Renewed Employment Contract in Hand, Pasadena Unified Superintendent Dr. Brian McDonald Looks Ahead

Test scores could be higher. Angry teachers and parents parade before the School Board like clockwork. The negotiations with three labor unions couldn’t be tougher. And of course, there’s the budget.
These phrases describe only a smattering of the challenges — he might say “opportunities” — faced by Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Brian McDonald, whose contract was renewed last week by the Board of Education.

McDonald now can carry on with leading a district some say is on the verge coming back into its own, and maybe, finally, they hope, becoming a local “district of choice.”

McDonald spoke with Pasadena Now on November 18 about running Pasadena’s school district, with its four high schools, five middle schools, three K-8 schools and 15 K-5 elementary schools.

He spoke candidly about the difficulty of getting children to perform at their grade levels. In fact, it is what is known in education circles as “a stubborn ‘achievement gap’” that he said has him most worried.

“There is a gap between certain minority students, like African-American, and Hispanic, and the majority … the White students,” McDonald explained. “This is not unique to us. This is a nationwide phenomenon. So, of course, since we are in the business of educating kids, this is the most significant issue we have.”
And then there is the money thing.

“Even if next fiscal year we are fully funded, for the local control funding formula,” McDonald explained, “We will probably end up being 50th in the nation in terms of per pupil funding. And we will have only gotten back to the 2008 funding level. So that is an issue.”

In a city home to over 25,000 school-age children, Pasadena Unified currently manages to attract only 55 percent of the students. Nearly half of Pasadena’s families choose other educational sources.

“To me, that’s an issue, because that speaks to the perception that exist about the school district,” McDonald said.

Labor relations are another issue that concern McDonald. The hard-fought battle with the United Teachers Pasadena continues to flare up with various hot spot issues, such as the speed and rate by which the teachers actually receive what they have settled on with the District. Teachers would naturally like to see their six percent wage increases come to fruition sooner. Many say they are upset with raises awarded to the executive leadership team of the district, as well as the performance of the district’s human resources department.

“Still,” said McDonald, “we’re diligently working through the issues, I think we’re rapidly improving as a school system.”

Referring to the Statewide test scores McDonald said, “When you compare apples to apples and when you [account] for such things as poverty, what you will see is that our kids are performing just as well as some of our surrounding districts. So when you look at the demographic groups of students in surrounding districts and similar students in our districts, they’re performing equally well.”

But McDonald notes that the students in Northwest Pasadena continue to fall behind in basic learning areas such as English, Language Arts and Math. McDonald said he feels Pasadena Unified needs to do more for them, and to do that requires a multi-pronged approach.

“Our teachers are doing a fantastic job in the class rooms, but it takes more than that,” McDonald emphasized.
In the classroom, the District is focusing on literacy, especially for elementary students. The goal according to McDonald is that by third grade, students should be reading at their grade level.

To do this, the District uses what it calls a “Balanced Literacy Approach,” which emphasizes reading and writing and is a district wide initiative. The teachers have been specifically trained and the district has provided leveled books and classroom libraries to assist, but McDonald said, “That is only one part of the puzzle, because,” referencing the Coleman Report of 1966 and commissioned by Congress and the U.S. Department of Education, “What Coleman found was that the variation between minority students, in terms of their performance, and white students was largely attributed to non-school factors. In other words, what happened outside of the schoolhouse had a significant impact on how students performed.”

The district has now hired a Coordinator of Equity and Access, charged with the responsibility of pulling together community resources and working with Collaborate Pasadena to formulate individual learning plans for students, McDonald explained.

“So, if that child is struggling because of an issue at home, such as, maybe not be enough food in the home, maybe that child has experienced trauma,” McDonald noted.

“What we want to do is work with our community partners to provide assistance to that child, and the child’s family.” McDonald Continued, “In my mind, this is the only way we’re going to move the needle and get a significant number of our lower performing students to perform at a much higher level. We have to cater to the whole child, and not just focus on what we do at the schoolhouse, in terms of instruction, teaching and learning, but also some of the other factors.”

And then there is Madison Elementary School and its controversial principal Juan Ruelas. Originally hired by McDonald to improve test scores at the school, Ruelas has been accused by some teachers and parents of mismanagement at Madison and of test score cheating at Roosevelt, his former school assignment.

McDonald dismisses those charges, saying that, “there are a lot of things being said that are patently false.
With regards to the cheating allegation, that was investigated in 2011, and there was no evidences that the principal sanctioned or supported any kind of wide-scale cheating. If that happened, he would have been terminated. We don’t tolerate that kind of thing, at all.”

“We looked into many of those accusations and there was never anything to corroborate the accusations that were made, McDonald continued, saying, “People choose to continue to fight with us,” adding that he visits the campus often and that “the school is so much better than it was before.”

According to McDonald, Madison is a district leader in implementing the Balanced Literacy Program.

“Mr. Ruelas is a very skilled administrator, very knowledgeable,” noted McDonald. “When we fight amongst each other it’s destructive, it doesn’t benefit the kids, and all we want to do is benefit the kids.”

In fact, McDonald actually invited anyone to “arrive unannounced” at the school “anytime” and ask for a tour.

“Tell them I sent you,” he said.

In terms of the Districts’ victories, McDonald points to any number of successful new programs. He cites the District’s new Educational Master Plan as an effective new tool to move to district forward for the next five years. McDonald also points out the district’s successful academy-style STEM programs — science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as STEAM programs, which add art to the learning mix.

There are also the very successful dual language Spanish and Mandarin programs, which attract students from as far away as Rancho Cucamonga, as well as the record number of Pasadena Unified students who have been awarded Gates Millenium Scholarships.

“When you look at all of that,” says McDonald, “That inspires confidence in families, with regards to the quality of our programs, and I think all of those things together really make a difference.”

McDonald continues, “if we can just take care of some of these issues that are dividing us and get on the same page, I think that we will be the school district of choice within the next few years.”

“It’s far more,” he echoed repeatedly, “than what happens in the school house.”