sábado, 28 de marzo de 2020

March 28, 2020

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Kudos
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  • Kudos to all of our staff as everyone came in on Monday and Tuesday (March 16 & 17) eager to figure out this new world of education we are currently in at this time, moving to virtual learning.  
    • Seriously... everyone was amazing and very thoughtful and offering ideas throughout our time together to ensure all of our students have the technology along with materials and supplies they need to work from home.  
    • You all did an amazing job putting together thoughtful lessons during week one and the feedback from Karcher students and families was that they work load felt pretty appropriate when we are striving for about 3 hours of work per day for students (20-25 minutes of work per class).  
  • Kudos to Jack Schmidt for surveying his classes to see how they are doing after week one of virtual learning.  
    • This is a great way for us to gain feedback from our students so that we can tailor our work load to meet our students needs.  
    • It will continue to be a world of tweaking and adjusting as we strive to provide students with the Essential Skills and related outcomes as if we were still at school with them.  
  • Thank you to Molly Ebbers and Suzanne Dunbar for your time looking for additional resources and tools for staff and students!  All of these have been linked to the first page of our Karcher Calendar, so that, if you are looking for additional support or ideas you know where you can look! 
    • If anyone else comes up with some great tools that could assist others, please refrain from sending an email to all staff with the information and send it to myself or Annie.  We will then add it as a link on the first page so that staff know where they can go if they are looking for any help!  As we all know, to many ideas and information coming at us all at once can be daunting!  So... to streamline things please send it to Annie or I... or to Suzanne and she can also add things to the library link on the Karcher Calendar.  
  • Thank you to our BLT staff who have come together twice now, once over spring break, to talk through a few things to ensure we really do what is best for students and staff at Karcher!  Thank you all for our time, thoughts, and ideas!  It is cool to see the full team come together at a moments notice!  Thank you!  
"Article" this week:  Relating to Google Meets for BASD.  

 Please read THIS document as it is the important information to be thinking about IF you are wanting to use video conferencing... this is a working document and may be subject to change, written by Scott Christensen.   Know that these pieces of information from Scott/BASD are here to protect you and students!  
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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog!
  • We did meet this past Thursday, March 26th!
Important information:

