NC DPI
Ready V Webinar for Teachers and Principals
Garland:
DeNeal:
M/F:
Rebecca Garland, Deputy State Superintendant
Jennifer DeNeal, Race to the Top Project Coordinator for Teacher and
Leader Effectiveness
Yvette Stewart, Assistant Director, Educator Effectiveness
Dr. Tracy Weeks, Chief Academic and Digital Learning Officer
Dr. Sarah McManus, Director, Learning Systems
Shannon Register, Assistant Superintendant of Curriculum and Instruction,
Hoke County Public Schools
Michelle Benson, Hoke County Public Schools
Rosa Bailey, Hoke County Public Schools K-5 Instructional Leader
Facilitator / Vanessa Jeter, Director, Communication and Information
Services
Male/Female Speaker
Garland:
—Department of Public Instruction this afternoon, where we will be bringing to
Stewart:
Weeks:
McManus:
Register:
Benson:
Bailey:
Jeter:
you the Ready V webinar and trying to give you some information about things
that are happening across the state and information that you might be interested
in. As you know, our Race to the Top grant is coming to an end, sadly, this year.
It’s hard to believe that this is almost the end of the fifth year that we’ve been
doing this work, but I think it’s time to celebrate all of the advances that we have
been able to accomplish in this five years; it’s amazing what $400 million will
buy, and so fortunately we think we’ve used it in a way that has built capacity in
our teachers and given tools for our schools and our teachers to use to move
student achievement forward. So this afternoon, we’re going to try to update you
on just where we are in the process.
So today, we’re going to talk about teacher status, what’s ahead. You
might remember that some of our teachers—and we’ll go more deeply into this in
just a few minutes—but some of our teachers this fall will be receiving a status.
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If you’ll remember, a status is when you have three years of data, and so believe it
or not, some of our teachers this fall will meet that milestone, and so we’ll be
hearing a little bit about teacher status and what to expect. Also, an educator
effectiveness update—so a more general update on information around how we’re
hoping to improve the knowledge in the field of our teacher corps across the state.
Then we’ll talk a little bit about standards [ph 1:52] for the state, what’s ahead,
something about standards-based resources in grading, and then finally some
information about Home Base and how your neighbors are using that wonderful
resource that we have. So that’s what we have planned for you today, and then
there’ll be some time for questions and answers at the end, and so just to get
started:
Some of you who’ve been around since the beginning will remember that
when we were putting the whole Race to the Top process together, our goal was
to help our teachers across the state increase their knowledge in the field and build
capacity in a way that would really have an impact on student learning. Because
we think all the research points to that the best way to move—to move
achievement in our students is with our teachers. The research is clear that the
most effective tool that you can have to move student learning is to have a great
teacher in every classroom and a great principal in every school. And so unlike in
the past, when the Department rarely reached into the classroom level, Race to the
Top offered us that opportunity, and we have used it.
So in doing this work, when we were trying to figure out how to
accomplish our goal, we did come up with a project map, and actually, our project
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map has gotten some attention nationwide. Couple of weekends ago, I had to
travel out of state to meet with some teams of legislators from across—from
across the country who were interested in how North Carolina had moved its
achievement, looking at standards, assessment, and accountability. So the hard
work that you have been doing has attracted some folks from outside of our state,
but we did have, if you’ll remember, the development of a new standard course of
study with our new English Language, Arts, and Math standards and with the new
standards in all of the other standard courses of study. We have tried to
implement a balanced assessment system, knowing that it is important not just to
know what happens at the end of the year, but to be able to assess our students in
informal ways within the classroom, using forms of assessment that can change
our instruction just in time the next day, by knowing what it is that our students
know and then changing instruction. And then looking frequently through
interims [ph] to see if they are sustaining that learning; for example, at the end of
every nine weeks or every six weeks, ever when [ph] school systems want to see
that retention to see if students are maintaining. And in addition, and obviously
then our new assessments that match our new standards. And then the whole new
accountability model that has now been in place with our first grading system that
was implemented this year due to statutory requirements, but also the way that we
designed [ph] what that accountability model would be for elementary, middle,
and high school.
So that was kind of the basis, if you will, for the project map. And then
also how we were really going to move student achievement—through strong
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leadership with our Principal Ready work that we have done, with our Regional
Leadership Academies that were put into place, and then the strong professional
development that we have offered to our principals. By developing a fair
evaluation system, and so how we built out the standards that we have for
professional teaching and for leadership, and then including the other areas where
we built evaluation systems, and then adding the student growth component and
looking at other tools, such as student surveys, which we’re still piloting and
hoping to bring into the toolbox along the way. And then how we could use tools
and training to improve practice—a tool, for example, being Home Base and all
of the support that we’re trying to provide to build that system out in a way that
makes a difference for instruction. And [ph] improved supply of teachers: we’ve
tried to work through our colleges and universities in order to improve the
pipeline and also to look at retention and recruitment and projects for how we
could bring more quality teachers into the state. And then the way that we were
able to double our resources in districts and school transformation—we’ve been
working with a group of schools, and we’ve had some great success in moving
those schools that were in the bottom five percent—many of them now have
moved out of that designation into higher quartiles, if you will, or deciles in some
cases, even quartiles in other cases. So that we have seen some real movement in
the schools that were our lowest achieving and needed the most support.
So one of the ways that we are trying to move the needle even more is by
trying to use—to move to more digital age models. Some examples of that:
through competency mastery, instead of advancement based on time [ph]. And so
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in order to support that work, the state board has removed seat time in high
schools from 135 hours to a course to competency and mastery based on what the
principal sees in the school, and also to having a policy on credit by demonstrated
mastery. Using anywhere, anytime learning instead of fixed places and times for
learning: an example of that would be our North Carolina Virtual Public School,
where students can access courses anywhere, anytime, and also our module that
we had developed for our teachers that are part of our Home Base system, so that
teachers can pay attention to their own learning in a very convenient way. And
then also with personalized learning, with the resources that we now have
available to us through Home Base, so that our teachers will have those resources
in their lesson plan development and curriculum development, so they truly can
look at how they can meet the needs of their individual students.
So these are some of the goals and outcomes that we were looking for
when we started Race to the Top. We think we have made progress, but we’re
still in the process of implementing and finishing out that work. So it’s time now
to turn the program over to Ms. Jen DeNeal [ph], who is in our Educator
Evaluation group of folks here at the Department, and she is going to update you
with some district Human Resources information. So I’ll turn it over to you, Jen.
DeNeal:
Thank you very much, Rebecca. Hello, everyone. So what we are—what you’re
looking at on your screen right now is a breakdown of our teacher observations
for the 2013-2014 school year. You can see that we did successfully complete
95% of those evaluations in the Truenorthlogic platform. And with those—with
that missing 5%, we’ve already communicated that with districts, we’ve sent
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those teacher names back to the districts to make sure that process can be
monitored this year. But our chief takeaway is really that we have done—and you
all have done—a really, really good job of evaluating your teachers and making
sure that’s happening the way that it should be going on.
