Pat Puleo, Director
On Patricia Puleo’s first site visit as an improvement coach to a Norwalk elementary school, she sensed the anger and frustration in the room. Puleo knew the teachers felt that the school’s low Academic Performance Index (API) score was due to factors beyond their control.
Drawing on her decades of experience as a classroom teacher, counselor, and principal, Puleo won the teachers’ confidence. If teachers were willing to make some key changes, their kids could really soar.
Her patience and persistence paid off. In one year, their API went up 100 points, and the following year they gained another 80. One teacher told Puleo, “You were the only one who believed in us—when we didn”t even believe in ourselves.”
As director of instructional support services for the Fullerton School
District, Puleo used data analysis to create more rigorous programs for students. As a principal she developed innovative programs, including the Brain Compatible Instructional program, which was adopted districtwide. When her students in that program went on to high school, they achieved the highest SAT scores ever in the district.
Puleo’s common sense approach makes her an invaluable resource to educational professionals and parents alike. From 1998 to 2001, she coauthored with Jim Cox the popular School Wise Press column “Measuring Up,” answering parents’ questions about using data to select the best schools for their children. “However, a school is a lot more than a number,” Puleo explained, as she encouraged parents to look at many factors—the experience level of the faculty, special education programs, how the school writes its Individualized Education Plans (IEP), and the structure and philosophy of the school's programs—when making choices.
For five years, Puleo was an external evaluator and consultant for the California Department of Education, evaluating more than 20 schools in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, giving her insight into how varied districts operated. Puleo encourages educators to ask, “What does the data tell us about what we need to do differently?”
Puleo has authored numerous articles on assessment and accountability from the practitioner’s perspective, and has been honored by the Orange County CSLA, the California Council on the Education of Teachers, and the California PTA.
One Los Angeles superintendent praised Puleo’s methods in creating a strategic plan for the high school district: “She brought us together and gave us focus.”