  • 3rd term information:  
    • Term 3 will be ending, as we shared when we saw you last, on March 13. Everything entered after March 13 will count for term 4. This went to the board and was approved as well for K-12.
    • Make sure you post grades for term 3 by April 3 at 3:00!!!
  • 4th term information: 
    • As a school district we have decided to go with pass/fail for term 4.  
    • When talking with BLT about this the consensus was to continue to enter grades into Skyward as you would as that feels "normal" to students and gives them more feedback as to their level of understanding. It also is what staff are used to doing as well.
    • The "why" for pass/fail is to ensure we take some pressure off of chasing a grade when students are in a new world of learning. We want students to simply focus on learning and not worry about their final grade! So... please ensure you assist any students/families that are concerned about their students grade by sharing that we are intentionally going pass/fail to take the pressure off of "the grade" and keep the focus on "the learning".
    • You might ask... so what will it look like at the end of the term... the answer... we will figure it out when we get there!
  • Video conferencing with students:
    • It was clear across the district that staff were wanting the ability to video conference with students, therefore, staff are able to use Google Meets ONLY at this time with students.
    • Just because you can use Google Meets does not mean you have to use Google Meets with students. The expectation to use it is simply... not there.
    • We did create THIS schedule for Google Meets as we want to make sure staff do not overlap on the times they are on Google Meets with students, the overlap could cause students to feel stressed out so we will not be overlapping any Google Meets. Therefore, please use this schedule to put yourself down if you are wanting to use Google Meets.
      • The video conferencing schedule is also linked on the Karcher Calendar (first page) for this week and the following week. We will evaluate as we go and perhaps change if needed but want to try this for at least this week and potentially keep it the same the following week. Will talk with teams/BLT throughout the week to see how it is going.
    • Also... there are two ways BLT saw the use of Google Meets... we are sure there are others:
      • One... giving new instruction.  
        • However, it was also decided that you would need to screencastify this as you cannot have the expectation that all students will be available at the time you are giving the new instruction. By recording, students will have the ability to watch when they can.
      • Two... clarify or answer questions.
        • This could be a good way for students to have some "face to face" interaction with you in order to understand what they are learning.
    • Josh Dow did email out how to set up a Google Meet ahead of time. I added that link to the Karcher Calendar (left side). Again... this would need to align with the video conferencing schedule.
    • And... please make sure you talk with students about properly using Google Meets! Before using Google Meets please make sure you read the "article" document above from Scott Christensen. Not like this video...
  • Team Meetings:
    • Annie and I will meet with all teams throughout the week. I did add a time slot for interventionists/ESL.
    • Please look at the team meeting schedule to know when your team/you are needed.
    • BLT... we will continue to hold meetings, weekly, after we have our district meetings. I will send an invite for each meeting. I don't want to have a set date because our district meetings are not usually set.
    • Again... see Karcher Calendar for team meeting document. 
  • Needed items at Karcher
    • If you are in desperate need to get any items from Karcher please text or email me and we can set up a very brief period of time for you to come and get something. This is not a desired task within the district, especially with the "safe at home" order.
  • Materials for students starting April 6
    • Because we had initially planned to be virtual through April 3 we understand you did not make plans farther out than April 3.
    • If there are items you would need copied or picked up by students please add your name and materials needed to this document. (as always... on the Karcher Calendar)
      • Also... think of items that may be needed from April 6 through April 24 to limit the necessary times for pick up, etc.
      • If you think you need to add information to the document have at it! I simply created "something" to get an idea of what is needed. If the table doesn't make sense to you to put your needs down then add your needs however you see fit to the document! Just trying to keep it all in once place versus keeping track of emails from staff.  
    • This will help us have a better understanding if there is anything at all from Karcher staff that needs to get to students.
    • Annie and I will have a better feel of the students who are not engaging and what their needs are once we make contact with them this coming week. It may be where only a few students need copies of things due to a lack of internet access, etc. Be thinking about which students that might be and what they might need.
    • It is not something that is expected. The more we can stay virtual with less need to coordinate pick ups and drop offs the better! But... if there are things needed we can take care of the copying, etc at Karcher to ensure minimal staff are in the building.
  • Pictures of our story...
    • As we work through this week please capture any moments in time that could show the work our staff and students are doing! It would be great to have the ability to continue to post the awesomeness of Karcher!
      • Send anything you capture to me and I will post it!
    • I did talk with Annie as well about continuing The Medal of Awesome throughout this time frame. So... if you have it please nominate a student and perhaps do a Google Meet so that you and the student show up on your computer to take a screenshot (command - shift - 4). Or think of another way to get a picture of the student "by" you! If you know who has it because you gave it to them last please reach out to them to continue the awesomeness!
    • Let's continue to show what we do even through virtual learning!
  • District things to know...
    • Please continue to pay attention to the updates/emails from Dr. Plank. One really awesome thing noted in the updates is that all staff will be paid throughout the public emergency!
      • This is one example of why BASD is awesome! And... our board is showing their support of all staff within BASD, simply awesome!
    • So... keep paying attention to the updates!
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Pictures...
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Hopefully we have pictures to post for next week's blog!  

