Mr. Watson has been teaching 6 th grade Social Studies for 4 years at Sunny Brook
Middle School.
As principal, you have been confronted by several parents whose students are in Mr.
Watson’s classes. Parents are concerned that there is a huge “disconnect” between how students perform on daily work and projects compared to their performance on classroom assessments and school and district benchmark assessments. When approached by parents, Mr. Watson states that students are experiencing test anxiety or that he was unable to cover material that was part of the benchmark assessments.
A careful analysis of Mr. Watson’s grade book entries, assessment data, observations and lesson plans indicate that students are not performing well on assessments and that he has made no effort to amend his lesson plans and adapt his instructional strategies to meet the areas of concern. Conversations with Mr. Watson and a careful analysis of his lesson plans also show that he has not made attempts to address the objectives he has failed to cover from the district pacing guide. Furthermore, daily grades are clearly inflated in comparison to assessment scores.
As principal of Sunnybrook, how would you begin a conversation with Mr.
Watson concerning his grading practices and the use of formative assessment to support teaching and learning in his classroom?

Mary Revis has been teaching 8th grade mathematics for 8 years at Gray Middle
School. Her classes include standard 8 th grade Math, Advanced 8 th Grade Math and one Math I course. Her entire teaching experience has been in 8th or 9th grade at this school. She recently completed her master’s degree in middle grades math education.
Visits to Ms. Revis’ classrooms and examination of student work samples, indicate that she continues to approach Math instruction in a traditional way although the new standards validate the need for providing a very different pedagogical approach to math instruction. She feels very strongly that her traditional approach is best for her students as indicated by the fact that 85% or more of her students are proficient in all of her classes.
You know that while Ms. Revis ’ students consistently meet proficiency on their EOG tests, her EVAAS reports show that her students are not meeting expected growth.
Specifically, students grouped in the highest tertile in her class are falling well below expected growth targets.
What conversations would you have with Ms. Revis concerning growth versus proficiency in light of her instructional practices?

Ms. Lavender is a 7 th grade English/Language Arts teacher at Spartan Middle School who is experiencing a year in which most of her classes are extremely diverse. In her
4 th period class, for example, 6 of her 27 students are ESL, 5 are exceptional and 3 are repeating the class due to poor performance in the previous year.
Ms. Lavender is particularly challenged by the diverse range of reading abilities in her class. She has attempted many strategies that have been discussed in her PLCs and
SIOP and Reading Foundations training sessions. She works well with specialists in the school to attempt to meet the needs of her students and has actively searched for and completed professional development activities focused on the addressing the needs of her students and areas in which she feels that she needs professional support.
Early examinati on of her students’ performances in class show that her changes in instructional practices are making a difference as evidenced by increased student engagement and student performance on in class assignments documented on classroom walk-through documents. These improvements are not always reflected in her students’ performances on unit and benchmark assessments.
Ms. Lavender is quickly becoming very frustrated and concerned that she is not meeting the learning needs of her students although she appears to be embracing and attempting all the “right” strategies.
As her principal, how would you guide and support her in moving forward? What additional information might you collect to scaffold your support?

Mr. Holland is a 20 year veteran music and band teacher. In his classes, students’ grades consist of scores from weekly paper/pencil tests on terms and music theory.
Additionally, he has created performance rubrics on which students are scored. While his grading system appears to offer a well-rounded picture of student progress in his classes as related to the NC Standard Course of Study, there is little evidence in his instructional strategies that he differentiates his instruction to promote growth in his average and below average students as indicated on their performance rubric scores.
Mr. Holland’s professional development focus has always been to attend the annual state music teachers’ convention. He is also part of a PLC team which consists of teachers of the arts and physical education with no state mandated final assessment required for their courses. The focus of this team has been on the proposed state plans for the analysis of student work process. Discussions are held on best practices around creating rubrics that embrace standards and document student growth. Mr. Holland openly and often expresses frustration that his attendance at these meetings does not support his professional growth and that he sees no reason to change the grading practices that he has implemented in his classroom.
You are meeting with Mr. Holland for a mid-year review of his professional growth plan. How would you begin the conversation to address your concerns around student growth and differentiation strategies in his classroom?