Competency Based Education: Update (5 minutes)

Transcript (~19 min @ 39:45)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 38:58 Speaker 5: degree of well I think the the issue is is you have a very short window here because there's only 85 students and not and you when you do a survey you know you don't get the full participation so sure I don't know exactly how many they got back but again whether we have their survey information or not I think the fact that we did not receive any phone calls with regard to any concerns through the whole summer and we were here we were in the building we ran two other programs in the building we were there on a daily basis we observed it you know like anything else they said you know the first day we did it it was not as great as the second day and the third day and once they got to know our students and our systems by the end they had a well-oiled machine that as they

▶ 39:47 Speaker 4: would say but we can that would be great I really appreciate that further

▶ 39:55 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: questions see none we will move on to our next agenda item which is competency-based education superintendency thank you so a brief

▶ 40:00 Speaker 2: base update on where we are on CBE and you know a shout out to miss Rosie Thomas who has been on this journey with us since the first inkling and so this

▶ 40:18 Speaker 2: is very slow work there is no magic bullet there is no box of materials that you buy from Pearson and ask them and that you roll out CBE it's very strong it's very slow work we're fortunate in Massachusetts that we have strong frameworks with strong standards and those standards are we're building upon those standards as we identify competencies so we have a coach that we like very much we have directors who are invested we have teachers who invested one of whom is with us tonight and we have been slowly building teachers understanding we have developed our habits of learning we've agreed upon those and we're beginning to pilot those the three seventh grade team leaders at the middle school are all piloting them there are some scattered elementary and high school teachers piloting them and we're looking forward to their feedback back in the spring on what worked and what did not work music and art PE have their proficiency standards done they're working on their scoring criteria humanities will be working later this month on a full day of working on their scoring criteria the work is progressing what I would remind the committee is this is work that gets done with everything else every every every conceivable thing that we're responsible for this is just one more thing we have used early release days where teachers have voluntary got voluntarily gotten together we used our PD day in November we use after school we quite honestly have pulled teachers from class for a half day of work usually we do it on a half an early release day so that they're only missing a half a day and not a full day and if you go to the third page of my memo what we did is we compiled for you a quick list of everything that we have done since we first brought this to you with the working group in the 1516 school year so that's where we're at I will tell you that as you know the bar foundation has funded this for two years this is the second year I've already met with several people about more money because that's what we have to do but the directors and dr. Adams feel that if we don't get additional funding we are sufficiently trained that we can continue on our own it may be a little bit slower without a coach Jenny Curtin from the bar foundation is coming to visit us on January 26 to see what we've done I think our work speaks for itself the fact that one of I like to believe because I like to brag about our people and what they do one of the reasons that Massachusetts joined the League of innovative schools is because they came to see us and Jesse came to see us in October to talk to us about the work we were doing and we explained to them what we were trying to achieve where we were trying to go how we were using the Massachusetts frameworks as a stepping-off point not reinventing anything and that we felt that the state could go this route as well and so I

▶ 43:56 Speaker 2: think we have a lot done again I remind the committee there is no one set model there is not one set approach to this and when you read the research and all in this field they're very explicit about that in the end our responsibilities to decide what does this look like in Melrose how much of this do we want to implement do we want to do at k12 do we just want to do secondary do we just want to do elementary you know we're very excited about the habits of learning I think it is crucial that you know you heard the young people from Lincoln talk about the three R's social emotional development kids having good habits for success is crucial in the 21st century workplace but I think it's just as important that we separate it from academic knowledge because for many of our kids they're successful here but they struggle here and the struggle here is often developmental age-appropriate and having lived through it with one of those kids as a child one of my children kids shouldn't be punished because they didn't pass in all ten homeworks when they can ace the exam and how do we help the child understand the importance of homework the importance of being responsible respectful and collaborative not completing homework but the purpose of homework and the habits of learning

▶ 45:28 Speaker 1: goes to all that questions for the superintendent mr. o'connor thank you

▶ 45:30 Speaker 4: through the chair to the superintendent I should I'll say I'm always thanking you for your work on this and and I'm always remiss and not thanking people like miss Razzie Thomas and our administrators and educators who spent and as you've described an inordinate amount of time on this all time well spent the bar foundation money how much did we spend over two years and and that's likely going away likely not to be replaced we aggressively pursuing a

▶ 46:11 Speaker 4: replacement great might any of those bucks come from Desi not at this point

▶ 46:15 Speaker 2: What they're gonna give us through the league and through Maple is opportunities for site visits, collaboration with other schools, professional development. Through Maple, we've already done that.

