Proficiency-Based Learning PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

By Bill Webster, Superintendent March 16, 2015

Issue Observations Plan of Action/Recommendations

(Bold Indicates School Committee Action Required) A. Overall challenges

and frustrations with implementation of PBL

Virtually all schools that have made significant transformational changes such as PBL have made mistakes and frustrated many. We certainly want to minimize this but PBL is not something where all the bugs can be worked out prior to implementation. We learn and improve in the doing. Teacher and communication inconsistencies have raised appropriate concerns among School Committee members, and have also fueled opponents to solicit parent and student feedback for Lewiston Public Schools to reverse course. The law for a proficiency-based diploma remains in place (see Section H re extension), and we already know that greater transparency in PBL has helped identify areas for needed attention and focus. PBL with its greater rigor and student supports is also intended to raise our LHS 4-year completion rate of 70% and our low proficiency level much higher than the present 40% or so of students.

1. LHS should make adjustments in our PBL implementation as appropriate but not step back from our overall direction and commitment to PBL.

2. Except for possible changes related to the reporting software and grading system (see action steps 12-15) PBL should continue at Lewiston High School for the incoming freshmen for the 2015-16 school year, the class of 2019.

3. PBL with improvements should continue this school year

for the present freshmen, the class of 2018. The scope of PBL for this class after this year should be dependent on the reporting software and grading system direction (see action steps 12-15) and the degree of readiness of our sophomore teachers. The determination of readiness of our sophomore teachers will be made in a recommendation to the School Committee in May. Below are two possible PBL approaches going forward for next years sophomores:

i. Continue PBL as in 2 above; or ii. Many details would need to be worked out, but one

option would be to use mostly traditional grading while still continuing many aspects of PBL including separation of HOW scores, the use of common assessment and retakes and a passing threshold of C.

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Issue Observations Plan of Action/Recommendations (Bold Indicates School Committee Action Required)

B. Time that teachers have for collaboration, professional development and common planning

We are expecting our teachers to collaborate in new ways in developing a common understanding of PBL, common assessments and consistent grading practices. PBL takes more time than is provided in the school calendar and has also impacted teacher time available for other work. In addition, we need to broaden our approach to PD as needs vary from teacher to teacher.

4. We need to help ensure focus in all our meetings. Agendas and minutes should be posted on Google Drive.

5. Our early high school graduation date (6/5) and number of snow days present options for teachers of seniors to provide coverage for freshmen and sophomore teachers so they can further refine our PBL work for the coming school year. The Principal will finalize this once we firm up the date school ends.

6. We will schedule two voluntary -day workshops for freshmen and sophomore teachers from 8am noon on Monday, June 22nd and Tuesday, June 23rd. Participating teachers will be paid $120 for each session unless additional snowdays have the regular school year encompass one or both of these dates.

7. LHS administrators will build a summer schedule so that supports are available for teachers throughout the summer.

8. I will declare Wednesday, August 26th, Thursday, August 27th, and Friday, August 28th as three required workshop days for all LHS teachers, who will be paid at per diem rates.

9. One of these three days should be modeled on teacher-designed PD to help ensure that a broader range of needed PD topics will be covered.

10. The School Committee should give careful consideration to the 2016-17 school calendar (i.e., the year after next) to allow for a significant increase in teacher non-instructional time for PD.

11. I will decide by 1/31/16, after the draft 2016-17 calendar is public, whether or not to declare another 2-3 additional required workshop days at the end of the 2015-16 year.

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C. Reporting student progress

This has been the most challenging issue in our PBL implementation. Reporting has been impacted by deficiencies in five major areas: a. Insufficient number of summative

assessments.

b. The PowerSchool software being used

c. Misrepresentations on our grading practices

d. Inconsistencies on grading practices

e. Lack of clarity on comparing student progress

in a PBL system to our traditional grading system. On one level the two systems are incomparable as one students lack of mastery

12. The Principal has communicated to teachers and will monitor

the expectations that each quarter going forward will include at least 4 pieces of scored evidence in each content area.

13. We are assessing through school visits and the use of an outside consultant the capabilities and limitations in a PBL environment for three different software options JumpRope, Educate and PowerSchool. This assessment will be completed by this May. A software recommendation and implementation timeline will be presented to the School Committee in May for possible action.

14. Any implementation schedule that doesnt provide strong assurance of readiness by the beginning of the 2015-16 school year will result in a return to our more traditional use of PowerSchool with certain adjustments that will require School Committee action such as the possible use of a 60-100 point scale.

15. I apologize for the miscommunication that we are using trending. Our software does not have this capability. Our teachers have always been able to override a grade in PowerSchool, but LHS Administration needs to provide teachers clear guidelines on overriding.

16. Grading inconsistencies have always existed, but PBL has provided greater transparency to this issue. The March LHS workshop day will include teachers PD on developing more consistent interpretation of rubrics and student performance. This is ongoing work.

17. We will finalize a conversion chart over the next week that will equate a PBL score using 10th of a point increments to a specific numerical number.

