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To: School Board Members of Fairfield, SATEC, and St. Albans City and Interested People
From: Sara Denny, Curriculum Director
Re: Summary of ’05-’06 Curriculum Work
Date: May 22, 2006
The Curriculum Implementation Committee has been intact since I came to this job. They hear from me about the work of the other Task Forces. Their charge is to give thoughts, opinions, and guidance about the direction we take as a supervisory union about curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This year’s focus has been Common Local Assessment, required by the School Quality Standards.
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School BFA Central Office Beth Curtis Helen Lanthier Georgie Andrews Laura Gonyeau Jean Prindle Brian DuPrat Shelia McKennerney Paula Brouillette Marty Richards Sandi Stanhope The Literacy Task Force has worked on Common Local Assessment with a boost from the City School experience of being a Reading First School. This means they have received a grant to re-design how reading instruction is delivered. Other requirements are 1) to focus on grades K – 2 and 2) to adopt a core reading program – all teachers use the same resource series to teach reading and 3) to have a reading curriculum in place by September 2006.
The Task Force’s focus on assessment has led to a rough draft plan for those assessments that all of our K - 8 FCSU schools will agree to field test during ’06-’07. For literacy these are generally published assessments that will give information to teachers to help plan differentiated instruction for their students. (Differentiated Instruction refers to planning strategies to fit different learning styles.) Teachers of the same grade level across the district will be able to collaborate about effective ways to teach based on what they learn from test results. This is a huge step forward. We anticipate that teachers will find that not much will change for them; however, we will have data we can share in ways that are meaningful about teaching strategies for all students.
Task Force work remaining includes 1) finishing a final draft of the curriculum, 2) publishing a final assessment plan, and 3) distribution to all teachers and administrators so that people can plan for this field test year.
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School BFA Linda Smith Helen Lanthier Leslie Colomb Mary Cavanaugh Wendy Scott Laurie Ely Paula Brouillette Jan Irish Kate Pelkey Deb Plant Thyra Guillmette Deb Bushey Jackie Richardson Rachel Warren The Mathematics Task Force approached their charge of common local assessment by looking at assessments from the newly adopted programs, Investigations (Grades K – 4), and Connected Math (Grades 6 – 8). We have relied heavily on these resources as the filter for what we teach and assess, occasionally finding that they are not a perfect match with the VT Standards.
At this time, we have one work session remaining to finalize the agreed-upon assessments for grade levels, and these are assessments that do match the VT Standards and the Grade Level Expectations. Information we gather from these assessments, along with feedback from the New England Comprehensive Assessment Program (NECAP), will help us focus our math curriculum as a next step in this process. Many teachers remark on the value of having conversations with same-grade teachers from the other schools.
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School BFA Parent Janice Airoldi Sue Wright Allison Dean Laura Gonyeau Jim Farr Rett Pigeon Heather Hoben Sandi Stanhope Sue Burton-Kelly Colleen Edelstein John Cioffi Joy Walsh Dayl Walther The Science Task Force selected the Scientific Method (VT Standard 6.9, which includes Observation, Questioning, Making Hypotheses, and Formulating Conclusions) as a point of entry. This group worked with consultant Mark Skelding and learned much about writing rubrics as a tool both for assessing progress and for designing instruction and assessments. In doing the assessment work, this group started with sets of rubrics. The next work is to field test some agreed-upon assessments in the Scientific Method, K – 8, and share results by looking at student work and agreeing about where the work places on the rubric. There is enthusiasm for science among our teachers, due in large part to the exciting summer work many of them did in the last several years. Students catch this excitement. We are looking to link the science curriculum more closely with the VT Standards and Grade Expectations, and these rubrics are the shared format that will get us there. NECAP’s focus on literacy and math have encroached on time that used to be devoted to science. Teachers feel this pressure of having less time to devote to science.
We have accomplished having a plan in place. The next work for the task force is to duplicate the rubric work for two other standards that the task force members agree are the most powerful standards in science (often called “power standards”).