▶ 46:31 Speaker 2: And Mr. Azir is here, and with the committee's indulgence, if he wants to speak, I would like him to speak. We send people out to see other school systems to see what they're doing, to see where we are in comparison with the work to see what ideas we could big borrow or steal from them and recently we went out to see a district on the North Shore which will remain unnamed and the staff came back and said I think we're ahead of them and yet they're being touted as a place to visit so now I'm going to allow people to come see us and see the work we're doing and again that's an important

▶ 47:17 Speaker 2: great schools partnerships was arranging all that for us now Maple and the Lee can help us arrange that there's meetings you all remember you all supported me going to that meeting almost two years ago already so I can meet with other administrators and teachers in this field and exchange ideas we will have those type of opportunities as well we needed a network we were we were traveling to Maine New Hampshire Rhode Island we've never went to Vermont you know so it gives us a network it gives us people to

▶ 47:56 Speaker 4: collaborate with that's great and per your suggestion I for one would love to hear from mr. Asia if only briefly to get is a teacher perspective on this

▶ 48:05 Speaker 2: that's what you get for hanging around Adam Adam Asia I teach seventh grade

▶ 48:17 Speaker 4: English at the middle school do you want just riff on it or your first away okay so and I'll just say that I speak for myself only in my experience as a teacher a member of the Union I don't think for the Union or the teachers collectively but just my own personal experience and and desires I'm a big fan of the thinking about and working within competency competency based education the pilot that we're undertaking that I'm part of is just to give you a specific example so if I had kids read a couple of chapters from book we just finished the Outsiders and often I would give a reading guide which asks questions that answering those questions successfully is evidence that kids have met a particular standard or either through a reading or writing standard so that's what I'm assessing so if it's due on Wednesday and someone doesn't hand it on Wednesday well typically what we would do is and every teacher really has their own policy so let's say it was worth 20 points some teacher might say if it's you lose a point every day or after it was due you can only get half credit but then that comes to the question of what are we assessing right so really we're assessing two different things and one of the things we're assessing is can you hand something in on time which is an absolute thing that I think that we shouldn't be assessing of seventh graders you have an assignment due on a certain day can you hand it in on time but in my opinion that's it and again my opinion that's a separate grade then can you read something and determine the a theme or can you understand both the literal and figurative meaning of what the author is trying to say right those are two separate things so that's what we're trying to separate in this pilot one of the questions that's come up in my mind and talking to my colleagues and this is just the question this isn't a defiant response it's just what we're thinking about as a challenge which is how do I translate that to a great because that's a big challenge so right now the way that I'm we're working this pilot is all right so you get us so right now I have two buckets for grades which is did you hand this in on time sort of these five habits of learning and then the content standards that I'm assessing so let's say something was due on Wednesday and someone turned in on Friday so did you successfully turn something on on time no you didn't so you get a zero so it's a score of a zero but we've waited that at zero percent so it doesn't affect the students overall grade and then when they turn the assignment in on Friday I assess it for the standards that I'm literally trying to assess it for one of the challenges that we're thinking about now we don't have an answer and again this is right a long process is let's say over the course of the first half of the trimester I've assigned ten content assignments but somebody's only handed in two of those but they've met the particular standards but they've only handed in two of the ten assignments and so in Aspen that what's right now say a hundred percent a plus which says one thing but actually means another thing so right now we're wrestling with how do we translate that how do we report that and I'll just send my own personal opinion and we can talk about it later if we want I think in middle school you should get rid of the grades because people are gonna be looking for the grades and not looking at and this is again just my own personal opinion right can can a student read a text and determine the theme or central idea that's one of the state standards right which isn't everyone in the world would agree that that's we want our seventh graders to be able to do that so that's what we should focus on not translating that into a lender there's a lot of ways