Okay, coming up on your screen now is a breakdown of our EVAAS
ratings for 2014, and we’re very excited to report that the vast majority of our
teachers, that’s just over 80%, about 85%, are meeting or exceeding expected
growth this year. This is exciting news, and we’re going to look at that in a little
bit more detail on our next slide. So this chart, we’ve put together some
information on our observation ratings, and then also observation plus EVAAS.
So these are for teachers for whom we had EVAAS ratings and observation scores
for last year, and as you all know, part of the Standard 6 [ph] is that we ask
through the course of three years. We then combine that with those observation
ratings to come up with an effectiveness status. So what this chart is showing you
is that if we were to determine effectiveness statuses based only on observation,
we’re going to be looking down in the column. So we would have—“Needs
Improvement,” we would have only 3.5% of our teachers down there at the very
bottom of the screen who would be deemed in need of improvement. We would
have 49.9% as “Effective,” and 46.5% as “Effective.” Now, when we add the
EVAAS ratings into that—into those observations—now we’re going to look
across the rows instead of the columns—we now see that “Needs Improvement,”
that now includes approximately 16.1% of our teachers. The vast majority of our
teachers, 63.6%, would still be graded “Effective,” and then another 20% are
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rated “Highly Effective.” So our takeaway here is that the EVAAS ratings give
us a really good way to identify teachers who need some help, so that we can—we
can target additional support to those teachers who have been deemed “Needs
Improvement” in order to help them grown and improve.
So here you’re looking at a chart—this is my last chart, I promise—you’re
looking at a chart of EVAAS ratings across multiple years. So over on the far
lefthand side of your screen, you see the 2012 EVAAS ratings, and those have
been broken into categories, either “Does Not Meet,” “Meets,” or “Exceeds
Expected Growth.” And so then we’ll look at what those teachers got in 2013,
and then also what those same teachers got in 2014. So when we look at our
teachers who did not meet expected growth in 2012, we see that by—that in 2014,
teachers who had that rating of did not meet expected growth, 65% of them are
now either meeting growth or exceeding growth. This is really exciting. This is
showing us that teachers are taking this feedback that they’re receiving on
EVAAS and districts are supporting those teachers, and many of them are
improving, and they are doing better in the subsequent years in their EVAAS
ratings. It’s very rare—although possible—for teachers to jump up two levels.
So for example, in 2012, we have our teachers who did not meet expected growth.
In the following year, in 2013, nearly 8% of those teachers were able to be
exceeding expected growth. That’s really hard to do, and it’s really exciting that
we’ve got some teachers who are able to do that. Now, if you look at the bottom
of the screen for the teachers who are exceeded expected growth in 2012, it’s
really exciting to note that in 2013, 55% of those teachers were still exceeding,
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and in 2014, 53% of those teachers were exceeding expected growth. Because
“Exceeds” is such a high bar to get to, it’s a very small group of teachers, it’s
actually kind of really exciting and impressive to see teachers who are exceeding
growth, and they’re doing it for multiple years.
So, when we look at this chart, kind of [ph] the overarching conclusion
that we come to is that EVAAS scores from year to year are relatively stable, but
they’re not deterministic. So these scores, like, once you’re rated as Does Not
Meet Expected Growth, this is not putting you in a box from which there is no
escape. They’re stable enough that we don’t see really wild movements—and this
is a concern that some people have, and it has been published recently, that these
scores are not overly stable. So what we’re seeing here is not a lot of wild
movement; we’re seeing pretty stable scores, but we’re also seeing that teachers
still have the opportunity to grow and develop and improve from year to year.
So those are all the statistics that I have for you today, and I think as of
now I’m turning it over to Yvette Stewart, who is here to give you all some more
updates in educator effectiveness.
Stewart:
Okay. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity
to share a few resources and professional development opportunities that we are
launching and deploying across the state from the Educator Effectiveness
division. Our purpose here is really to support teachers and principals in educator
effectiveness and to help their students learn and grow.
So the first resource that I want to share with you are our online module
menu of opportunities for teachers, principals, and educators across the state. We
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have through Race to the Top over the last five years been able to create a vast
repository of over 50 modules for North Carolina educators. Some of our
topics—we have a varied [ph] delivery structure—there are many modules in—
included in our system. There [ph] are self-paced courses. We also have
facilitated courses where there’s an instructor there facilitating the discussion in
that module. And we also have what we’re calling a MOOC list, which is a
Massive Online Open—a Massive Open Online Course that we’re also featuring
that I’d like to share with you. But some of our many modules that I’d like to
highlight is one on EVAAS basics that Jen just mentioned. It is a module about
understanding EVAAS and the growth model of evaluating teachers. We have
another interesting module in our series called “What the Best North Carolina
Teachers Do,” and it is an informational mini-module that examines the practices
of current and former district, regional, and state teachers of the year. And
they’re featured, and they’re talking about their instructional practices and giving
lots of creative ideas and resources to share with you on ways to improve and to
create—be very creative in the classroom.
We also have modules on digital literacy; there are modules in our series
on the North Carolina EEP [ph]. Educator Evaluation Process; and we also have
one on _______. There’s also two self-paced modules that I’d like to highlight:
one is “Understanding the Role of School Resource Officers,” and this is a model
that features a lot of great informative information on bullying and cyberbullying,
and that may be an interesting topic. It’s something that teachers may be
challenged with in their classrooms, and this module will certainly give a good
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perspective and some ideas for teachers. Another one is called “Connecting with
Our 21st Century Learner,” and this module highlights appropriate digital tools
and ways to engage students in the classroom. So just a preview and a highlight
of several modules that could be of interest to your teachers. We encourage you
to go to the rt3nc.org site. That link is listed at the top of this slide. And once
you find a title that you want to explore further, then you will be able to search for
that in the Home Base PD [ph] catalog, and register for that course. The rt3nc org
site also includes facilitator guides that will help district trainers and district
leaders to describe a number of ways a district can use these modules to support
professional learning. So we do encourage you to go to the rt3nc.org site often;
there are new modules that are coming about often, and there are registration
deadlines and information on how to register for the facilitated courses that are
housed in Home Base [ph].
So the next slide is just a screenshot of a flyer that can be downloaded
from the rt3 org—nc.org site, and this again features all of the menu of modules
that we offer, and you can go and search those and register in the Home Base site.
