructional support to reach grade level.
• Recruiting and retaining elite educators by paying them more through extended contracts, creating strong school cultures, more leadership opportunities for teachers and providing them additional training and support, and develop more teachers who are highly skilled at what they do and willing to learn and develop deep connections with their students and their families.
• Providing career and college pathways from K-12 by giving students access to advanced academics such as Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment from Pre-K through 12, receiving structured support to meet goals, and receiving opportunities in elementary school to learn about career paths.
• Establishing systems to meet the entire needs of the student for academic success by providing students with tailored and evolving plans to help them meet grade level goals, consistently high expectations for behavior with high-quality support, having teams of school staff which support the student’s well-being and learning.

The “Region 5 Way” will also continue partnering with families and communities so that parents can receive constant communication through weekly newsletters. Additionally, community members will have  ways to provide input and schools will be able to facilitate partnerships with community organizations to provide additional resources and support to students.The plan is currently in the beginning of the implementation phase that includes collaborating with educators, community members, and organizations to guide the plan towards the five-year goals.“This is the easy part. The plan is the easy part. The success and failure of this plan will depend on everyone’s willingness to come together and take action to implement the plan,” said Myers. “We’re here today to ask folks to come along with us and help transform these schools. We are here to recognize that we can’t do it on our own in isolation, that it’s gonna take a collective group effort.”