Curriculum Council
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
9:00 AM-11:30 AM PLC Meeting
8:30 Morning Refreshments/11:30 Lunch
-Meeting MinutesMembers attending: Dr. Betsy Baker, CIU #10; Bethann McCain, CIU #10; Jamie Russler, CIU #10; William
Curley, Lock Haven University; Valerie Dixon, Lock Haven University; Tracy Boone, Bald Eagle ASD;
Michelle Saylor, Bellefonte ASD; Bruce Nicolls, Clearfield ASD; Ron Matchock, Curwensville ASD; Jill Dillon,
Harmony ASD; Terry Murty, Keystone Central; Kris Albright, Moshannon Valley SD; Sherri Connell, Penns
Valley School District; Susan Harris, Philipsburg-Osceola ASD; Kaya Levent, Young Scholars of Central
Pennsylvania Charter School
1. Welcome: Meeting was brought to order at 9:00 AM, introductions by all attending members
followed.
2. PDE/PAIUCC Updates & Discussion – Dr. Baker discussed the possibility of a NO vote
on the Chapter 4 and how that would affect districts.
a. IRRC Vote on Chapter 4 Revisions – Nov. 21
i. Regulatory Approval Process (Slides 2-5)
IRRC cannot defeat changes, but they can slow the process
Politics come in to play pretty significantly… if they vote yes…
conversation is over – regs get published in the Bulletin
If they vote no – the state board has options with 40 days to choose:
 Could send it back to IRC unrevised – but must respond to
IRRC’s issues and explain why they were wrong –
essentially the State Board would be insisting the new regs
would go through
 Could revise the regs and make connections as to how
those revisions are connected to the issues that were raised
by IRRC
If IRRC votes no a second time, the legislation can get involved
ii. Potential Consequences
Message being communicated is that the State Board would have difficulty going
anywhere other than dropping back to 2010 regs… which would be 10
Keystones… 1/3 of final grade… - retroactive to 2013
Please note that the Chapter 4 regulations passed the Independent Regulatory Review Commission
on 11-21-13 by a vote of 3-2. Watson and Bedwick voted “no” and Lutkewitte, Tabas and Mizner
voted yes.
b. Comprehensive Planning and School Improvement (Slides 6-8)
Dr. Baker discussed the Revised Chapter 4 Planning requirements and the future updates
to the comprehensive plan, the data import process, printing from archives, Charter school
ability to submit improvement plans, EdNA import process, and Title 1 addendum added to
school level plan. New Comprehensive Planning updates will not take effect for a few
months and should not impact the Phase 2 and 3 planning process. Phase 2 and 3 districts
should continue with their planning and may utilize the current offline guidance (which is
labeled Phase 2, but is applicable to Phase 3 as well).
c. SPP (Slides 9-10) –
i. Public Release – Tentatively set for Dec. 9
ii. Related PVAAS Updates – Probably early January
iii. Final Determination of Priority and Focus School Designations
Designations in flux due to School Closings
Commissioned officers responsibility: if you are closing a school, you must let
PDE know and EdNA data must be updated every year.
At least 12 and up to as many 20 schools were closed and this has affected the
list of priority and focus schools
Note that new school or closed school just means that at least 50% of the
population has changed
d. PVAAS (Slides 11-48) – Dr. Baker noted that E-Learning videos, Common
Misunderstandings about Teacher Specific Reporting, and a Guide to Teacher Specific
reporting (coming soon!) are available on the PVAAS website.
i. Professional Development (Slides 12-18)
Remaining Pilot Webinars Nov. 21 & 22
“A Look at Teacher Specific Reporting” Webinars for Non-Pilots
View LIVE or archived webinar
January 9th 2:00-3:30pm
January 17th 9:00-10:30am
January 23rd 9:00-10:30am
ii. Teacher Specific Reporting (Slides 19-42) – won’t take effect until 3 year rolling
average is established. Dr. Baker explained TSR and showed visuals of district
reports, school level reports, teacher listing reports, teacher by school reports,
diagnostic reports, and custom reports. Custom reports can be modified to fit a
specific criterion. PVAAS has provided a Teacher Specific Reporting Self-Reflection
sheet for teachers.