Next: last fall, through our partnership with the RESAs—the Regional Education
Service Alliances across the state—our division began offering what we call the
cross-district strategic solutions series, and the purpose of these sessions is to
build a problem-solving, solution-oriented professional learning network to
educators across the state. So during these forums, participants—which could be
teachers, administrators, district leaders—a variety of educators across the state
can join the forum and introduce themselves and acquaint others with a
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challenging issue or problem of practice, and they can receive feedback directly
from other participants across the state by asking questions, by sharing strategies,
and building a professional network around a problem that certainly could be
something that several people in several districts are challenged with. So each
forum is facilitated by one of our PD leaders in your region, and they use a
consultancy protocol to help you later model, as a model for you, how to design
your own PON [ph] of the same nature in your district. Some of the topics that
we are—some of the upcoming topics that we’re going to feature will include
student engagement, there’s one on bullying, and there’s another one on
transitioning to digital text [ph]. It’s just a few of the problems—the forums that
have been offered as challenges from districts, and they’d like for us to help
problem-solve.
So any of the sessions are available to register. The information—the
resources are located there. There’s an example of how the protocol is used, and
the registration link is listed on this slide, and anyone can join. So we encourage
you to join. It is a slightly different format within a webinar than you may be
familiar with, but it is highly interactive and all about discussion, so it is an open
forum, where people can talk directly to each other in the platform. So once the
webinar is over, there is a ten-day online discussion forum that’s created in our
Home Base PD system for the discussion to continue beyond the day of the
webinar, and the resources there can be shared, and you can go back and review
the webinar and get engaged in the forum even if you don’t attend on that day.
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Another professional development opportunity for principals is our
Principal Ready series. We just started our spring series; it began yesterday. We
were in Region 4, and it was a huge, huge success. There were all 200 principals
in the room. Tomorrow we will be in Region 3 in Cary, and we’re looking again
for all 400 principals to be in attendance. And Principal Ready, which is what we
call this series, is professional development designed to support principals in
supporting their teachers. So the dates you see that are available are on the
lefthand column, and we encourage you to register. If you are a principal and
your schedule will not allow you to attend the session in your region, then you are
encouraged to attend any session that fits your schedule. So please register and
attend. The—last year, we had over 1500 principals that joined our series in the
fall, and it had a specific focus on mathematics. Well, this spring Principal Ready
has a focus on data analysis and instructional best practices, using EVAAS, the
North Carolina teacher working conditions survey, and the discussion around the
universal design for learning principles [ph]. So again, this is a highly interactive
schedule, and you can attend at any available date that’s convenient for your
schedule. If you would like access to the resources and the information that’s
been shared in the series, there is a—access to our wiki space [ph] page, and all of
the information is listed there for you to refer to.
Lastly, we—principals are also having the opportunity to join our
observation calibration tool project. The OCT is being piloted currently by 400
principals across the state, and essentially, this is a scoring study. There are two
classroom videos and 34 mini-classroom videos that are being used to provide
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professional development to principals on how to coach and support their
principals—their teachers for continuous growth and improvement. The tool
itself provides self-paced online exercises for the principals to increase their rater
agreement through viewing the classroom videos and rating those particular
instances. So within the platform, the principals and assistant principals will
watch the videos, they’ll observe instruction, and then they’ll rank the teachers
from the perspective of a summative evaluation. So the principals do come in
with the understanding that we know as an evaluation practice in North Carolina,
the ratings will happen for—at the end of the year, based on a great deal of
information, and not just an individual observation. But this—the videos in this
series are—have been correlated to our elements [ph]. We have partnered with
Empirical Education, with _____, and they have the videos that correlate, again,
to our standards. And the principals will receive immediate feedback on their
ratings each time—within the platform. This pilot is a year-long pilot, and the
information that we collect from this pilot will serve as a guidance for statewide
implementation of professional development such as this for other principals in
our state.
So that concludes all of the available opportunities that we have offered
currently, and if you would like more information or you’re interested in any of
the topics and you just would need any resources or any guidance, feel free to
contact me in our division.
Jeter:
At this point, we’re going to turn to the standard course of study, what’s ahead for
the next 18 months, and we will call on Dr. Tracy Weeks.
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Weeks:
Okay, hi, this is Tracy Weeks, and I’m the Chief Academic and Digital Learning
Officer at DPI, and I want to talk for just a few minutes about where we are with
our standards review process and what’s going on for the next several months. As
you know, it is an ongoing responsibility to make sure that our standards are
preparing our students to be college- and career-ready, and so let’s take a look at
what we’re doing over the next several months and our process. Many of you are
aware that we have had a board policy for quite some time that we keep our
standard course of study up to date, and that we have to go through a review
process. And historically, we have gone through that process every five years in
each subject area. Of course, a few years ago when we moved to our new
standard course of study, we did do all of our subject areas at once, but it is now
time once again to get back on the rotation and take a look at our standards. And
so we are beginning that, and I think it’s really important to know that DPI uses a
huge amount of data and research and surveys, and reaches out to many, many
people across the state to be involved in this process. And then once we actually
do any of these revisions, we have to look at assessments, we have to look at our
textbook selection process, and how that affects our end-of-grade and end-ofcourse tests.
So if go on to the next slide: this gives you the layout over the next five
years of the content areas—we obviously don’t want to do them all again at once.
We are beginning and are in the process already this year of working on our
English Language Arts and Math, and certain courses within CTE. And you can
see that in the following year, we go to Social Studies as well as CTE, and then
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into Science, World Language, Health and P.E. and Guidance [ph], and so on for
the next five years. But I think, also important, you notice that each one of these
groupings has actually two academic years listed. And that’s because it actually
takes two years to review all the standards, determine if minor revisions are
needed or if we need to make substantive revisions. Now, I do want to say that
this is the process that DPI and the state board is going through. There is also a
legislatively mandated standards review commission going on that is also
reviewing the ELA and Math standards, but their process is going on in parallel
with ours, and certainly we are in touch with one another and are providing
feedback to that commission, but what I’m speaking on today is really our own
internal process that is the same process we’ve used for many years.
So if we go on to the next slide, you’ll get a sense of what this process
looks like. So as I mentioned, it begins with gathering feedback from many,
many, many groups of people. And as you are aware, we have actually been—
have engaged our teachers and even our community members across the state
already on our ELA and math standards. We have sent out surveys and have
gathered quite a number of responses and have been looking both at [ph]
quantitative and qualitative feedback and really looking through all of that to
inform our process. Now, this particular layout says after we gather our feedback,
we have our own committee get together to look at that feedback, and that’s
where really we are now, and then we have to determine—once we look through
all of this—if we need to make minor or substantive. Now, this slide shows what
happens if we only needed to make minor revisions, like we need to change, you
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know, a couple of words on it but we’re not really changing what grade level it’s
taught at or taking things out, adding things to. If we just need to make some
minor tweaks to the standards, then we—we complete those documents, we
present those revisions to the state board of education; they will review those
recommendations and either approve our revisions or send them back to the
committee for further work. And if they do that, then we make our revisions
again, take it to the state board of education, and continue that process until
ultimately they approve the revisions. And after that point, there’s professional
development provided to teachers and administrators as needed, and the standards
go into effect.
