Curriculum audit identifies areas of improvement at JCPS

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LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – An auditor presented his team's findings to the Jefferson County School Board Monday night. The results from the Curriculum Management Audit showed board members certain areas of the district that needed to be improved.

This audit was very extensive. The complete report is more than 500 pages long. It includes 24 findings and ten recommendations.

Since August, auditors have been pouring through documents, visiting the more than 150 schools in the district, and interviewing teachers, students, and parents.

"Our finding is that we visited all of the schools and the schools are working hard," said Dr. John Murdoch, lead auditor. "There's people with good, real intent."

From policy, to planning and curriculum, to financial management, this in depth audit took a look at every aspect of JCPS, coming up with several recommendations.

One of the first findings, Dr. Murdoch says is Jefferson County Public Schools are generally better than the public thinks. Through research he says the public did show a lack of trust in the district's ability to conduct a high quality curriculum to students. Murdoch urged the board that by changing the experience, the perception will change.

"We found no reason for the public to abandon their school system," said Murdoch.

However auditors found the written curriculum that is being taught is below grade level, especially in middle and high schools.

"What they need because of the sophistication of No Child Left Behind and the tests that are given is teachers need support from the district level in terms of making sure the curriculum is deeply aligned," said Murdoch.

The audit shows that the least experienced teachers were teaching in the most high risk schools. It strongly suggested that the board look to ways to change that.

"It wasn't about people coming to tell us what we are doing right, it was about telling the truth about where we are relative to those standards," said Dr. Donna Hargens, JCPS Superintendent.

Dr. Hargens says she plans to be transparent in this process and get started right away.

"Moving towards having user friendly resources for teachers, no matter what school a student goes to," said Hargens. "They will have equal access to the same high quality curriculum."

It will be up to the school board to decide to approve the recommendations. Dr. Murdoch says it will take about 36 months to get the results from the changes made.

For a closer look at what the audit reveals, the complete report can be found, here.