Taft City School District’s contract with their new Superintendent Mike Brusa was approved by the board of trustees on August 6, 2007, and he began work on August 13, 2007, one day before teachers began arriving for their orientation days and one week before Taft City Schools opened their doors to their students. New superintendents usually have a summers-worth of time to acclimate themselves to new procedures, different organizational structures, employee relationships, and particular district challenges. Coming in so close to the opening of school, Mr. Brusa did not, and he found himself in a whirlwind of activity and anticipation. “I can say that it has been exciting to be working to get to know the schools, the people, and the community,” stated Brusa.

As he considers his new job, Brusa is impressed by several attributes of the Taft City Schools. “I am encouraged to find out that there are many capable people working in the Taft City School District. The schools must operate whether or not the new Superintendent has complete knowledge of the operations of the district; so there is a reliance on the people that are currently in place. To have good people in place is great.”
However, what was most encouraging to Brusa is the focus of the schools here in the Taft City School District. Motivated by various events, the schools and the district are embarked on an improvement project. The project aims to improve the achievement of students. This effort is broad based and includes every comprehensive school in the district.

The effort to improve student achievement is broadly the aim in the entire educational system across the country. How to accomplish improvement of our education system is a question being asked, not just in the Taft City School District, but in districts across the nation. “The most widely-respected answers coming to educational institutions is that improving our educational system comes down to making sure that teachers are aware of and use alignment to standards, the breath of the standards, time on task, and a quality instructional process,” stated Brusa.

Schools in the Taft City School District have focused on these areas noted by Brusa. In particular, teachers are working on the improvement of instructional process, the process that happens every day in each subject area to achieve the learning objective--the thing we want students to know and do at the end of a lesson. The instructional process is put together with the standards--what we want students to know to be at grade level--and the instructional material--textbooks and other materials--that are used. Our goal is that all students perform the standards for their grade level. It is, in fact the goal of No Child Left Behind, now Federal law, that all students be at or above grade level standards by the year 2014.

“It is not a mystery in regard to the approach to a lesson that should be used to teach students the standards. However, the process is a difficult to master,” stated Brusa. “Teaching using that direct teaching process has been the task of educators over the past several years,” commented Brusa. “There are several essential elements to a lesson, and the use of these elements of instruction is critical in making sure that the highest number of students achieve standards by the end of the lesson.” It is also clear that students who achieve the standards by the end of the lesson will be at grade level by the end of the year.

“Since several schools in the district and the school district itself are in official Program Improvement with the state and federal government, we will continue the focus on instruction in the coming months and years as the means for improving student achievement and for moving out of the Program Improvement status,” declared Brusa.





This is the first of a series of articles that will appear in the Taft Independent. Student learning is the focus of schools. The articles will focus on the efforts that the schools and the district are making to ensure that students are achieving.