But as we’ll see on the next slide, if it turns out that instead of minor
revisions, it turns out there are some substantive revisions that need to be made,
then, again, we will revise those standards, provide them to the state board and go
through that cycle again until we actually have approved standards from the state
board of education. But the difference here is, if it does turn out that substantive
changes are needed, then that has an effect on our assessments, and so after those
two years—remember, we get to go through that process already for two years—
then we enter into a period of time where we begin the assessment adjustments.
So it may require new test items to be developed, they need to be field-tested, and
so that actually takes a good deal of time as well. At the same time, instructional
materials may have to be developed and implemented, there is the professional
development that goes out, as well as communications to parents and the
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community. And so you can imagine that that process would take a bit longer,
until ultimately the standards and the assessments are in fact implemented.
So, what does that look like for our ELA and our Math standards review
process this year? So, we have our DPI standards review committee, and we are
already working with—we’ve been out in the field, meeting across the state with
focus groups, teachers all across the state, community members, administrators.
As I mentioned, we have sent out a survey, both seeking feedback from educators
as well as non-educators. There is the Academic Standards Review Commission,
which is that legislatively mandated commission that we are working in tandem
with, as well as email that we receive—and we use all of that as part of the
feedback process, ultimately to make that first-level decision of are we even
talking about minor or substantive corrections that need to be made.
So, if we look at the next slide, what we’ll see is this standards review
timeline—and it is a sample, and we can look at this. So, during the 14-15 and
15-16 school years, we do that review of the standards for K-12 Math and English
Language Arts. Now, if we do need substantive changes, then what that means is
during the 16-17 and the 17-18 school year, we go into that process of revising
assessments, field-testing test items or tests at whole [ph 34:26], creating all of
those assessments, developing our instructional materials and supports, and
conducting the professional development. So that takes another two years. And
so what that really means is that the implementation of any new standards for
ELA and Math would not happen until the 2018-19 school year. And I think
that’s really important to keep in mind, that we’re still talking several years out
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before any kind of new standards would go into effect. And of course, we would
adjust this timeline as needed, depending on how much revision is actually
needed, and all of that folds into this process. And then of course, we dovetail
that in the following year, in 15-16, 16-17, we begin with Social Studies and
move on from there.
So that should give you an idea of the timeline, how long it really takes,
and where we are in this process. And so I want to turn it over now to Dr. Sarah
McManus, who’s going to talk about our standards-based system, and how this
goes into resources in grading.
McManus:
All right, thank you, Tracy. Now that you have seen how we develop standards in
North Carolina, let’s discuss standards-based resources in grading, which support
a standards-based system, which puts standards at the center of how you instruct,
you assess, you grade, and you report. On the next slide, there’s a quote. It
comes from an article entitled, “Realizing the Promise of Standards-Based
Education.” It was from 1999, and the author said, “Just imagine, if we want to
have standards-based education really realized, we need a bank of proven
standard reference instructional resources, where new and struggling teachers can
achieve confidence and competence, and where experienced teachers can have a
sense of making meaningful ongoing contributions to their craft.” Well, we at
North Carolina, as you know, have Home Base, and in Home Base we have a
growing bank of resources where teachers can actually contribute to those
resources so that we can have that ongoing contribution, and those teachers who
are struggling or inexperienced can actually find resources that are aligned to the
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standards. In our bank of resources, we have over 17,000 vetted open education
resources where we have gone through and vetted the resources to make sure they
are aligned to our standard course of study. We have resources in the areas of
Science, Social Studies, Mathematics, English Language Arts, ESL, and many
others. Teachers can search for lessons using standards or key word searches, and
they can adapt these resources for their curricular goals. Let me share with you
just one example.
For example, if a teacher was going to teach their students about
understanding the hazards caused by agents of diseases that affect living
organisms, they can type in the standard dot notation for that particular standard,
which is NCES.8.L.1 [ph]. And this is an example of a resource that may come
up. This is an exciting example that is interactive, where students can look
through a simulation and experiment—so they can look at different treatments
and prevention options for decreasing the malarial infections in an African
village. This is just one type of a resource that we actually have in Home Base.
You’re going to hear more about Home Base later, by Dr. Weeks, but I did want
to point out that we do have resources that are aligned to standards that teachers
can look for as they instruct in the classroom.
As you know, in our standards-based system, we do have assessments that
are aligned to standards as well, and you can search for—you can search for
standards-aligned assessment items in Home Base, and again, you’ll hear more
about that. But I did want to turn to looking at grading/reporting. On your
screen, you’ll see a quote from Ken O’Connor from 2013, where he argues that
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“nothing really changes until the gradebook and the report card both change.” So
if we want to have a standards-based system of instruction, assessment, grading
and reporting, to help students to achieve the standards, we really need to think
about how we grade in North Carolina. And so I’m going to pose a couple
questions that some teachers should ask themselves, based on Ken O’Connor’s
work.
And so when considering whether you’re going to use standards-based
grading or not, Ken O’Connor says there are several questions that you should ask
yourself. And so at the local level, it’s your decision how you’re going to grade,
but we’re just posing some questions for you to think about as you think about
standards-based instruction, grading, reporting, and assessing. So for example:
how confident are you that grades that you assign students accurately reflect the
content standards and desired learning outcomes? And how confident are you
that the grades students in your classrooms get are consistent, meaningful, and
support learning? As you answer these questions, one may also begin to think
about his or her gradebook and how it’s organized. Is it organized by the type of
the activities or evidences that you collect, like classroom—classwork,
homework, quizzes, or tests or projects? Or is it organized by the standards, the
skills, and the learning outcomes that are expected of students? When
communicating how well students are doing in your class, do you tell teachers—
do you tell the parents about how well the students are doing in the class in
relaying averages on tests and quizzes, or do you look at the standards and skills
and compare how they’re doing on those standards and skills, and where the gaps
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might be? Some would argue that if you organize your gradebook using
standards grades, that you can more easily communicate with parents, students,
and administrators what concepts are being mastered and what needs
improvement.
And so as you consider this, there’s some questions on the screen that you
need to think about. When you think about standards-based grading, you have to
think about, are you going to have grading penalties for late work, missing work,
academic dishonesty, or absence? Some would argue that you should separate
practice from performance, behavior from performance. You have to also think
about, for the grades that you’re going to determine, are they going to be
determined primarily from summative assessments, or are you going to use
formative assessment that perhaps should be risk-free and comment-only? On the
next slide, there are other considerations that you have to think about when you
think about putting your grades on a report card. So when you think about your
grades, you have to think about, “Well, what is the most recent evidence, and
should I emphasize that when I’m determining my grade and I’m reporting it?”
