{"id":4068,"date":"2013-03-08T15:33:33","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=4068"},"modified":"2013-03-08T15:33:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:33:33","slug":"hartford-office-of-talent-management-seeks-to-close-student-achievement-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2013\/03\/hartford-office-of-talent-management-seeks-to-close-student-achievement-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Hartford Office of Talent Management Seeks to Close Student Achievement Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Tuesday, March 5, the Hartford Board of Education gathered in the library of Hartford Public High School to hold a workshop meeting. \u00a0At roughly 5:30pm, the meeting commenced with a brief introduction and expression of gratitude from the Chairman, Matthew K. Poland, to the parents, teachers, and other observers who filled the room. \u00a0After discussing the School Climate Data Review, the Board transitioned to the Talent Management Report. \u00a0This report, led by the Hartford Office of Talent Management, aims to significantly improve Hartford public schools by employing energetic and talented educators with the intent of closing the present student achievement gap.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Headed by the Chief Talent Officer Jennifer Allen, seven representatives from the Hartford Office of Talent Management began their presentation. She explained that as part of Hartford\u2019s school reform initiative to close achievement gaps among students, the Human Resources Department was converted into the Office of Talent Management (OTM) in October of 2010. \u00a0As stated in the handouts available to the guests, the purpose of the OTM is to \u201censure that each school is led by an effective leader and that each leader has the support to develop and retain highly qualified teachers from recruitment to induction and ultimately through their career path development\u201d. \u00a0Allen stressed that their office aims to seek extremely intelligent and effective teachers, with a special focus on retention. The OTM will not simply look at the mechanics but at what they can offer these teachers to help guide them towards attaining greater student achievement. \u00a0She then introduces the five departments of the office, which she calls the \u201cbuckets\u201d for the \u201cdeliverables\u201d, or in other words the catalysts for their accomplishments.<\/p>\n

The five departments of the Office of Talent Management include: Recruitment, Staffing, Professional Development, Performance Management, and Information Management. \u00a0Each objective was explained by a different representative of the OTM, all with different goals and intentions. \u00a0Tasha Cannon, Coordinator of Recruitment, after having already met with 44 prospects as educators for the 2012-2014 school year, noted that the most challenging and important part of her task is convincing these intelligent and qualified prospects to actually apply for positions as teachers in the Hartford public school system.<\/p>\n

As someone who was educated in Hartford school systems, Natasha Durrant, Director of Staffing, had a unique interest in creating a culture that allows people to grow, learn, and connect in many ways. \u00a0As she explained, her job entails keeping up efficient and effective employee relations, or simply providing custom service. \u00a0One of her goals included \u201cincreasing the satisfaction of our human capital managers (principals) to 95% or better\u201d. \u00a0The current rate of satisfaction is 85%. \u00a0After Board member Richard F. Wareing questioned how satisfaction is measured, Durrant replied that this evidence is concluded through multiple surveys given to the principals. \u00a0\u00a0She noted that the current rate is 85%, and after being questioned by the Board member Richard F. Wareing how satisfaction is measured, she replied that they conclude this evidence through multiple surveys.<\/p>\n

Joanne Manginelli, Director of Professional Learning, commented that her job is to ensure the retention of effective teachers and leader as well as assess what the children are learning and to implement an instructional core that is \u201csupported by a rigorous curriculum\u2026 that addresses the needs of the diverse learners within the Hartford Public Schools\u201d. \u00a0She stated, \u201cwe want to retain our \u2018irreplaceables\u2019\u201d, or their highly valuable teachers. \u00a0Similarly, the Director of Performance Management, Scott Nicol, pointed out that one of the most important aspects of student performance is to retain teacher effectiveness. Also, increasing the number of classroom observations will help measure the credibility of a teacher and make sure he or she is effectively teaching the students. \u00a0With more accurate measurements of teacher performance, students will benefit from more effective methods of teaching and in turn be more likely to perform well in the classroom. \u00a0The most significant measurement of performance is the increase in the number of classroom observations. \u00a0Compared to last school year, when the number of required observations was 1,000, the number this year is 4,000. \u00a0They plan to require 5,000 by the 2013-2014 school year.<\/p>\n

Guillermo Garcia, Director of Information Management, spoke about the last of the five departments. \u00a0His department\u2019s objective is to convert the employee life cycle into an information life cycle, which would collect, process, maintain, disseminate, and archive all of the OTM\u2019s data. \u00a0They want to create a data warehouse, which will be set up as a reporting tool to allow information from different departments to be integrated and linked. \u00a0These enhanced reporting capabilities would provide increased feedback on what needs improvement.<\/p>\n

To end the entire presentation, Allen, the Chief Talent Officer, restores her turn with the microphone and quickly summarizes the priorities, or as she calls them the \u201cdeliverables\u201d of the OTM. \u00a0She emphasized the need to \u201cintegrate culturally responsive pedagogy into the core instruction\u201d, and explained how the office is \u201cworking on building a diverse talent pipeline\u201d. \u00a0Her method of \u201cgrow your own\u201d relates to the concept of attracting educators with Hartford roots, like the OTM\u2019s very own Natasha Durrant, to come back and teach. \u00a0This idea is also heavily stressed in the informational video, which is more like a sales pitch, on the homepage of the Office of Talent Management’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the \u201cquestions\u201d segment after the presentation, the OTM representatives met a bit of criticism and uncertainty from the Board of Education members. \u00a0In particular, a moment of extreme tension was felt by everyone in the room when the Chairman, Poland, expressed his disdain for the term \u201chuman capital\u201d by naming it his pet peeve and saying it \u201cleaves me feeling stone cold\u2026 do not call our people \u2018human capital\u2019\u2026 seems like we\u2019re doing this for numbers and metrics, not for people\u2026doesn\u2019t feel right\u201d. \u00a0His chastisement was met with Allen\u2019s awkward understanding and follow-up defensive remark, \u201cI hope you wouldn\u2019t think that\u2019s our attitude about working with people\u201d.<\/p>\n

After several questions regarding the rate of attrition for principals, the result of potential continuous attrition of educators, and the strategy for underperforming teachers, Manginelli vaguely responded with a strategy that included making sure these underperforming teachers have what they need to move forward and progress and to make certain that principals are participating in this process of increasing teacher performance as well. \u00a0She also noted a strategy she called \u201cpeer coaching\u201d where educators from different schools and districts could meet and discuss ideas and methods of improving their performance.<\/p>\n

Although this discussion did not end in a concise manner where definitive action was decided upon, the presentation and the questions asked by the Board of Education helped clarify the main goals of the Office of Talent Management for the years to come as well as the means of attaining these goals. \u00a0Manginelli pointed out that the OTM is looking forward to working toward developing a baseline, which will not begin until the 2013-2014 school year is in session. \u00a0Even though there were some discrepancies with the implementation of the Office\u2019s goals, it is a promising attempt at future educational policy reform in the heart of Connecticut.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday, March 5, the Hartford Board of Education gathered in the library of Hartford Public High School to hold a workshop meeting. \u00a0At roughly 5:30pm, the meeting commenced with a brief introduction and expression of gratitude from the Chairman, Matthew K. Poland, to the parents, teachers, and other observers who filled the room. \u00a0After … Continue reading Hartford Office of Talent Management Seeks to Close Student Achievement Gap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4068"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4073,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions\/4073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}