February Blues

Thanks to Old Man Winter we are a bit behind in our curriculum work for 2009-2010. Due to the weather we have either missed school on Monday completely, or been released early. Not such a big deal? Well, when your curriculum meetings are scheduled on Monday nights it does become a bit of an issue. We will have to do some compacting of the work to complete our tasks -

Luckily ITBS week went off without major weather/school issues. At this point I believe we are nearing completion of makeup testing, with Friday, February 26 as our target date to return materials for scoring. Comments from staff about student participation and focus have been positive, we shall see! I certainly hope that this was the case.

Mid Year and Still Much to Do

Curriculum

Welcome to 2010! In an effort to get our feet back on the ground after break, January has been a quiet month for meetings and curriculum work. Year 1 folks continue to work on their purpose statements and Year 2 folks are entering units into the Curriculum Manager. During the January 4 professional development day all High School and Middle School staff members were required to input one unit in the software that reflected the use of Google Apps, so that forced some of our staff members to input units.

What is so important about this process is the fact that when teachers put the units in the system, we can evaluate if a benchmark is being used during the course of instruction, how many times it is taught, and at what levels. As we work toward implementing the Iowa Core Curriculum this tool is very necessary, as we will have to account for all our core benchmarks and report where they are a part of instruction.

The SIAC group has taken the month of January "off", but will reconvene for work this year in February.

Assessment

Our winter window of MAP testing started, January 12, and should finish up this week, weather permitting. I've heard good things from some of the teachers - seeing significant gains from their students from the fall to the present. Look for more details about this in months to come. The thing I am seeing is that teachers more and more are looking at this data and using it to guide their instruction, which means our students are getting the skills instruction that they need! ITBS/ITED testing is scheduled to begin February 8.

Board Report 12-16-09

Curriculum

As we work our way through the school year I am seeing good progress, albeit slow, by our teachers with the Curriculum Manager entry. By the end of the year many of our teachers will have their courses entered allowing for evaluation of the infusion of the Iowa Core Curriculum throughout all subject areas. Our schedule got tossed off a bit with the recent weather and I hope that this does not halt what progress has been made.

Shortly after the start of the school year teachers in Year 2 will begin to select materials for evaluation. We will use January and February to select and March and April to evaluate. During the evaluation process we will be referring to our established standards and benchmarks to see how closely aligned materials might be and find the best fit for our classrooms.

On a School Improvement note, the School Improvement Advisory Committee (SIAC) has met 3 times this fall, each time discussing a portion of the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP). After Christmas we will be discussing the Annual Progress Report (APR). This report is our mechanism for reporting out the progress of the school toward our CSIP goals. If you have an interest in being part of this group, you are welcome to attend. We will be meeting next, February 1 at 6:30 p.m.

Assessment

Shortly after school starts back up in January we will be taking our Mid Year MAP assessments at the Elementary school. Teachers will use the data from this assessment to readjust their instruction, student placement, and any interventions that might be taking place. The more instructional data that we have the better! February brings ITBS/ITED testing. Our scheduled testing dates are the week of February 8.

Curriculum Work Progresses - 11/13/09

Standards Work and Curriculum Mapping

It probably seems for teachers that their Curriculum work is never done, and in reality to be done correctly that is a fact. Social Studies, Art, and Library teachers across the Earlham Schools are working hard to identify the "Must Haves" for their programs, in education we refer to these types of items as "Standards". Standards are the guiding principles for the program, those things that once a student has completed the coursework they will have the skills to perform the tasks. These tasks look different for different grade levels - Kindergarten, Third grade, Middle School, and High School classes all may teach students about their community, but the expectations for students to reach the skills of a standard are very different. These are called "Benchmarks".

Why is this relevant to the Curriculum work being done in Earlham? Each year a different group of instructional areas go through Curriculum Review, reviewing their purpose statement, the standards for the core area, and their benchmarks. For this year Social Studies, Art, and Library are in the midst of this process. The groups meet once a month (first Monday) to discuss their "homework" for the month and answer any questions about procedures and the expected outcomes. Our next meeting will be Monday, December 7 at 3:25.

Teachers in the second year of the review cycle (Year 2) are inputting their curriculum content into a curriculum mapping software. This software allows us to analyze the content of classes and we can identify areas of need within our standards and benchmarks. The software is not new to our district, but we have not utilized it to the full extent possible. As teachers cycle through the 6 year Curriculum process they will be utilizing this tool as a historical document. Because of the amount of turnover our district typically experiences having historical records of what has been taught and when it was taught is a very important step. We will now have data for new teachers to our district, to show the way things have been taught ( the order of the year) and allow them to focus on instruction, and not curriculum development.

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.

Board Report 05-20-09

Curriculum

Year 1 folks have completed the activities and requirements for the year and I am now working on plans to move the group to the Year 2 phase. We have accellerated the K - 2 group and will be looking to purchase materials to augment literacy for the fall, rather than waiting until the 10-11 school year. This will get some much needed supports in the hands of our teachers sooner, as well as take a little strain off the budget as we look at text/material adoptions for 10-11. The focus of the Iowa Core has allowed for powerful discussions.

Year 2 folks are selecting materials for adoption at this point, with the orders needing to be submitted before they leave on Friday. FCS/Health, Industrial Tech, Business Ed, Spanish, and Information Tech are due on our schedule and have worked with me setting up their selections.

Assessment

The standardized testing season is now officially complete. We learn a little more each time we administer MAP and I think the things we learn are showing in performance at the different grade levels, as is evidenced in Jason's report. What great gains many of our students have made throughout the year! What is nice about this is as one of our measures of success it reflects the teachers impressions of their classrooms and what they have observed throughout the year as students have worked on different skill areas. As we experience this success with increasing numbers it will be the charge of the different leadership teams in the buildings to readjust goals and targets to continue to challenge our students.

Due to user error (mine:)) we have not been able to take a look at the ITBS/ITED data this spring, but will do so this fall as part of our back to school professional development. I have sent the data to Marian Godwin to do her yearly work and update of our progress, and hope to have information to share with the board by the June meeting.

Board Report 04-08-09

Curriculum

Year 1 worked on the second Literacy portion of the Iowa Core. This month the discussion/decisions focus on writing. For those groups that know their standards and benchmarks this is a pretty quick process. For those that don’t it tends to take a little longer. I met with 2 different groups last month between meetings to help them complete the task and anticipate the same need this time.
Year 2 folks are working on gathering materials for review. When we get back from break we will begin the process of evaluating materials. We will spend a day after school practicing, then I will turn them loose to find the best matches curriculum wise. Before ordering texts/materials the teacher must support their decision based on facts brought out from the process and a match to their standards and benchmarks.

Assessment

MAP testing is coming up in 3 weeks. I’m looking forward to the testing season to see how we have improved as a district this year. Testing begins for all grades April 20th, with 9-12 taking the weekend “off” (Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday) due to prom and other activities. We should have everything wrapped up by May 8.