Are you going to determine them using the mean, or are you going to use zeros in
your calculation? How are going to determine those grades, and how do you
determine them, as opposed to calculating them?
And then, on the next slide, once you put standards-based grading into
effect and you put that on your report card and you’re introducing standards and
communicating the gaps between what students know and are able to do related to
those standards, you can imagine that your report card might get really lengthy.
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So you have to determine how best to communicate the strengths and weaknesses:
are you going to emphasize all the standards, which ones are essential? Because
you have to balance the importance of the information with the length of the
report card. And again, separating achievement from behavior—if you decide to
separate achievement from behavior, how do you communicate both on the report
card? And then lastly, will you determine if grades are reported in relationship to
how the students are currently doing or how are they expected to do at the end of
the year? If you decide to do it in respect to how they are to do at the end of the
year, there may be some things you need to communicate to the parents, such as,
“Don’t expect students to have all of it right now. Expect them to grow as the
year goes on, and expect the grades to improve, for those particular standards.”
And again, when you communicate the standards from the beginning of the year
to the end of the year, that may lengthen your report card as well.
There are some web resources that we’ve provided for you. We have done
some standards-based grading webinars, and we—and in Home Base there is a
template for the standards-based report card. There’s also a standards-based
spreadsheet that has all the standards outlined that can go into your gradebooks, in
Home Base and PowerSchool, so that you can communicate information to your
parents. There is a—in the parent portal, there is a tab where parents can go in
and look at grades, and they can also look at standards. And then finally, there
are documents that support Home Base on that website that you see there.
Jeter:
We just have a few questions that have been typed in, so we want to pause for a
second and address those. The first one is, “What does CTE stand for?” That’s
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Career Technical Education. Thank you for keeping us on our toes with
acronyms—we do try to avoid those. Let’s see, the next question references two
years: “How many hours a week does that amount to per person who is doing the
reviewing?” And I think that must have to do with reviewing content standards,
perhaps.
F:
Yeah, two years to do the standards.
F:
So it takes—it takes two years overall for the process to proceed, not necessarily
that one person is doing it every day.
F:
Correct—yeah. So there’s committees that look at the standards, there’s lots of
feedback that has to go into the standards, and of course the department does take
feedback from the field, so if you adjust the standards over time, they do evolve.
So it is a two-year process.
F:
And do the people doing that reviewing, are they doing that work on a volunteer
basis, or is it some combination?
F:
It is a combination.
F:
Okay. So the next question asks, “Would the next five-year review come five
years after the 2018-19 school year?”
Weeks:
This is—
F:
We typically review standards every five years, but if you will remember, when
we adopted the standards this last time, because of the Blue Ribbon Commission
report and the department’s framework for change response, we revised all the
standards at one time. And so what we’re going to try to do is work with the
standards to move them back on a rotating basis. So it may take us a little bit
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longer in the interim to get everything back on a cycle, so that teachers are not
having—especially in the elementary grades—they’re not having to replace all of
their standards at the same time. So our goal would be for five years. To say that
it will be exactly five years when we can get everything back on a rotating
schedule, I’m not exactly sure, but certainly it wouldn’t be any—in any timeframe
less than five years.
Weeks:
And this is—this is Tracy Weeks speaking again too. Typically, what ends up
happening—so if the new standards went into effect in 2018-19, then they would
be taught in 18-19 and 19-20, and then the following year would be when we
would begin the process all over again. So you’ve taught them for a couple of
years, and then you start to provide feedback, but then that whole cycle—because
it really takes about four to five years to go through the entire review and
adjustment cycle—you can imagine that there’s always discussion at our level
about whether or not starting that cycle again when they’ve only been taught for a
couple of years really is sufficient feedback, sufficient time to have taught the
new standards, before we start looking at whether or not it’s time to adjust them.
But if we remain on a five-year cycle, that’s about the timeframe of how long we
teach before we start reviewing them again—starts back into effect.
Jeter:
Our next question has to do with surveys that are underway. In fact, one is
underway on the front page of our website right now. “If you send surveys to
non-educators, who are these individuals, and what role do they play in
educating?” I can speak to that. The survey that is up right now on English
Language Arts and Mathematics standards is really intended for parents and for
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folks in the business community who may be interested in giving feedback on
standards, to have an opportunity to do that. They are asked in the survey tool to
identify what their role is, and otherwise the survey is very similar to the one that
educators were asked to do.
Next question: “Would it be beneficial to take standards already made
from another state, and perhaps this could cut down on the years of review and we
could spend more time on gathering materials and providing support for teachers,
rather than on the review process.”
Weeks:
I will say certainly that is absolutely a part of the review and feedback process.
We are constantly looking at what other states are doing and learning from what
other states are doing, and when we find other people with great ideas, we look at
how we can best incorporate them into North Carolina. So I would say that that
certainly is never off the table. We’re always looking at what is happening
anywhere around the country for folks with great ideas that we think would fit
well in North Carolina.
Jeter:
“How many school districts in North Carolina are currently using the standardsbased grading system?” I think that’s a Sarah question.
McManus:
We have several districts that are engaged in the standards-based grading system.
Many of them are doing it at the elementary level. I can get you a list of those if
you’d like—I’d hate to leave someone off—but we had several counties that did
work with us to help develop these standards-based report card templates that we
have in PowerSchool. Some of them are currently developing their own template;
they don’t have to use the one that we have, but many of them are using either a
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combination of the one that we have or their own. So I can get you the list. I’d
hate to—I know that Hoke County’s using it, Durham County’s using standardbased grading. We have several others that are as well, but I’d hate to keep
naming districts, but I can get you a list.
Jeter:
And we have one more question. I’m not entirely sure what the question is
getting at, exactly, because of the way it’s phrased, but in essence, there’s some
concern being raised about how we understand what we’re supposed to
accomplish in other subject area standards, because we only do standardized
testing for accountability in Math and English Language Arts.
Garland:
I’ll be—I’ll take this one. This is Rebecca. The General Assembly restricts the
types of assessments where we actually set standards and report proficiency to
those tests that are required by the federal government for ESEA—I’m sorry, for
the Elementary Secondary Education Act, which is No Child Left Behind. So we
are restricted to reading and math in grades 3 through 8, once in high school for
reading and math, and then science tests three grade levels. So we do grade 3—
I’m sorry, grade 5, grade 8 in biology. So those are really the only assessment
that we administer as part of federal accountability for which we have cut [ph]
scores and proficiencies. Now, we administer final exams in partnership with the
LEA. Now what I mean by that is, we use standard exams across certain content
areas. There—and I don’t have the number in front of me—I’m going to say
there are approximately 20 to 25 of those assessments. We do not set
proficiencies. We provide back to the school systems the number correct and a
recommended grading scale, but then the LEA gets to determine really what grade
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they want to apply, based on whatever skill they would like to incorporate, and
then it counts 20% as a student’s test grade. And we use those common exams, if
you will, those final exams, to be able to track student growth so that teachers will
know if they’re having a positive impact on student learning, and if they’re not,
then they can work within their professional learning communities and with their
principals and with instructional coaches to try to improve their student growth
outcomes. So we really don’t have legislative authority to give assessments that
provide proficiencies, except in the areas where we were already giving the
assessments, and those are the ones required for federal accountability—and,
quite frankly, the ones that are factored into your performance grades. And so,
the reason we don’t have more is not because we don’t think the other contents
aren’t important [ph], but because we really don’t have the authority to administer
those assessments.