By -

domingo, 8 de marzo de 2020

March 9. 2020

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Kudos
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  • Thank you to Eric Sulik and Ryan Hoffman for coming with to PHlab in Elkhorn and Lab Midwest in Mequon.  We attended both with Connie Zinnen and Dr. Steve Plank as we work to develop a strong STEAM program for the new 6-8 grade middle school!  
  • Thank you to Jon Nelson for covering Annie and I this past Thursday while we attended the Leading for Equity training with the rest of the administrative team!  
  • And... kudos to Rod Stoughton as he was asked to bring some of our male choir students to the ACDA convention this past Saturday.  
    • Written by Rod about the boys:  They did an AMAZING job at the ACDA convention session.  Together with three other boys from Muskego Lakes middle school, our Karcher kids sang together, and by themselves, for a room of around 100 choir directors from all over the Midwest.  The presenter had each of the boys sing scales to test their range and demonstrate how the middle school boy’s voice develops.  He had them explore their highest and lowest notes, as well as where their voice breaks (or cracks) are and showed techniques to help them become better singers.  This is a very vulnerable thing for middle school boys to do, and these young men did it in front of a room full of adult strangers with great confidence.  When they were finished, the audience gave them a huge ovation, as I think they were a little surprised at how poised the boys were.  I also want to let you know that throughout the entire day, they were extremely well behaved and we had a great time.  
    • Pictures are below!  
Article this week:  

Empowering Students by Demystifying Grading

Joe Feldman and Tanji Reed Marshall
Giving students more insight into performance expectations increases their learning agency.
The power that teachers have is rarely discussed outside the realm of political engagement. Such engagement usually entails protesting working conditions (think North Carolina teachers' Red For Ed movement), striking for higher salaries, or joining forces to ensure political candidates pay attention to key education issues. But teachers also have immense "instructional power" over their teaching and their students' learning. Amid growing calls to encourage and value student voice and to increase student agency, educators must recognize and be willing to discuss the relationship, even the tension, between their own instructional power and the student's agentive power. We can't discuss the importance of student empowerment without discussing where this tension is most taut: in the area of grading.
We are former K–12 teachers now working within education reform and consulting groups, and we've listened to and supported hundreds of teachers in our work. We define teacher instructional power as the authority to make and implement decisions related to teaching and learning. Although many teachers hold to the idea that they have limited instructional power due to curricular and instructional constraints, all teachers actually exercise a significant measure of instructional power as they orchestrate the dynamics of student learning and make decisions that go beyond the mandates of their districts and states. In traditional classrooms, power is highly concentrated in the teacher. He or she decides what is taught, how it is taught (and usually how students must learn)—and, state-mandated assessment aside, how students will be assessed. A teacher's decisions become the lived experiences of her students' education.

Grading—the criteria by which student performance is evaluated—represents a teacher's most formalized, public, and enduring demonstration of her instructional power. Schools, colleges, and other institutions depend on grades to be an accurate and nonbiased reflection of student academic performance. Unfortunately, grading is often the "third rail" of teaching. It powers major decisions, yet we resist "touching it" and rarely discuss it openly.

Power-Laden Decisions

While many education scholars and practitioners advocate for teachers sharing power with students in curricular and instructional decisions through choice or co-construction of content,1  few would suggest teachers should abdicate to students the responsibility for grading. Herein, however, lies a critical question and challenge: If we are committed to investing students with power in their learning, are we similarly willing to give students more ownership over the evaluation of that learning?
So far, most educators haven't been. We might encourage students to raise their voices in relation to school functions, clubs, and other seemingly less rigorous elements of teaching and learning. And most of us say we want students to raise their voice in various ways about how they learn—by, say, managing choices of who they partner with or how they bring their creativity to a poster or presentation. We may even support students' influencing and, in some cases, driving the curriculum through allowing them to choose the books they read or apply content learning to their own lives and communities.
But we teachers and leaders tend to be more hesitant to pull back the veil on the learning process and give students agency regarding the most important and power-laden decisions teachers make, those that are often most hidden from students: how we grade them. Yet when teachers make grades more transparent and explicit, thereby sharing the power to judge and evaluate, not only do students feel more agency and become more invested in their learning, but our classrooms also become more equitable.