From the pilot, the following structure has been established for determining if a
teacher will qualify for PVAAS reporting:
Actual N Count = 11 students
Cumulative Count - Per tested grade/subject/course
Active N Count = 6 students
Similar in concept to an “FTE”; 6 “active” students
Example: 11 actual students, each claimed for 50%
Instructional Responsibility, would equal 5.5 “active”
students” – not enough “active” students for a teacher to get
PVAAS teacher specific reporting in this subject/grade
Min. Threshold for % Instructional Responsibility = 10%
All students must be rostered
be careful when doing the rostering… if there is an error –
that can’t be changed once teacher reporting is completed
Districts need to plan for teacher training, meetings, etc. for the roster verification
process. A timeline for roster verification is on page 11 of the LEA Guide to
Implementation which was shared at last month’s Curriculum Council meeting and
is posted on the PVAAS site.
iii. Updates to Student Reporting (Slides 43-48) – Performance Diagnostics reports
will have the winter and spring semester, projections to Keystone exams, and
student proficiency. Student identification numbers are included in search criterion.
e. SAS (Slides 49-50) – Dr. Baker shared that the Mathematics Curriculum Framework has
now been uploaded into the SAS site and discussed use of the Assessment Creator. Dr.
Baker also offered the CSIS department’s curriculum mapping services to the districts.
These services are free of charge. Please contact Dr. Betsy Baker for more information on
scheduling curriculum mapping services.
Please note that the SAS curriculum mapping site is currently being upgraded and there
are/will be changes to the appearance and functionality of the site.
f. Project Based Assessment (Slides 51-52)
Evaluators needed, payment = Act 48 only
g. SLOs (Slides 53-55) – SLO Learning Community on SAS will have the latest information on
the SLOs. Dr. Baker offered to individually walk interested parties through the process of
joining the learning community. She also noted that the SLO timeline is legislative. Our IU
has no control over the timeline.
i. Q & As
Schoolwide SLOs for Principals are under development
Special Circumstances – send Betsy any special teaching circumstances where you think
SLO development will be challenging (PDE is considering how to broaden SLOs to
address special circumstances)
ii. Training Schedules:
1. November 26th – Intro into SLOs – repeat of previous session
2. January 7th – Pilot School Leadership
a. Overview/Review of SLO process
b. Discussion of roles/responsibilities
c. Sharing of draft SLOs
d. Review of SLOs for completeness, comprehensiveness, & coherency
3. April 8th – Pilot Assessment Literacy (ALS)
h. Educator Effectiveness (Slides 56-66)
i. Specialist Effectiveness
ii. Principal Effectiveness
REL and Mathematica have indicated PA’s Principal Evaluation tool is by far the
strongest developed in the country…
Aspect Involving Correlation between Teacher Evaluation in Practice and the PVAAS
Results will need tweaked –may become “relationship” instead of “correlation”
PIL courses being designed for Teacher Evaluation and Principal Evaluation
REL (Regional Educational Laboratory) – are developing online training for principals
PLC’s for Principals are also being developed
iii. Teacher Effectiveness
Use best available data
Rule of Thumb = – if a teacher has no connection to student achievement data
(example first year teacher’s January evaluation), then the evaluation becomes 100%
Observation data (Danielson Framework)
PDE will issue guidance soon to clarify what data should be used in what circumstances
iv. Differentiated Supervision
1. Peer Coaching
2. Action Research
3. Portfolio
4. Other
3. CIU#10 Updates
a. Updated CIU Leadership Webpage -The site is now up-to-date
b. eMetric Training
c. Advanced Placement Summer Institute – August 4-7, 2014 (Slides 71-72)
 Calculus AB – confirmed
 Biology – confirmed
 English Language and Composition – confirmed
 US History – confirmed
 Fifth instructor still not secured
d. Galaxy (Slides 73-74)
Artist for a Day – Performances are as low as $235 – May want to share this
opportunity for an inexpensive “assembly” with your PTOs
Artist is Residence – 2 ten-day residencies or 1 fifteen-day residency are still available
at the reduced rate – See examples of Glendale Mural Project and other Photo/Activities
on CIU Galaxy page
e. ESL (Slides 75-76) – More information on ESL is coming daily.