Jeter:
We have one more question before we turn our eyes to Home Base. “Is a
standards-based report card, is that also something used at the middle school
level?”
F:
Yes, standards-based report cards can be used at the middle school level as well,
as well as the high school. We actually have a problems of practice coming up in
April. You heard Dr. Stewart talk about problems of practice in her presentation;
we have one that is focused on standards-based grading, and Jonathan Huggins,
who’s a teacher in high school, he’s an ELA teacher, is going to be featured there.
He’s an English teacher at Forbush High School, and he’s—in Yadkin County,
and he’s going to talk about standard-based grading, so we invite you to join that
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on April the 8th at 3:30, if you’re interested in exploring this topic further. We
really would appreciate that, and I think you shared the link with them on ____.
Jeter:
Oh, we have one more question. “Is there any way to get a goals [ph] summary
type of report for NC final exams that we get for EOC and EOG assessments?”
F:
I don’t know the answer to that. But I will try to find out the answer to that. The
person who would know the answer to that would be Dr. Tammy Howard, who is
our Director of Accountability. We worked in partnership with NC State in the
development of our NC finals, and so I will be happy to find out if it is possible to
get a goals sheet summary. So if whoever asked the question—
Jeter:
Well, we can put that out to the principals and teachers email list—
[OVERLAPPING]
F:
Okay, perfect.
Jeter:
—everybody’s ___ . Okay, and at this point, I think we turn back to Dr. Weeks
for some information on Home Base.
Weeks:
Great, thank you. I’m happy to give us an update of what we know as of this
afternoon related to Home Base. So we’ve got several updates for you. So, first
of all, as hopefully many of you have experienced, there have been a number of
improvements in Schoolnet over the last few months, so that if you had
difficulty—particularly with benchmark assessments back in the fall—we made a
number of adjustments before the second quarter benchmarks were delivered, and
when they were delivered across the state, if your district chose to deliver
benchmarks, we nearly tripled our concurrent users in the system, and the system
did not flinch; it really performed quite, quite well, so if you were a district or a
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teacher who had used it earlier in the school year and had difficulty with it being
up and available when you needed it and maybe have stayed away since then, I
encourage you strongly to give it another shot. It is really working quite nicely
now, so we’re very excited.
But there are also a number of items that have just been put in there and
improved to make it an even better system. For example, we have been waiting
for this for quite some time, but there is now an all-districts feature in Schoolnet,
so that if your district has created items, you certainly can always choose to keep
those items just within your own district, but there is now a button that you can
click that will allow you to share them with all districts across the state, so that
you can share them with everyone. So we’re very excited. And there will be
some additional features in Schoolnet that will be added in the spring, so we’re
looking forward to those as well.
So, looking ahead, we also have quite a number of self-paced, facilitated
modules and mini-modules available, and I know that Dr. Stewart mentioned
many of those, and you can get those through the educator effectiveness PD
system in Home Base, and there’s the URL again on where you can take a look at
those modules, but Dr. Stewart did an excellent job of covering all of that earlier
in our conversation. Going on to the next slide: if you have not had a chance, and
you really want to see how teachers themselves are using Schoolnet in particular
and Home Base at large to really affect instruction and personalize learning in
their classrooms, on our Home Base website—and you can see the address there
at the bottom—we have short video clips of teachers talking about how they are
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actually using it. So if you want to get some ideas, and we really are trying to go
at different grade levels, different subject areas, but this is where you can really
go to see some video clips, and I’m looking forward to actually sharing one of
them with you during this webinar as well. So go check those out; those teacher
spotlights are really powerful and can really tell you how it’s actually being used,
rather than just how it could be used.
Okay, so going on to the next piece, if you recall, last year we went
through a substantive opt-in process, and the question I get now is, “How much
will it cost for next year?” As you will recall, for this past year, through strategic
negotiations, we were able to provide all of Home Base at no cost to the districts.
We had thought it was going to cost about $4 per student, and we were able to
negotiate it and get it down to $0 per student last year. This year, we’re still—we
do believe it will be a lower cost. We know that it’ll lower than $4, and in fact,
we know that it will be less than $3; we are advising districts that if you want to
budget, go ahead and budget for $3 per student, and know that it will be less than
that. But if you go ahead and budget for that $3 per student, then you’ll be safe,
and pleasantly surprised when we’re able to do it for something else. And we’ve
got a list there of all the things that cost includes: the Schoolnet tools and
resources, OpenClass, the local professional development tools within
Truenorthlogic. You’ve still got the single sign-on, and of course as usual,
PowerSchool and educator effectiveness and the state-level professional
development will remain available to you at no cost. So we’re excited about that
and looking forward.
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Now of course, the question of the hour is, “What’s happening with our
new learning management system?” So, if you are not familiar with this process,
a final remaining piece of our Race to the Top project is to acquire a new learning
management system for the state, and what I mean by that is, NCVPS will be
going to this new learning management system, and it will be available at the
same price—so if districts want to purchase it, rather than having to negotiate
their own contract, they’ll be able to get it at the same price that NCVPS
purchases it, the same per-student cost, and it should be quite a reasonable cost,
and we’re excited about that and looking for that. So it is still in the purchasing
process—I even almost had my hopes up that we were going to be able to share
some things today, but hopefully within the next couple of days, we’ll be able to
share out what that new learning management system, but you should know it will
be integrated with PowerSchool and the other components of Home Base and—
and you will be able to opt-into that, and it will be a separate cost from the rest of
the Home Base opt-in. So it will an additional piece, if that is something that your
district is interested in pursuing.
Okay. And then, I want to remind you that we are really trying to actively
use Twitter as a way to make sure we get out any announcements or alerts
regarding the status of Home Base. If it happens to go down, we will
immediately put out an alert. We do have the link there at the bottom of the slide.
But just stay tuned to that, and that’s really a great way to find out immediately
what the status is. Okay, with that being said, I would like to hand things over to
Shannon Register at Hoke County schools, and she’s going to share with you how
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their district has been using Home Base for instruction. So, excited to throw it
over to Shannon.
Register:
[NOISE] —of Curriculum and Instruction in Hoke County for secondary—can
you hear me? Hello?
F:
Yes, we can hear you now. Thank you.