The Equity Connection

Consider the traditional teacher's role in evaluation, especially summative evaluation. The teacher envisions what constitutes understanding of course content and then designs an assessment. Students complete the assessment, and the teacher scores it and calculates a final grade, which presumably correlates with the teacher's conceived gradations of student understanding. The teacher is positioned as the only expert, the only one with the information and authority to determine the quality of a student's performance. Students are beholden to the "omniscient" teacher's judgment and become dependent on it. Teachers must repeatedly answer kids' questions of "Is this good enough?" and "How did I do?" because no one else in the classroom has either the knowledge or the power to make this determination.
This is a paradigm in need of change. How we respond to questions about grading and power is especially crucial for students who generally enter schools already having less power: students of color, students from families experiencing poverty, and students with disabilities. Because the teacher is the only one who judges performance, grading can, and often does, inadvertently undermine equity and perpetuate academic opportunity gaps. Students with parents who were successful in school or have higher income are more likely to have access to academic guidance about what teachers "want"—for instance, what an A essay or a "good" project looks like. In this way, the opacity of traditional grading can perpetuate achievement disparities.
Teachers often rely on a hidden value system of what constitutes success and may not make their ideas explicitly known to students, which further exacerbates the opportunity gaps many students face. Additionally, teachers often hold students to varying expectations related to demographic indicators.2  This tendency negatively impacts outcomes for students of color, students with disabilities, and students whose families experience poverty.

Transparency in the Classroom

In this traditional evaluation role, teachers often overlook opportunities to exercise our instructional power and make the evaluation criteria accessible to students in ways that equip and empower them to use that information to be successful. What if the knowledge of what constitutes understanding wasn't only in the teacher's head, hidden from students, but was transparent and explicit? Fortunately—as the following examples we've observed in our work with schools reflect—many teachers are discovering that by lifting the veil on their performance expectations, the power of grading becomes shared throughout the classroom. Such knowledge sharing offers students a window into a world which many have been essentially locked out of. It increases their power over their own learning.
Rubrics and proficiency scales, which describe the different gradations of performance, are two ways in which the teacher can lift the veil on grading. A rubric describes how a piece of work or a performance will be evaluated—the specific criteria as well as what constitutes distinctive gradations of quality for every criterion. Zora, a high school student, perfectly captures this idea, saying "A rubric is almost like an instruction manual."
In contrast to a rubric, which is usually specific to a particular assignment or performance, a proficiency scale describes gradations of mastery of a wider area of content. For example, in a unit on American history, a teacher could describe exactly what a student would need to know to demonstrate an A level of content knowledge (for which a student shows he can demonstrate advanced application or analysis of the content), a B level (good understanding, but not advanced), or a C level (in which a student shows common misconceptions or knowledge gaps).
Joanna, a middle school math teacher, shares a proficiency scale with students each time she begins a new unit. Throughout the unit, she often refers to that scale and the different levels of mastery by which students will be evaluated on the whole unit. In fact, she even includes the scale on the quizzes and summative tests. By lifting the veil on her curricular goals and performance expectations, Joanna equips students to self-assess their progress and enlists them to self-identify learning gaps. Without that transparency, many students would be left in the dark or hoping for the best about the quality of their performance; the grade could be a surprise. "Students like knowing the standard and where they are on that standard," says Joanna. "I love the growth mindset idea, and this is all about that."
Joanna has found that the transparency of expectations has transformed the discourse of her classroom—what learning means, how it is described, and what demonstrates mastery. The arrangement has given students the knowledge to evaluate themselves. Rather than being dependent on her to determine the quality of their performance, they have become empowered to see themselves on a trajectory of learning, with clear descriptions of each step along that path.

Democratizing Classroom Power

Rubrics and proficiency scales also make the classroom more equitable. Ordinarily, the traditional approach to evaluation privileges students with more "school knowledge capital," who can better read the signals of the teacher, or whose caregivers have a stronger educational background. Creating rubrics and proficiency scales forces educators to move beyond applying a "knowing it when we see it" definition of competence, and instead to articulate that definition, democratizing power by giving everyone the same information. We might even think of rubrics and proficiency scales as installing a checks and balances system in our classroom.
We've seen students use rubrics as an advocacy tool to ensure a teacher's consistent evaluation. Sahar, a high school student, explains that "My teacher will grade off the rubric, so you know what to expect when you take that test and write that essay. … It holds everyone more accountable. It helps everyone get graded equally."
By explicitly describing what it means for students to succeed, educators create a safeguard that can prevent us from inadvertently bringing biased assumptions or hidden expectations to our evaluations. Everyone—whether students or the teacher—uses the same criteria to judge performance, and everyone in the class is held equally accountable to those criteria. This is the type of empowerment all students deserve.
As Damian, a high school student, explains:
I like rubrics. They hold the teachers accountable because both the student knows what the teacher wants and the teacher has to actually think about how they're going to grade something. Instead of just throwing an assignment out and saying, "Do this today," I feel like the teacher puts more effort in on grading the assignment, so there's more effort from both sides.

