Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Returning students
More than anytime of year, we get to see “old friends” at this time of year as graduates filter through SKHS just before the Thanksgiving and Holiday breaks. It’s a great time of year for the adults in the building as we get to hear first hand about the experiences and changing perspectives of young adults, many of whom last year were focused on continuing "what worked" in their high school experience rather than searching for new ones. To a person they now feel far removed from high school; they talk about college, work and travel. The returning young adults are impacted most by those experiences which have taken them outside of their comfort zone; working as an Americorps volunteer, traveling to South Africa, going to a college in a different part of the country, competing in a sport at the college level or working a 40 hour a week job. Sometimes the challenges are academic in nature; someone confronting the realization that a specific career path is not what she really wants to do or discovering that even though he never had thought about it before, he loves the vibe of the drama department. In many cases, the failures or having to make tough choices are where the growth occurs. Coming back home can provide recent graduates perspective, having moved out of what had been their reality only four months ago. While we often hear from kids that they feel ahead of the game in many of their introductory classes at the college level, I know that we can provide more opportunities to take kids out of their comfort zone to confront their assumptions and beliefs both in and out of the classroom while they are at SKHS. We are making some progress in this area: there is an opportunity right now for students to organize a trip to Morocco a year from now, and a fledgling school-to-career program will provide some of our students an opportunity to intern at local businesses during second semester. Beyond the academic challenges, I hope we can provide other authentic experiences and opportunities for our students so they can gain additional perspective, like the ones we hear about when we chat with our visiting alumnae.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Commissioner's Review
Last Thursday, ten educators from across the state and Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) officials spent the day talking to administrators, teachers, counselors and students at South Kingstown High School about our proficiency-based diploma system. For the past four years, all high schools across the state have been required to periodically provide evidence that they are moving towards such a system. The state has been very comprehensive in laying out guidelines for all schools regarding system implementation. They have asked us to demonstrate that we are providing access and opportunity for all students, our courses are aligned to state and local standards, the system is fair, clear and understandable graduation standards have been set and articulated, and students have sufficient opportunity to achieve those standards. They want to know how we are supporting struggling readers, providing time for teachers to collaborate, and how data is utilized to inform decisions. The complete matrix of expectations can be found at: http://www.ridoe.net/highschoolreform/DOCS/Commissioner's%20Review/CR_Criteria_2010.pdf
The visit last Thursday represents an effort on the part of the state to not only examine documentation submitted by the district but to hear from the people in the building to determine if what is submitted as evidence matches up with what is actually happening in the school. The visiting committee first met with high school, middle school (many of the regulations initially targeting the high school are now required of middle schools) and district administrators to talk in more general terms about the diploma system. The visiting committee then split into two groups, one which focused on personalization and the other on assessment & proficiency. Both groups met with administrators & department chairs, teachers and school counselors, and students around these topics. In the personalization strand, students were asked to describe how they felt the school personalized their learning experience; they opened up their Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) and described the process. Counselors and teachers were asked about their role in personalizing education for students and administrators were queried about the personalization structures embedded within the high school and middle school such as advisory. The visiting committee members who focused on assessment & proficiency asked students to open up their portfolios and describe the supports and processes related to the portfolio; all of the groups were asked how they knew whether or not work was proficient. Teachers were asked about the opportunities available to collaborate and the process the school utilized to identify student learning gaps and what steps were taken to address them. After meeting with each of the groups, the entire visiting team convened as a whole group to review the electronic and paper evidence we had provided. Two days ago, we received the results of the visit. The report recognized the areas where we need to improve such as creating a more developed systemic response to intervene when students are not meeting with success. At the end of the report, they commended the school in the following areas:
CPT: South Kingstown’s CPT design and structure at both the high school and middle level is focused on student learning with a high level of accountability that fosters collaborative team work to increase student achievement.
Leadership: South Kingstown demonstrates a leadership structure that clearly supports and coordinates the implementation and sustainment of their Diploma System. All key stakeholders share a common vision for the district and this vision permeates their district. The infrastructure at South Kingstown robustly promotes collegiality and school improvement within the district.
South Kingstown’s strategic thinking about their Diploma System, their systemic vision and their data analysis drives their decision making and practices for the district. Both the middle and the high school levels share common goals, communicate effectively and are actively involved in promoting best practices to ensure their student success and demonstration of proficiency.
South Kingstown has many innovative supports to parents and students (i.e. Guidance-Wednesday Nights Open to Parents; Wednesday morning tutoring; summer programming for remediation or credit recovery, etc.).
There is an unmistakable collegiality among the staff and a sense of singular purpose regarding the Diploma System: i.e. the use of content departments to validate local assessments; SK 101 classes; Guidance and Advisors working on ILP. Both students and staff are keenly aware of the graduation expectations and are working in tandem to reach these goals.
I thought the best feedback we got though came from a comment that was relayed to Kristin Klenk, our PBGR Coordinator and the architect and driving force behind our PBGR system. Kristin wrote to the faculty, Sixteen students, 4 from each class, were interviewed by a group of visiting educators yesterday, as part of the site visit. At the end of the day, one of the lead facilitators asked me to provide further information about the students. How many had IEPS, 504's or are recieving free and reduced lunch. They had wanted to meet with a diverse group of students. As it turns out 2 of the students have IEPs, 2 504's, 2 F/R lunch, and 1 takes literacy enhancement. They were amazed, and the facilitator said, "this is a good thing"! They thought we had stacked the group with all our high honors kids and they couldn't pick out the "others".