Register:
Also with me I have Ms. Michelle Benson [ph], who’s our curriculum coordinator
for secondary, and then I have Ms. Rosa Bailey [ph], who’s our curriculum
coordinator for elementary. And here we want just to talk about how we use [ph]
the assessment tool, as well as we’ll make reference to how we use the resources
in Schoolnet. We’ll look at things we do in our district PLCs [ph], for ____
analysis, the booklet that we create, and then just looking at our overall
assessment system.
Here are just some demographics about Hoke County schools. Of course,
we’re located in Raeford, and we’re the third-fastest growing county in the state,
and we’re ranked the 81st in the nation in terms of our growth population. We
have 14 schools. Our student enrollment is about 8,000 students, and you can see
our economically disadvantaged at 68%, and then our subgroups here in Hoke
County.
Here, on this slide, we’re actually looking at Hoke County schools—our
benchmark assessments, and what we do, we actually benchmark our EOCs and
EOGs as well as our English I [ph]. What we do, we give three benchmarks—we
give a pre-assessment, a benchmark II [ph], and a post-, because what we’re
trying to do, we wanted to really look at the growth over the school year. And
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with the pre- and post-, we do align that to the test specifications document that
the state has released. Also with the math, we’ve used the gridded [ph]
responses—well, we actually change items or put items in for gridded responses,
as well as the constructive responses. And that’s for our math; for ELA and
science, we have our constructive responses, and then we also have rubrics with
those constructive responses, because we really have done a lot of PD with our
teachers on utilizing rubrics, and we try to have those rubrics to model the NC
final exam.
Also here, this is a breakdown—this came from a document that came
from DPI where they had the overall number of questions for the new assessment,
and they broke it up—at that time, they had it in of course, when they [ph] had the
Level I, II, III, or IV. What they did—and then they switched to the Level I
through V. We tell our teachers, once we looked at our data, we noticed we have
a lot of students that are in the III category or the III level, so our focus, where we
wanted to be able to bump then to the Level IV, so when we actually do PD with
our teachers, we are actually using this as a model to say, “This is where we want
students to be on our benchmarks.” We asked our testing and accountability
department to do a correlation between our benchmark scores and our EOG scores
last year, and of course they used some standard deviation, z-scores, differential
equations, and all of that to be able to make predictions from our benchmark to
our EOCs and EOGs. So that has helped—so our main target in what we do, we
want our students to definitely be at the 73% and even higher.
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And that’s reading, and of course we have the math here as well. And
then with the math, when you’re looking at our Level IV and higher, we’re really
focusing at 56% and higher on our benchmarks. So we try to correlate everything
so they will—so we can definitely make predictions in terms of where we need to
focus when we come near the end of the semester or the school year.
Here, this is just a overview of our district analysis PLCs, and in our
PLCs, we’ve focused on a lot of pre-formatted reports that’s in there, and on the
next slide we’ll talk more about those reports. In these PLCs, we talk about the
reteaching of these standards. We also look at what are some upcoming
standards, and then with the upcoming standards, we really focus in on what is the
resources in there for those upcoming standards, and then of course, what are the
resources for those that we need to reteach. We also, from Schoolnet, we pull
sample questions from the upcoming standards, so we can give teachers an idea of
how do those standards look, what type of questions you should be asking in your
classes. And then also, we share best practices in our classroom, based on
reteaching as well as upcoming standards, and so we want them to go into the—
go into Schoolnet and look at the instructional resources there, so we also require
them to bring at least one resource so we can discuss that at our PLCs.
Benson:
Good afternoon. My name is Michelle Benson, and I will be speaking with you
about some of the Schoolnet reports that we allow—or we ask our teachers to
actually look at. First, we actually look at the item analysis. We focus on the
section percentages, item percentages, as well as the correct answer. During this
particular time, we also talk about the misconceptions or misunderstandings of
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our answer choices for both reading, math, and science. We also look at the skills
analysis by section and also we ask our teachers to look at it through their
individual student performance, because we realize that if we do not begin to
individualize instruction, we are not going to really see, you know, the growth
that we really need from each individual student.
We then look at the standard mastery, and we get the standard
percentages, as well as looking at the related educational materials to those
standards. This particular item that is within Schoolnet, part of the standard
analysis allows us to reteach or actually move students forward. Great tool for
math, great tool for ELA, and teachers can also take this material, download it;
they can print it out. A lot these—this actual subcategory comes with unit plans,
lesson plans, as well as assessment items.
We also have created a Hoke County benchmark data analysis booklet. In
this particular booklet, we actually print the preformatted reports, benchmark test
standard analysis by school enrollment. We do not group. That is also a
feature—benchmark test item analysis, and this is, once again, why I stated that
we recognize our patterns or student patterns or misconceptions. We develop a
strategy plan, as well as interventions and acceleration for our students. We also
use a preformatted report by district and each school, we take a look at that,
include all of our teachers, the overall score as well as their individual sections.
And we also create comparison charts for domains and standards on our different
benchmark assessments.
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Register [ph]: And let me say this: we are very transparent in our district. We believe that we
should open up and share our test scores. We take the approach that all of these
are our children, because at the end of the day, when it says Hoke County
Schools, they’re talking about all of us who put in hard work. So in this booklet,
we have our teachers’ names, their scores, everything. We talk about patterns, but
before, my C&I [ph] team, we get together and analyze and look for patterns, and
then we go out into PLCs or we may call our teachers together to talk about those
different patterns and misconceptions that we notice.
And this is just an example in terms of a page that would be in our book.
We break it down, when we look at math, in terms of the domain, because we
know the test specification document that DPI first put out, it was by the domain,
so we like to focus in on how are we doing with the domain, with their preassessment, benchmark II, and then of course we’re taking our benchmark III in a
couple of weeks from now. And so then of course we have a difference there.
Under there, we have to actually break it out to look at, okay, now how do we do
all these standards that’s in the domain. And that’s very important, so I’d like to
thank DPI for coming out with the—your—the number of questions per standard,
so that helps our teachers now to have a better focus and really realize which
questions are embedded—or which standards are embedded into other standards,
for that test specification document. And then this is for the reading as well. We
look at their pre-, benchmark II, and those standards that kind of overlap to see if
there’s growth, and if not—I mean, if there’s no growth, then why, and we have a
conversation with our teachers [ph].
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And now this is the overall—just some changes that we’ve done over
time. Our assessment system—we, as time goes on of course, we need to evolve
and change with time. And so for 2012-13, we started out with a benchmark I, II,
and III, like most districts would after each nine weeks. Then we decided last
year we wanted to do a pre-assessment, a benchmark II, and have the exact same
pre-assessment as our post-, so we can look at some growth over time. We like
this method that we did this year, because with the pre-assessment, it really
helped guide teachers’ instruction from the beginning, to look at what were some
misconceptions early, and so when we pulled our teachers together and in PLCs,
that’s what we focused on: looking at those resources in Schoolnet to say, okay,
what can help us with this misconception? So that has worked out very well for
us. For the 2015-16 school year, we’re actually going to still go with the preassessment, but now we’re looking at having district common assessments and a
post-assessment.