Everyone Gains

Empowering students by lifting the grading veil can have profound long-term impact on our students, particularly those most vulnerable. When we normalize rubrics and proficiency scales, students understand that those who evaluate them have clear expectations. These tools give students the information and agency to make critical decisions about their work. We are training them to advocate for transparency, to ask what specifically is expected of them in order to get an A on the college project, to earn an outstanding performance evaluation by an employer, or to receive the scholarship. The goal is to empower students with the mechanisms to expect, request, and perhaps—rightly—to demand that the hidden become transparent.
Our instructional authority isn't lost when we empower students. Power for learning isn't a zero-sum game—even when it relates to the most consequential decisions of grading. While teachers should always be the final authority on assigning student grades, they aren't losing power when they lift the veil and give students the information they need. They are creating power by transforming students from passive recipients of grades to informed and invested co-evaluators of their work. Using rubrics and proficiency scales is not just another strategy for our toolbox. It's a way to recognize and demonstrate a profound respect for students' intellect—enough respect to make what is hidden, visible.
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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog!
This week:
  • Monday, March 9 - Staff Meeting from 2:40-3:00
    • We will most likely focus our discussion on our Forward Exam plans for April.  
  • Monday, March 9 - Band-o-Rama @ BHS @ 7:00!
  • Tuesday, March 10 - Special Education Department meeting from 2:40 - 3:15 in the small conference room. 
  • Tuesday, March 10 - Sing-a-bration @ BHS @ 7:00!
  • Wednesday, March 11 - PLC focus is around our Essential Skills 
    • Please work with your teams on... tweaking rubrics, formative/summative assessments, or analyzing student work to inform your instruction.  
  • Starting Thursday... March 12th through March 18 is a little staff fun put together by a staff member who shall not be named just yet!   
  • Friday, March 13 - FNL from 5:30 - 7:30!  
    • Staff willing to assist, please let Donna Sturdevant or Mike Jones know! 

Looking ahead:  

  • Monday, March 16 - District Essential Skill Committee meeting in our Karcher library from 3:45 - 5:15.  
  • Wednesday, March 18 - PLC in the library!  
  • Saturday, March 21 - Start of Spring Break!!!
  • Monday, April 30 - School Resumes... 
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Pictures from the week
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Some of our male choir students attended the ACDA convention this past Saturday with Rod Stoughton.  Together with three other boys from Muskego Lakes middle school, our Karcher kids sang together, and by themselves, for a room of around 100 choir directors from all over the Midwest.  The presenter had each of the boys sing scales to test their range and demonstrate how the middle school boy’s voice develops.  He had them explore their highest and lowest notes, as well as where their voice breaks (or cracks) are and showed techniques to help them become better singers.   If you see any of them give them kudos as it takes courage to sing in front of 100 choir directors!


8th graders participating in the Ellis Island simulation with Stephanie Rummler!