Bethann McCain is the new contact person
ELL Overlay/Curriculum Mapping
f. Principals’ Networking Meetings (Slides 77-78)
Potential Topics? Please send your ideas to Betsy
Elementary Meeting: Dec. 6
Secondary Meeting: Dec. 12
4. Other Needs/Questions/Discussion Items (Slides 79-82)
5. Upcoming Conferences
a. SAS – December 8-10, 2013 in Hershey
Primary Topics will include the following:
 PA Core Standards
 STEM Initiative
 Curriculum Mapping
 SLO Training
b. ISP – January 26-29, 2014 in Pittsburgh
c. POTENTIAL Regional Leadership Institute – July 9-11, 2014 in State College -- May join
with IU08 and IU11 to offer a Leadership Institute at Toftrees like IU08 has done in the past.
Thoughts?? Potential Topics?? Please share with Betsy.
6. Meeting Schedule
January 22, 2014
February 19, 2014
March 26, 2014
May 21, 2014
Click here to register for Curriculum Council meetings.
Slides 1 – 6
BACK
Slides 7 – 12
BACK
Slides 13 – 18
BACK
Slides 19 – 24
Back
Slides 25 – 30
Back
Slides 30 – 36
Back
Slides 37 – 42
Back
Slides 43 – 48
Back
Slides 49 – 54
Back
Slides 55 – 60
Back
Slides 61 – 66
Back
Slides 67 – 72
Back
Slides 73 – 78
Back
Slides 79 – 82
Back
UNOFFICIAL, SUBJECT-TO-CHANGE RESPONSES TO SLO QUESTIONS
The SLO Process template is “locked” once the information is entered into Homeroom. Will
principals/teachers be able to go back and make changes at any point throughout the year. They
feel that locking it will discourage risk-taking and reduce rigor. The plan is to have the system
updated in February so that editing can be done. It is not best practice to change SLOs, but the District
can make the decision to allow “do overs”. This needs to be an established district decision and
administrators need to approve that this is appropriate given the situation so that it doesn’t turn into a
process where teachers just “game” the system.
What is the date by which pilot teams must enter their SLO into Homeroom? No date is being
established. Once the teacher and principal are satisfied that the SLO has been completed accurately, it
should be entered into the Homeroom site.
Will teachers always only have to do one SLO or will SLOs need developed for every subject
taught? There will most likely be guidelines developed and released in regard to this in the spring. It
may depend upon the number of performance measures used, the courses taught, etc. There could be
multiple SLOs expected, but not likely more than four per teacher. This decision is not yet final.
What is the overall purpose of the SLOs other than to address the required aspect of the Educator
Effectiveness model? Specifically, should the SLOs be designed to focus on (1) improving student
learning in relation to identified school or district curricular concerns (and therefore be common
to groups of teachers) or (2) should they be designed to focus on student learning in relation to an
individual teacher’s area of focus through action research or (3) is this a school/district/teacher
decision and can vary? This is an LEA decision. (1) Using schoolwide data, etc. to develop common
SLOs is encouraged, but there must be appropriate customization (ex. indicators would need adjusted to
the particular grade level, etc.). If you do develop SLOs by using schoolwide goal from a schoolwide
action plan, you have to ensure that the teacher is certified in area where they are measuring student
achievement. (ex. a schoolwide writing focus can be used to establish SLO goals for elementary
classroom teachers, but it would not be appropriate for the phys. ed. teachers). (2) Exercise caution in
using the SLOs in action research because this approach can lead teachers to develop less rigorous
SLOs or can be “risky” for the teacher’s evaluation if designed rigorously, as expected, and then the
action research doesn’t have the desired result. This model of SLO design is not considered “best
practice,” but it is ultimately an LEA decision.
