Board Report 10-29-09

Curriculum

As we did last year, we have started another group through the Curriculum cycle. Year 1 consists o f Social Studies, Library Sciences, and Art. Currently these folks are working on a program "Philosophy" - trying to make sure we can answer the question, "Why do we teach Social Studies?" Then we will begin discussion of the important parts of their subject area, or Grade Level Expectations. To do this process we will rely heavily on the written Standards and Benchmarks that MISIC has established for us, while comparing them to the Iowa Core Curriculum.

Year 2 folks have been trained in the use of the Curriculum Manager ( a benefit of being a part of the MISIC group) in fact all teachers in the district have been trained somewhat in the use of the tool, and we are working with all groups toward having Unit Maps on the software, so rather than an anecdotal history, we have a written history. History in the sense of having a plan for a new teacher to come in and use to guide them through the first year they are with Earlham.

Assessment

MAP Testing went smoothly this fall, in the sense that our technology worked for us and scheduling changes went smoothly. Hard to believe that almost a month has passed since we did our final testing! During our full day in-service in September Elementary teachers had the time to do some data review and begin planning for ways they would use the data for their classrooms. High School teachers worked to become familiar with the goal setting worksheet so that they could use it when talking with their advisory groups. They have been working to meet individually with each of their advisees to talk about the results and set goals for this year. I am optimistic that this will be another way the students see the importance of taking assessments seriously. As I mentioned at the September meeting we set some "test out" cutoffs, and as a result of this saw some changes in testing from many of the students. At the present time we have 9 Students that met the Reading test out cut point, and 18 that met the Language cutoff. Look for district data to come to you soon.