Dear XXX,
What thoughtful questions! I will do my best to answer them. I am currently principal at Fisher Mitchell School, but previously served as K-12 Curriculum Coordinator for the district. In that capacity I worked with at team of K-5 teachers from U47 and Bath schools who volunteered to design a common RSU 1 elementary report card back in spring '08. At that time we looked at models from numerous other districts as well as a draft card that a committee had been working on in U47. THe card can best be described as standards-referenced. For each academic subject area a student gets an overall Effort rating, and then ratings on specific skills or processes within that subject area. The ratings indicate whether a student MEETS expectations for his/her grade level for that time in the year, EXCEEDS expectations, PARTIALLY MEETS them, or DOES NOT meet them.
This provides parents with much more specific information about students strengths and weaknesses than a global letter grade of A,B,C which is usually obtained by averaging grades on assignments or tests over a period of time. For example, on an letter scale a student who does really well at the beginning of the term on one skill area but was much weaker at the end of the term on another skill area would get the same grade as a student who scores fairly well on both (B or C ). Standards referenced ratings would show that the student EXCEEDED standards on the first skill area but only PARTIALLY met standards on the second skill area.
Although grade level teams have continued to refine some items & calibrate scoring of different items, the K-5 Report Card has not changed in any significant way over the first three years of the RSU. The items are aligned with the Maine Learning Results and RSU 1 Curriculum. Last year Mr. Shuttleworth convened a K-12 Standards-based Grading Committee to study and plan for transitioning to standards-based grading at all levels. Meanwhile, the Common Core standards were developed, so as a first step, staff have developed RSU #1 standards for math and language arts, K-12. They are not posted yet on the website as staff at some grade levels are still are in the final stages of review/revision. Kari Babcock, principal at Phippsburg has been a key leader for this work.
However, a chart of District Assessments can be viewed on the RSU 1 Website under Depts. Curriculum. Yes, the NWEA and the DRA2 are definitely used as formative assessments for planning instruction as well as to assess student growth.
As the district moves forward in designing a standards-based system, it is definitely important to include parents and community. It's likely we'll get to that point this spring, although the district level Committee has not started the system design work yet this year. A live and/or online forum with Q & A are on the list of possible ways to include parents that were discussed last spring. We'd welcome your involvement when we get to that point.
Sincerely,
Nancy Harriman
Nancy Harriman, Ph.D.
Principal
Fisher Mitchell School
597 High St.
Bath, Maine 04530
Tel. (207)443-8265
Fax (207)443-4167
>>> 'XXXXX Concerned Parent' 11/4/2010 1:46 PM >>>
Hi William-
I understand that the school board will be discussing implementation of the number grade system at the middle school level. Betsy Varian had indicated that this is tied in with Standard Based Learning. My understanding of Standard Based Learning is that this provides a way for children with learning differences to receive differentiated instruction within the classroom setting. Is there a tie between that and the number grade system? I was unable to find a link between the two when searching the web. Can you provide me with this information so that I can have a better understanding of it's purpose? From my perspective, the 4-number grading system is more vague than the range (of 15) that is used with the letter grade system.
Also, where can I find grade level benchmarks for RSU1 and info. on the core school-based assessments that are given at each grade level. I was surprised to learn at my daughter's 4th grade conference that the only formal assessments given this year were the NWEAs. Do the NWEAs provide info. data to drive individual student instruction? Not even a DRA was done this fall because 'XXX student name' was on grade level in the Spring.
Before the school board votes on a possible new grading system, I think it would be helpful if parents were given the opportunity to attend a question/ answer forum on the matter. I feel with the consolodation, parents are less informed and are becoming less of a part of the decision making process.
Thank you,
XXX
Concerned Parent (Private individuals names removed, any parent could ask same questions.)
I find it interesting to have a web site that is supposedly made up concerned parents in the Midcoast region, but not one of those parents chooses to identify themselves in this blog. Who is in charge of this committee? Who manages and and updates this blog? What parents belong to this organization? Why are all comments anonymous? How do we know whether all of the comments aren't being made by the same person? Please parents, step forward and identify yourselves.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of transparency in our local public education administrations is cause for grave concern. There are many parents in RSU1 and RSU2, as well as other areas, who regularly attend and speak at local School Board meetings. Those parents represent many other parents who are not comfortable speaking publicly but share their concerns privately.
ReplyDeleteVirtually all parents fear repercussions to their children from the Administration(s). Parents want to share information in a forum , such as this blog, as it ensures access to solid information including its' source while also ensuring their child suffers no retribution for the opinion of the parent(s). Parents will be more comfortable openly disclosing their thoughts when we achieve transparency in the school administration.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWe understand symbolic logic and the construction of logical arguements. We do not understand your application of arguementative logic in this comment and believe it is tangential. This post is a real letter from a real parent requesting information from the administration and the administration's response -- there is no interpretation made by anyone, just the facts.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct in that it may be tangential, but that fault lies in the construction of this blog site. There is no general forum discussion section. A person is forced to plug in his or her comments under whatever category he or she may be in at the time. This problem could be solved if on the home page there was a section created for general comments.
ReplyDeleteWe're a group of parents trying to get our arms around the education conundrum so that we make good decisions with and for our children. We find it preferable to have people comment directly on the facts presented in an article, formulate questions for discussion based on the article, etc. That parents or others report they fear retribution from the administration appears to be the legitimate feeling of those commenters; founded or unfounded, if they percieve reason to be concerned about retribution, it is real for them and they should not be ostrasized for their feelings, which seems the focus of the author of the 11/23/10 and 12/2/10 comments. Mid Coast Parents Forum will continue to provide a wide variety of articles and information focused on education that may be of interest to parents and is not presently considering any changes to our format. We will review the suggestion (general comments section) at our next meeting. We encourage every citizen to do their own research and draw their own conclusions.
ReplyDelete