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of one standard would make them less than proficient in PBL even though they might otherwise have a 90 average in a traditional system. Until we are 100% PBL, however, we must have a clear, concise conversation chart, however flawed the comparison.

18. While developed with good intentions, the NY and IE designations should be changed to 2 and 1, respectively, in order to communicate more clearly where students are academically. This change will require amending School Committee policy.

D. Student motivation and assessments

One complaint is that our PBL system does not provide explicit motivation for students to do formative assessments. Much of the issue may be remedied as we expand PBL to other grades. It still raises questions for all grade levels about how we better develop internal capacities in children to learn and practice appropriate behaviors on their own. There are areas for further investigation ranging from PBIS where we reward students for good behavior to teacher language that may reinforce that the student is working to meet teacher expectations rather than the students own. (At the Teaching & Learning Conference last week I was exposed to the work of Peter Johnson on this subject.) In addition, teachers who have been working independently are now being asked to develop, use and score assessments in a consistent manner. This is challenging work and represents part of the thinking behind action steps 2, 3, 4 and 5 above. We need to continue expanding the number of common assessments to ensure greater consistency in grading and content knowledge. We also know that the lack of sufficient additional and alternative assessments has hindered the implementation of PBL.

19. I would like to add to the charge of the District PBL Committee to explore on a broader scale school impact on student initiative and motivation.

20. As discussed in last weeks District PBL Committee meeting, a true PBL system does not give any weight to formative assessments. We can, however, still increase their significance by requiring students to demonstrate readiness to take a summative assessment. Going forward, freshmen teachers after agreement in their content area may identify formative assessments that must be completed before a student can qualify to take a summative assessment.

21. Prior to the end of this school year we will evaluate the results of the action step above and consider possible options for the following school year that might include:

i. to continue the procedure for the following year; ii. revert back to no weight given to formative

assessments; iii. assign a scoring weight of 10% to formative

assessments; or iv. blending formative and summative assessments to

focus more on evidence of students meeting standards. 22. Our Special Education and ELL staff are being charged to

develop further alternative assessments for all students challenged by present assessment tools. Alternative assessments do not change the standards to be met.

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E. Communication to parents and students

We have heard many stories of inconsistent messaging. Lewiston High School has already begun to address this area through communication home, monthly parent meetings, a recent session with all freshmen, and teacher training. This work needs and will continue.

23. Lewiston High School teachers will provide feedback on student work (formative and summative assessments) within 2 weeks of the assignment completion except for major research papers and projects. In such cases teachers will communicate the timeline for feedback when the project is assigned.

24. A user-friendly district and school PBL handbook will be drafted and distributed prior to the end of this school year. It will incorporate more clearly much of the information provided in School Committee policy and the PBL website.

25. There will be a parent meeting each month during the 2015-

16 school year.

F. Supports to help students

One of the premises of PBL is that student receive extra support to achieve proficiency and also additional opportunities to excel. We have much more work to do here, and these areas are a major part of the School Committee approved PBL extension with DOE.

26. We will pre-enroll in summer school at Lewiston High School any freshman who is not proficient in a standard or standards at the end of the school year. Summer school work will only focus on standards not yet met. We need to provide transportation options to students.

27. The 2015-16 school year will include interventionists and class time to work with students who begin the year already behind in demonstrating mastery.

28. Our Guidance Counselors will work with each student and

parent/guardian in developing a graduation plan for students who end the summer of 2015 without one or more standards not met.

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G. Graduation Requirements and Academic Honors

We have already announced that the PBL grade for a class will be to the 10th of a point and be the basis for academic honors. The School Committee discussed but took no action on other recommendations of the Scholars Committee to give greater weight to honors and AP courses. We do need to address the issue of academic honor rolls and supports and options for students who may not be able to meet proficiency-based graduation requirements. The Committee on Graduation Requirements for Special Populations has recently drafted legislation that addresses at least some of the concerns voiced on a state-wide level. We have yet to finalize how the States Guiding Principles will be assessed for graduation.

29. The School Committee will review and consider supporting the proposed change in state law on graduation requirements.

30. Priority standards should be broken down by quarter to be covered in order to form the basis for the reporting of quarterly academic honors.

31. Work on how the guiding principles will be incorporated in

the graduation requirements needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Our DOE extension needs to be amended to exempt the guiding principles from our graduation requirements until there is clarity on how they will be incorporated. This will require School Committee approval.

H. State Support and

Requirements A support team from the Maine Department of Education (DOE) will be visiting Lewiston High School in the near future. They will assess our current progress, made suggestions and help us revise, as necessary, our DOE extension for Proficiency-Based Diplomas. As the School Committee knows, an extension is not a waiver as the PBL requirements are in law, but we can be granted an extension of another year in areas where additional time is needed. Any extension amendments will be due DOE this summer.

32. Provide DOE a copy of our proposed draft legislation on graduation requirements for their input and consideration.

33. Revise as appropriate our PBL extension application for filing this summer.