What is the date that teams are supposed to “meet with the researchers”? No date has been shared
yet.
When will the specific SLO requirements for 2014-15 be rolled out to districts? Will
administrators have the information in time to train their faculties during August in-service? To
partially answer the question: The Homeroom site will be PDE “property” on July 1. It is not expected
that the pilot will change the SLO template/process. It will only help clarify questions, determine what
additional supports need created, etc. It could also result in broadened options for special
circumstances.
Why are the videos called videos? Will they be replaced with videos for the 2014-15 rollout? The
“PowerPoints” are not currently planned to become videos. Developing some video snippets is under
consideration, but no decision has been made.
We have teachers in special programs who work with individual and small-groups of students for
extremely brief periods (sometimes just days). How will they build and utilize SLOs? (ex.
teachers of incarcerated youth) PDE has not yet considered special cases. At this point they are
ready for IUs to start submitting specific examples to them for consideration.
Template 10 gets submitted through Homeroom. Do the Performance Measure Task Frameworks
(i.e., “attachments” to Template 10) ever get submitted? Eventually, the Performance Measure Task
Framework will be an online submission just like Template 10.
Will there be additional examples of SLOs posted beyond the two currently on the Homeroom site
for art and phys. ed.? 10 are being developed. The SLO Development Team is trying to fast track them,
but no release date has been established.
Back
Consequences of Not Adopting Revised Chapter 4 Regulations
Pennsylvania Core Standards and the Keystone Exams
November 8, 2013

Without IRRC’s approval of the revised Chapter 4 regulations, the Commonwealth would revert to the
regulations adopted in 2010, which took effect on July 1, 2013. Specifically, the following would apply:
o Approves the adoption of the national Common Core State Standards.
o Requires the development and implementation of Keystone Exams in 10 subject areas.
o Requires students in the class of 2015 to demonstrate proficiency on six of the 10 Keystones in
order to graduate.
o Requires a student’s performance on the Keystone Exams to be calculated as at least one-third of
his/her course grade. This would need to occur retroactively for those students who already took
the Keystone Exams beginning with the class of 2015 and transcripts would need to be revised to
reflect the recalculated grade.
o Requires that a student’s transcript include the score attained on the Keystone Exams.
o Requires each student to complete a culminating graduation project.
o Requires school districts to complete strategic planning.
o Authorizes only the Secretary of Education to grant graduation waivers on a case-by-case basis
for students with extenuating circumstances. Local chief school administrators could only
request that a waiver be provided.
o Does not address language regarding whether the Department may implement the national
Common Core tests, mandated curriculum, requirement for specific textbook and reading lists,
and collection of additional data on students and their families.
o Requires the Department to realign the PSSAs and Keystone Exams to the national Common
Core State Standards, which would result in significant costs, or would require the department to
use the national Common Core exams to assess students.

IRRC’s approval of the revised Chapter 4 regulations puts in place:
o Approves the Pennsylvania Core Standards, which were created by Pennsylvania educators, to
replace the national Common Core State Standards.
o Reduces the number of Keystone Exams required for graduation from 10 to five; thus reducing
the amount of supplemental instruction.
o Reduces the amount of time students would be taking tests.
o Moves the date for students to demonstrate proficiency to meet state graduation requirements on
the Keystone Exams from the class of 2015 to the class of 2017.
o Eliminates the reference on student transcripts as to how students earned proficiency on
Keystone Exams.
o Removes the requirement for the Keystone Exams to count as one-third of a course grade.
o Eliminates the culminating graduation project for each student.
o Eliminates the requirement for schools to complete strategic plans.
o Removes the Secretary of Education from the role of making Keystone Exam waiver
determinations and allows the decision to be made by the local chief school administrator.
o Includes language preventing the department from using the national Common Core tests; from
mandating curriculum, textbooks and reading lists; from expanding the collection of student data.
o Eliminates the need to realign PSSAs and Keystone Exams to the Common Core State Standards.
Eliminates the added cost of realigning these exams, or the potential for the national Common
Core tests to be administered in Pennsylvania.
Back