By -

domingo, 1 de marzo de 2020

March 2, 2020

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Kudos

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  • Thank you to Kailee Smith, Donna Sturdevant, and Stacy Stoughton who attended the Guskey Conference around standards-based grading this past Thursday with other representatives throughout the district.  It was great to listen to Guskey and the research behind so many grading practices.  The day solidified that we are moving in the right direction and doing the right work!  
  • Kudos to our scheduling committee team who gave some of their time this past Friday to continue our work around developing a comprehensive 6-8 bell schedule that provides student choice and equity.  
  • Thank you to Kris Thomsen for all of your behind the scenes time inputting all of our 6th grade elective requests into the system!  We now have all of our student elective requests in to determine sections, etc!  Thank you!  
  • Thank you to our special education teachers for working to assist with scheduling for next year as we work to ensure all students are supported while also developing their independence as they progress through the grade levels.  
  • Kudos to all of our staff who are working with students during iTime with the Standards Mastery and/or TDA focus throughout!  Your thoughtful lesson planning and intentional focus around grade level standards is appreciated and noticed! 
  • Last, but not least, congrats to Joe VanDommelen and his family on the arrival of baby #3, their first girl, this past Thursday night!  Congrats Joe!!!  Welcome to the world little Tessa!  
 

Article this week:  This article was one that was shared at the Guskey Conference this past week.  All four of us, from Karcher, attended a session on how to think about grading when it comes to special education students.  This is an area to continue to explore and focus on as we move into our standards based gradebook for next year!  

Grading Exceptional Learners

Lee Ann Jung and Thomas R. Guskey
This five-step model provides fair and accurate grades for students with disabilities and English language learners.
Every nine weeks, teachers in many U.S. schools face the dreaded task of completing report cards. Translating each student's performance into a letter grade can be a challenge—and inevitably, the most troublesome questions relate to the fairness and accuracy of the grades given to exceptional learners.
Students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs) often differ from their classmates in the ways they engage in and contribute to learning activities. Assigning a failing grade to a student who has not met course or grade-level requirements because of a disability or difficulty with the language seems inherently unfair—especially if the student has worked hard, turned in assignments on time, and done what the teacher asked. At the same time, assigning a passing grade to a student who has not met the performance criteria for the grade level clearly provides an inaccurate picture of that student's achievement.

Teachers have received little guidance on how to assign fair grades to exceptional learners, and a number of common myths cloud many educators' thinking about this task (see Myths About Grading Exceptional Learners, p. 32). Most teachers make their own individual grading adaptations—for example, assigning extra points for effort or improvement, basing grades solely on an individual's goals, giving different weight to assignments, or using an altered grading scale (Gottlieb, 2006; Polloway et al., 1994; Silva, Munk, & Bursuck, 2005). But considering the consequences for honor roll status, class rank, and participation in athletics, teachers and students alike generally regard such adaptations as unfair (Bursuck, Munk, & Olson, 1999).
Do teachers have to choose between fairness and accuracy when assigning grades to exceptional students? Can the grades for such students ever be both fair and accurate?

Start with High-Quality Reporting

Before schools can develop and implement policies for assigning fair and accurate grades to exceptional learners, they must ensure that they have a high-quality grading and reporting system for all students. Such systems have two basic characteristics.
First, effective grading and reporting systems base grades on clearly articulated standards for student learning. This changes the meaning of a grade from a single, overall assessment of learning (How did this student perform in language arts?) to a description of the student's performance on an explicit set of skills (How well did the student master the ability to identify the plot, setting, and characters in reading passages?) (Jung, 2009; Jung & Guskey, 2007).
Assigning grades on the basis of precise levels of performance with regard to standards makes the task of grading more challenging (Thurlow, 2002). Nevertheless, it gives students and parents more meaningful information to use in recognizing accomplishments and targeting remediation when needed.
Second, high-quality grading and reporting systems distinguish three types of learning criteria related to standards (see Guskey, 2006):
  • Product criteria address what students know and are able to do at a particular point in time. They relate to students' specific achievements or level of proficiency as demonstrated by final examinations; final reports, projects, exhibits, or portfolios; or other overall assessments of learning.
  • Process criteria relate to students' behaviors in reaching their current level of achievement and proficiency. They include elements such as effort, behavior, class participation, punctuality in turning in assignments, and work habits. They also might include evidence from daily work, regular classroom quizzes, and homework.
  • Progress criteria consider how much students improve or gain from their learning experiences. These criteria focus on how far students have advanced, rather than where they are. Other names for progress criteria include learning gain, value-added learning, and educational growth.
The most effective grading and reporting systems establish clear standards based on product, process, and progress criteria, and then report each separately (Guskey, 2006; Stiggins, 2007; Wiggins, 1996). Although this may seem like additional work, such systems actually make grading easier for teachers. They require the collection of no additional information and eliminate the impossible task of combining these diverse types of evidence into a single grade (Bailey & McTighe, 1996). Parents generally prefer this approach because it gives them more useful information about their children's performance in school (Guskey, 2002). It offers parents of both students in special education programs and English language learners specific feedback about their child's achievement on grade-level standards as well as essential information on behavior and progress. This information is helpful for making intervention and placement decisions (Jung & Guskey, 2007).