And then this is just some expectations that we have for our common
assessment. We’re looking at, of course, the student learning of standards; also
four to five standards will be addressed. Two standards—of course we want to
spiral back, and then the other maybe two or three standards will be standards that
they have just taught, 20-25 questions and so forth. And of course, this will be
new for us, so we’re excited to implement district common assessments here.
And of course, this will be in Schoolnet.
And just some resources for strategies: we have a big focus on collegeand career-readiness, so this is one of the documents that we use from ACT, and
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we have gone in and in our pacing guides, we have aligned those college
readiness standards with our Common Core, because ACT had put out a
document really with that alignment. And so this document has a plethora of
ideals [ph] for progress, so that’s very exciting. Also with common assessments,
we have created this booklet for our teachers that really outlined the expectations
of their own common assessments in their classroom. And so of course we would
mirror our district common assessment after what we have put in the guide for
teachers.
And then for resources, we actually started with, when we looked at
Schoolnet, we had shared with teachers what were the different resources by
standard in Schoolnet to give them an example of how they can go and build their
curriculum or their lessons from using those resources.
F [ph 74:00]: And then we also look at the reading passages in Schoolnet to use as an
instructional tool for our teachers, as well as going down and unpacking the
questions and having students to understand what the questions are really asking.
We also are asking our teachers to encourage—you know, encouraging them to
ask, to use the resources to answer the “now, what?” after the assessment, so we
are truly taking advantages of the assessment features within Schoolnet, as well as
the instructional materials within Schoolnet, to guide our teachers’ instructions
within the classrooms.
Bailey:
Good afternoon. I’m Rosa Bailey, K-5 Instructional Leader. We have in our
parent portal—we have parent flyers that we send home in the spring that explains
everything to the parents, what they can expect, what’s going on within the
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schools, and how they can access that information. We also do automated calls to
the parents so that they know when benchmarks are being done, what teachers are
thinking of in their classroom, and what the expectations are. These—this
information is also publicized in our newspaper, as well as a parent user
agreement. At Open House, we show parents how to set up many sections [ph],
and they can rotate through the different sessions [ph] as well as to get on the
portals. We also have online parent guides, and at different events we have kiosks
set up with booths at different events so that the parents can go in and explore.
Usually the students are with them to help them navigate throughout the booths.
At district-wide, we also have Twitter and Facebook for parents to observe
things that are going on within the district, as well as encouraging our students to
go home and share this information with their parents, so that our parents are also
becoming 21st-century learners. And we have over 2,200 parents that have
signed on and are actually using the information in PowerSchool. They’re
looking at their students’ grades, they’re looking at upcoming assignments,
they’re looking at tests. And recently in our district, we just ordered
Chromebooks for all of our schools, 3 through 5, and students are actually doing
online assessments within the school as well as at home. So we truly are
technology-savvy at this moment.
F:
Are there any questions, comments?
Jeter:
We do have a number of questions that have been typed in, so I’m going to read
those out, and then we’ll see who our best resource might be. There is a request
that we put this PowerPoint in a link somewhere, and happy to do that, and we
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will publicize that link and also a link to the Ready V total webinar to the entire
principal and teacher list. So you all will be getting that.
This next question is, “Please clarify, Home Base and PowerSchool does
or does not have standards-based grading templates for North Carolina?”
McManus:
Okay. What PowerSchool has—which is part of Home Base—is a gradebook
where you can feed in your standards into your gradebook so that you can actually
grade based on the standards. It also has the tools that you need in order to set up
your standards grading scale, so that you can actually have that in your gradebook
as well. And then there’s a template for the standards-based report card, so if
your district decides that you want to implement the standard-based report cards
using the template that we have provided, you can do that. If you choose to build
your own standards-based report card within Home Base, you can do that as well,
or you can use a report card that’s not connected to Home Base—whichever way
you would like to do it. You have a lot of flexibility. Also, when I mentioned the
spreadsheet on that website, the spreadsheet, once you open it up, you can see all
the standards are in the standard course of study, and that is the spreadsheet that
feeds into your PowerSchool gradebook, so that your standards actually show up
in your gradebook. And there’s a webinar that describes how that can be done,
and there are some support documents for districts and teachers.
Jeter:
Our next question has to do with the cost of the school Home Base suite. And the
question is, “Home Base is mandatory, is it not? It seems the cost should be a
system cost, rather than cutting into already stretched individual school budgets.”
I think that I can address is, and perhaps Tracy will want to chime in. Parts of
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Home Base are mandatory; PowerSchool and the Educator Evaluation system,
those are both mandatory, and the state is picking up that cost. The Schoolnet
pieces do have a cost; it is not mandatory, however, and so you’re basically
covering the cost of subscriptions for content with that $3, which we estimate at
this point, and it could be slightly under that. Tracy, do you have more to add to
that?
Weeks:
Nope, you—that’s exactly correct.
Jeter:
Okay. All right. Let’s see. “When will the 14-15 EVAAS data be released to
LEA?” We aren’t sure the answer to that question, but we’ll find out and get it
back out to everyone.
“So the new state-selected LMS [ph] that will be integrated into
PowerSchool will support standards-based grading?” the question asks.
F:
That is—the LMS itself is not necessarily dealing with the grading, but it will
support it in terms of the new learning management system will fully integrate
with the PowerSchool gradebook, so if we have the capabilities within the
PowerSchool gradebook to deal with standards-based grading, we will have that
same capability within the learning management system.
Jeter:
We have another person who would like to know where to find the standardsbased report card template exactly.
F:
You will have to log into PowerSchool and actually just see it, but we do have
samples of it on the website that was on that slide that I showed earlier—once you
get the slides back, you’ll be able to get that link. I’ll also see if we can put it in
the chat box.
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Jeter:
And then we have a question that says, “What does ACT stand for, again?” And I
think—ACT is not really an acronym, it’s just the college admissions test that is
being used to measure college readiness at the high school level. I think it may
have stood for something a long time ago, but like the SAT, the company that
does it no longer considers it an acronym.
Okay, last call for questions, so if you have any additional questions,
please type those in now. It doesn’t appear that we have any more questions,
so—wait—another question about access to the recorded version. We will send
that link to you. Once it is posted, we’ll send that link out on the teachers and on
the principals email lists, so everyone will get it. Back to the 14-15 EVAAS data,
that will be released in the fall of 2015. So you can look for that at that time.
Okay, with that, I want to thank you for participating today. On behalf of
the Department of Public Instruction, this is Vanessa Jeter signing out, and we
will be seeing you on email. Thank you so much.
[END RECORDING]
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