1. 2014-2015 Proposed Areas of Focus & District Priority Board Meeting April 22, 2014 Kevin. L. O’Gorman, Chief Academic Officer Rodney Thompson, Superintendent

2. 2013-2014 A Year in Review  June 2013: Summer SAIL Focused on School Leadership Teams, Common Curriculum, and Mobile Device Training  August 2013: Implementation of Common Curriculum in grades K-12, ELA and math  August-Present: Constant Review of Curriculum through:  Leadership agendas  Instructional unit feedback forms  Classroom observations

3. Pending Legislation  Bill S.300 (and amendments)  Common Core Hybrid  SmarterBalanced  SmarterBalanced vs ACT  Cyclical Review (2016 or 2018)  *Common Core will be in place through at least 2016  Read to Succeed Bill (and provisos)  Kindergarten Readiness (Assessment)  Literacy Plans  Literacy Coaches  Progress Monitoring  Summer Reading Camps  3 rd Grade Retentions

4. Education Oversight Committee and State Department of Education  August 2013: Formative Assessment funds stopped  December 2013: Summer Reading Camp Memo (update April 11)  April 3: Smarter Balanced Pilot tests stopped  November 1, 2014: State Accountability Tests for 2014- 2015 will be chosen

5. High Student Performance Goal: 2011-2016  We will realize high levels of academic growth and achievement for all students through an emphasis on literacy and STEMs (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) based instruction.

6. Area of Focus #1: 2014-2015  Support teachers as they transition to adopted standards by providing an easily accessible research-based curriculum, as well as evaluating and aligning professional development services

8. Area of Focus #2: 2014-2015  Infuse technology into the curriculum to encourage collaboration, communication, and effective use of software and hardware to enhance student learning

9. Portable Advanced Science Exploration PASE promotes advanced science exploration through the use of technology. PASE puts advanced scientific equipment in the hands of dedicated teachers and provides training that enables them to comfortably incorporate this equipment into classroom instruction. Professional Development for Teachers 8 th Grade Science TeachersSummer 2013 7 th Grade Science TeachersSummer 2014 6 th Grade Science TeachersSummer 2015

10. Area of Focus #3: 2014-2015  Establish a system (at the school and district level) for analyzing accountability data for the purposes of evaluating and streamlining the instructional delivery model in order to meet the varying needs of all stakeholders

11. Area of Focus #4: 2014-2015  Collaborate with regional partners through an academy model

13. 2014-2015 District Priority Professional Learning Communities (PLCs): What’s the big idea?

14. What Is a “ Professional Learning Community ” ? Richard DuFour  Three “ Big Ideas ”

15. Schools must stop pretending that merely presenting teachers with state standards or district curriculum guides will guarantee that all students have access to a common curriculum. Even school districts that devote tremendous time and energy to designing the intended curriculum often pay little attention to the implemented curriculum (what teachers actually teach) and even less to the attained curriculum (what students learn) (Marzano, 2003). Schools must also give teachers time to analyze and discuss state and district curriculum documents. More important, teacher conversations must quickly move beyond “ What are we expected to teach? ” to “ How will we know when each student has learned? ”

16. Big Idea #1  The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn.  This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.

17. Big Idea #2  Educators who are building a professional learning community recognize that they must work together to achieve their collective purpose of learning for all. Therefore, they create structures to promote a collaborative culture.

18. Big Idea #3  Professional learning communities judge their effectiveness on the basis of results. Working together to improve student achievement becomes the routine work of everyone in the school.  Every teacher team participates in an ongoing process of identifying the current level of student achievement, establishing a goal to improve the current level, working together to achieve that goal, and providing periodic evidence of progress.

19. PLC Timeline  April 2, 2014: 24 school-based and district-based team members were trained to observe PLCs (simple random sample)  July, Summer Leadership: Principals, APIs, and Instructional Coaches will be trained in PLC foundational practices  2014-2015: Targeted Professional Development based on observational data  AAIS working with targeted schools  Instructional Coaches working with targeted teams

20. QUESTIONS ?