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School BFA Parent Dick Pigeon Shelia McKennerney Stacie Rouleau Jennifer Kennison Paula Esenler Maureen Thompson Paula McCormick Denise Provost Mary Kropelin Heather Lamson Linda Lambesis Keith Peterson Daphne Hebert Harry Gleim The Social Studies Task Force has chosen power standards for grades K - 12 and is working on the skills of writing rubrics and designing assessments that are well measured by the rubrics. They feel the same time crunch that science has, because more time is being devoted to literacy and math since results in these 2 areas contribute to the decision about a school’s making or not making Adequate Yearly Progress. We have an assessment plan ready to meet the September 2006 deadline.
Our next work is to field test the shared rubrics, using assessments measured by the rubrics, looking at student work together and deciding where on the rubric the work places (called “calibration”). Next year’s work will result in specific assessments at the grade levels. Work beyond that will focus the curriculum so that teachers can dig deeper into the topics they teach and not be stressed by having to cover vast amounts of material.
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School BFA Shawn Stebbins Jennifer Callahan Bill Gorman Justin Bedell Stacey Tully Dave Davidson Bilijean Smith Laura Gonyeau Marty Richards Kathy Williams Vicki McDonald “Curriculum Opportunities for Students” refers to what happens in classrooms! In the task force meetings we are learning about how assessment takes many forms, not all of which are paper and pencil tests. Teachers share ideas back and forth about what works well for them as they watch students practice new learning. We want to keep students engaged in the learning and not conscious that assessment is going on. Teachers need to assess student progress of course to make decisions about what to teach next and how to teach it.
As principals observe teachers to evaluate them, they become knowledgeable about what’s going on instructionally, and the evaluation gives that teacher feedback from the principal about it.
In my role as Curriculum Director, I am able to do “walk-throughs,” sometimes called “learning walks,” so that I can get glimpses of how instruction and curriculum look in action. I do not make evaluative decisions about teachers – after all, I am only there for a 10 minute visit. I do look for evidence of what we call “best practices” about teaching and learning. Two examples of this are 1) teaching with a clear and obvious purpose and even the students can tell me the purpose, and 2) evidence of previous student learning around the room. When I find best practices in place, I write a complimentary note to the teacher at the bottom of my list of notes, which I photocopy and leave with the teacher. This year I have done walk-throughs at SATEC, City School, and Fairfield Center School. Next year I plan to expand to all of the FCSU schools. The information I gather gets processed with the principals with the goal of shaping meaningful professional development for teachers about instruction and curriculum.
The Reporting Committee is the capstone group. It is this group that makes recommendations to administrators about the report card forms and the progress reports. Becoming standards-based is required by the VT Department of Education and the federal DOE. (Federal funds are withheld if school do not use approved research based resources based on national or state standards.) This means that we gear instruction to give students practice to become proficient at a standard. This shift in thinking (away from an individual teacher’s decisions about what is important to teach and toward mandated standards) causes us to look differently at how we grade students. We want to send home report cards that parents can easily read and that tell parents how their student does in comparison to the standards.
Our reporting committee has worked for years to develop an effective report card. This year we worked with consultant Mark Skelding to align our report cards with the good practices we are learning about standards based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. One school has a group of teachers who are enthusiastic about focusing on field-testing 4 power standards. The plan is to design a page to insert into our current report card to send home to parents with feedback on student progress throughout the year. We believe this pilot year will result in feedback from parents, students, and teachers that we can use to finalize a sturdy system for use across the SU for grades K – 8.
Membership on this committee is
Fairfield SATEC City School Stacey Tully Diane Bruley James Dupont Laurie Ely Lisa Curry Jennifer Callahan Heather Lamson We have put in a tremendous amount of work on meeting the mandate of having a plan for Common Local Assessment by September 2006. We have gone beyond the goal in many ways. As the task force work comes together, the parts of the whole fall nicely into place, each from a little different angle, as developed by the task force dynamic. The work is very gratifying. The communication with teachers is excellent – not always stress-free, but we are very clear on what issues are upper-most in the minds of our teachers. My work for next year is to move to the level of field-testing assessments. My challenge is to strike that balance that ‘disturbs people at a pace they can tolerate.’ So far, this collaborative work has been productive and satisfying. I would not devote this much time to the project if I did not firmly believe that it will improve curriculum, instruction, and student learning.