A Model for Grading Exceptional Learners

With a high-quality grading system in place, schools can develop fair and accurate procedures for reporting on the achievement of exceptional learners. The following five-step model for grading exceptional learners provides a framework for accomplishing that goal. (For a flow chart showing the model, see online at www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el201002_jung.pdf) It also provides an excellent tool for educators and families as they prepare for individualized education plans (IEPs), 504 plans, and ELL meetings.

Step 1. Ask whether the standard is an appropriate expectation without adaptations.

For each reporting standard, the key question is, Can we expect the student to achieve this standard without special support or changes to the standard? If the answer is yes, then no change in the grading process is needed, and the teacher grades the student with the same "ruler" he or she would use with any other student in the class.
Some exceptional learners, however, may not achieve certain grade-level standards without special services and supports. For example, an IEP team may decide that a high school student who has a learning disability in the area of written expression needs extra supports to reach standards that depend on this skill. When an instructional team determines that the student will not be able to achieve a particular standard without special support, they move to step 2.

Step 2. If the standard is not appropriate, determine what type of adaptation the standard needs.

For each standard that will require support, the instructional team asks, Which is needed—accommodation or modification?
Accommodation means that the content of the standard remains the same, but the method for demonstrating mastery of that content may be adjusted. For example, to meet science standards, a student may require an audiotape of lectures in science class because of difficulty in taking notes. In addition, he or she might need to take a social studies end-of-unit assessment orally. Although the format for answering questions would be different, the content of the questions would remain the same, and the student would be judged, like all other students, on the content of his or her responses.
Modification, in contrast, means changing the standard itself. A 3rd grade English language learner, for example, may have strong oral communication skills, but may not be ready to work on the grade-level standards for writing. For this student, the instructional team may decide to provide additional support in the area of writing and to expect the student to master 1st grade writing standards.
To determine whether a particular type of support is an accommodation or a modification, the instructional team must consider the circumstances of its use. An accommodation in one subject area might actually be a modification in another subject area. For example, consider extended time on assessments, one of the most common adaptations. If the purpose of the assessment is to measure the student's knowledge and understanding of particular concepts, then extended time is an accommodation. But if the assessment is designed to measure the student's speed in problem solving, as is sometimes the case with certain math assessments, then the provision of extra time would likely be considered a modification.
If the instructional team determines that a student needs only accommodations to reach a particular standard, then no change in the grading process is required. But if modifications are deemed necessary, the team goes through the remaining three steps of the model for this standard.

Step 3. If the standard needs modification, determine the appropriate standard.

The appropriate standard is what the instructional team believes the student could reasonably achieve by the end of the academic year with special supports. The team records these modified standards as goals on the student's IEP, 504 plan, or ELL plan, along with other goals the student may need to achieve in order to function in daily classroom routines.
A student with cognitive impairment, for example, may not be ready to work on 4th grade science standards in mineral identification. The IEP team may choose to develop science standards on the skill of sorting and classifying that are fundamentally related to the 4th grade science standards but are also developmentally appropriate for this student.
Similarly, a 9th grade English language learner's ELL plan may call for 7th grade vocabulary standards rather than 9th grade standards. Or a physically injured student may have a goal on a 504 plan that requires her to demonstrate an understanding of the rules of a particular sport orally or in writing, but not through actual participation.