After all is said and done, the students are the ones who provide us the clearest perspective on our work and as they do more often than not, they impressed last Thursday.
The visit last Thursday represents an effort on the part of the state to not only examine documentation submitted by the district but to hear from the people in the building to determine if what is submitted as evidence matches up with what is actually happening in the school. The visiting committee first met with high school, middle school (many of the regulations initially targeting the high school are now required of middle schools) and district administrators to talk in more general terms about the diploma system. The visiting committee then split into two groups, one which focused on personalization and the other on assessment & proficiency. Both groups met with administrators & department chairs, teachers and school counselors, and students around these topics. In the personalization strand, students were asked to describe how they felt the school personalized their learning experience; they opened up their Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) and described the process. Counselors and teachers were asked about their role in personalizing education for students and administrators were queried about the personalization structures embedded within the high school and middle school such as advisory. The visiting committee members who focused on assessment & proficiency asked students to open up their portfolios and describe the supports and processes related to the portfolio; all of the groups were asked how they knew whether or not work was proficient. Teachers were asked about the opportunities available to collaborate and the process the school utilized to identify student learning gaps and what steps were taken to address them. After meeting with each of the groups, the entire visiting team convened as a whole group to review the electronic and paper evidence we had provided. Two days ago, we received the results of the visit. The report recognized the areas where we need to improve such as creating a more developed systemic response to intervene when students are not meeting with success. At the end of the report, they commended the school in the following areas:
CPT: South Kingstown’s CPT design and structure at both the high school and middle level is focused on student learning with a high level of accountability that fosters collaborative team work to increase student achievement.
Leadership: South Kingstown demonstrates a leadership structure that clearly supports and coordinates the implementation and sustainment of their Diploma System. All key stakeholders share a common vision for the district and this vision permeates their district. The infrastructure at South Kingstown robustly promotes collegiality and school improvement within the district.
South Kingstown’s strategic thinking about their Diploma System, their systemic vision and their data analysis drives their decision making and practices for the district. Both the middle and the high school levels share common goals, communicate effectively and are actively involved in promoting best practices to ensure their student success and demonstration of proficiency.
South Kingstown has many innovative supports to parents and students (i.e. Guidance-Wednesday Nights Open to Parents; Wednesday morning tutoring; summer programming for remediation or credit recovery, etc.).
There is an unmistakable collegiality among the staff and a sense of singular purpose regarding the Diploma System: i.e. the use of content departments to validate local assessments; SK 101 classes; Guidance and Advisors working on ILP. Both students and staff are keenly aware of the graduation expectations and are working in tandem to reach these goals.
I thought the best feedback we got though came from a comment that was relayed to Kristin Klenk, our PBGR Coordinator and the architect and driving force behind our PBGR system. Kristin wrote to the faculty, Sixteen students, 4 from each class, were interviewed by a group of visiting educators yesterday, as part of the site visit. At the end of the day, one of the lead facilitators asked me to provide further information about the students. How many had IEPS, 504's or are recieving free and reduced lunch. They had wanted to meet with a diverse group of students. As it turns out 2 of the students have IEPs, 2 504's, 2 F/R lunch, and 1 takes literacy enhancement. They were amazed, and the facilitator said, "this is a good thing"! They thought we had stacked the group with all our high honors kids and they couldn't pick out the "others".
After all is said and done, the students are the ones who provide us the clearest perspective on our work and as they do more often than not, they impressed last Thursday.
Friday, December 4, 2009
While the kids had a day off . . .
Today, December 2nd, South Kingstown High School students enjoyed a middle-of-the-week vacation while teachers came to school for one of their two professional development days. Professional development (PD) days are scheduled so that teachers, administrators and support staff can have a significant chunk of time to address pressing issues in the district or building. Today’s PD day was divided into three parts: for the first part of the day, teachers met departmentally; we extended common planning time which normally takes place for 45 minutes on Wednesday mornings to 90 minutes (see the blog entry from 6/18/09 for more on CPT). After we briefly met as a group for time to review the rest of the day and provide some necessary background information, teachers spent time learning a new online grading system, one which has the capacity to allow parents to access teacher gradebooks for their child. While there are no immediate plans to implement the parent component, we wanted to give teachers a primer on the system and have them consider using it as a way to more efficiently track student performance. The final segment of the day was spent examining different sets of student achievement data such as grade distribution charts which graphed student achievement by teacher, course and department using first quarter grades. Teachers also were provided a list identifying at-risk students as defined by grades, attendance and/or discipline. Teachers also could view formative assessment data that we have gathered in the fall through assessing ninth and tenth graders using the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment which provides specific data on student strengths and weaknesses in reading and math. We asked teachers to examine the data and identify trends in student achievement and develop instructional strategies to address the trends in student performance. This type of work, examining ways to improve classroom practice, is already a central component of teachers’ lives through their TLC meetings (I wrote about TLCs on 10/9/09). At the end of the day, we met to provide teachers an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the day. In reviewing the evaluations, it was clear that teachers loved the extended CPT time and most were very excited and impressed by the on-line grading software. Teachers were more critical of the module where they examined student data, identifying concerns about the efficacy of the MAP data (is it accurate data since many kids don’t try?) as well as pointing to lack of student effort on homework and attendance being major factors in student performance which makes it difficult to examine instructional strategies to push kids forward. Of course the most positive comments were reserved for our wonderful Parent Teacher Group, who served homemade soup, sandwiches and dessert for our lunch break!
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