Step 4. Base grades on the modified standard, not the grade-level standard.

It would be futile to grade a student on an academic standard everyone agrees the student will probably not meet. Take, for example, the student who has cognitive impairment and who is working on sorting and classifying objects by simple characteristics rather than working on the grade-level expectation of mineral identification. There is no need to report a failing grade in science based on the student's inability to identify minerals. Nor would it be fair or meaningful to simply add points for effort or behavior.
Instead, the teacher should grade the student on the standard the team determined was appropriate (for example, Student will sort objects in science by size, shape, and color with 80 percent accuracy). The same is true for the English language learner who is working to build 7th grade vocabulary in a 9th grade class. Rather than adding points for homework or promptness in turning in assignments, the teacher should grade the student using the same "ruler," but on the 7th grade vocabulary standards that the instructional team deemed appropriate.

Step 5. Communicate the meaning of the grade.

Finally, teachers need to provide additional information for modified standards, communicating what was actually measured. The report card should include a special notation, such as a superscript number or an asterisk, beside grades that reflect achievement on modified standards. The accompanying footnote might be worded, "based on modified standards." The report card should direct families to a supplemental document, such as a progress report, that lists the modified standards on which any grade was based and a narrative of progress on each. This lets everyone know, as federal legislation requires, how the student performed on appropriately challenging learning tasks.

Useful Information for Instructional Decisions

The model described here offers a fair, accurate, and legal way to adapt the grading process for exceptional learners. Using this model, instructional teams agree up front on the achievement standards that are appropriate for the student and report on these separately from progress and process indicators. Then, the school clearly communicates the grades' meaning to exceptional learners and their families through a practical and understandable reporting system. This system provides the information parents and instructional teams need to make effective intervention and placement decisions for students with disabilities and English language learners.

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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog.
This week:
  • Monday, BLT Meeting from 2:40 - 3:30 in the large conference room.  Items of focus are noted in the BLT notes (you can find them on the Karcher Calendar linked on the date) 
  • Tuesday, March 3 - Eric Sulik, Ryan Hoffman, Dr. Plank, and myself will be going to PHlab and Midwest to see their STEM programs in order to determine our STEM programming needs for the new middle school.  
  • Tuesday, March 3 - SLO & PPG is due!  
  • Wednesday, March 4 - PLC focus is around our Essential Skills 
    • Please work with your teams on... tweaking rubrics, formative/summative assessments, or analyzing student work to inform your instruction.  
  • Thursday, March 5 - Jon Nelson will be covering admin for the day.  
    • Annie and I will be attending the Leading for Equity Conference that has been an ongoing professional development training with the rest of the administrative team in the district.  
  • Friday, March 6 - I will be out of the building.  
Looking ahead:  

  • Monday, March 9 - Staff Meeting from 2:40-3:00
    • We will most likely focus our discussion on our Forward Exam plans for April.  
  • Monday, March 9 - Band-o-Rama @ BHS @ 7:00!
  • Tuesday, March 10 - Special Education Department meeting from 2:40 - 3:15 in the small conference room. 
  • Tuesday, March 10 - Sing-a-bration @ BHS @ 7:00!
  • Wednesday, March 11 - PLC focus is around our Essential Skills 
    • Please work with your teams on... tweaking rubrics, formative/summative assessments, or analyzing student work to inform your instruction.  
  • Friday, March 13 - FNL from 5:30 - 7:30!  
    • Staff willing to assist, please let Donna Sturdevant or Mike Jones know!  
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Pictures from the week
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Take a look at the academic focus captured this week!  

 During a mini lesson in Jenny Geyso's class she focused on what academic writers do... 

 Here are 8th grade ELA students huddled in the front for the mini lesson with Jenny Geyso.  

Once it was time for students to practice within their writing Jenny Geyso pulled students for a strategy group.  

 Below are some captures during iTime... focusing on Standards Mastery and/or the TDA writing prompts. 




 Library display case :)))

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