▶ 52:02 Speaker 2: to get a B plus in my class right now so and again that's why it's such a long process because teachers are struggling they're struggling with the transition from traditional practice to a different approach and you heard Adam say several times that's the standard I'm measuring that's the proficiency we know very clearly what the proficiencies are students should be able to read at at least grade level and interpret a text for a specific aspect whether it's it's setting tone theme those those that's the standard you're measuring them for one of the challenges is you we do get kids who could do that the first time

▶ 52:47 Speaker 2: out now what are you gonna do so these are all the things we have to begin to sort through as we work our way through this and then we'll get kids who will never be able to do it and what do we do so there is a lot of work to do on this the last thing that will happen is the report card one of the places we've we have visited twice went to a hybrid report card because parents can't

▶ 53:15 Speaker 2: disengage from grades okay so they went to a hybrid the standard in the grade or the standard the grade and the habits of learning or the habits of work whatever they may call it there please remember those of you with young children you're doing standards-based report cards we have slowly been converting the elementary school to that point where through grade 4 this year next year will be through grade 5 so what we're anticipating is in two years something Adam has inferred I've never had a middle school kid I've only had an elementary school kid I've only seen a standards-based report card I get to the middle school and I'm looking for my standards because I am a parent of an educated to know whether a kid is meeting a standard progressing towards a standard exceeding a standard so there is a lot to keep happening here but I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing to pilot because until we pilot we can't really know we can you can you can create this in theory as an abstract but we had to get finally to the point where we said we've got to test this in the classroom and that's what we've begun to do further questions mr.

▶ 54:28 Speaker 4: O'Connor are you just a quick follow-up Thank You mr. for being here and for that in your personal professional opinion is this time well spent for a teacher like you oh yes absolutely but I mean the more and for any job that you do right the more explicit you can be about decisions that you're making I'm gonna feel personally my instincts are are good sometimes great sometimes not good but on average they're pretty good but this is forcing me even more to be explicit about the decisions and choices I'm making both in the content that I'm putting in front of my kids but also in the way in which I'm assessing their mastery or proficiency of the skills and content that we're putting in front of

▶ 55:09 Speaker 2: them thank you very much you have to be very explicit to kids what you expect this is enforced this is forcing us to be very clear to kids this is the standard we are measuring in order to get to this standard you have to do X Y and Z and that really I think is impacting a lot of people's thinking and how they plan their lessons and what they teach mr. Salman and miss Rossi

▶ 55:32 Speaker 3: Thomas so through the chair to mr. Asia first please extend our thanks to your colleagues who are all undertaking this endeavor you have a special a special warm and fuzzy place in my heart as you try to undertake this in a seventh grade level with students who are still figuring themselves out let alone what means to be a student so really thank you from the bottom of my heart this

▶ 56:22 Speaker 3: the the the separating out what you are asking can they turn something in versus can they meet a standard is a question that any of us as parents of kids that

▶ 56:38 Speaker 3: that have gone through school are, are, are put, just parent, parents. We understand this intuitively. Yes, they can clean their room. Did they do it by the time I asked them to? That we are delving into this in a formal academic setting. And that we are trailblazing.

▶ 57:04 Speaker 3: As my colleague, Mr. O'Connell said, not only bodes well on us, but bodes well for our future as well.

▶ 57:15 Speaker 3: And I can't thank the superintendent, my colleagues present and former on the school committee, and the teachers and administrators that support you in doing this work. it is truly valuable and meaningful and thank you thank you thank you and thank

▶ 57:37 Speaker 5: you for trying to update our old-fashioned education system quite quite a task yeah I wanted to ask you what you were hoping the transferable skills are for your students like you know in ten years after they're they're done with seventh grade where do you hope that they are in their lives what are the skills that you hope that they take from those habits of learning yeah

▶ 58:06 Speaker 4: they're not I don't have them memorized but they're not far off of the five habits of learning that that we're evaluating or assessing in the pilot program but they're like okay can I meet deadlines and if I can't skill do I have to sort of to manage that or what what are the resources I have at my disposal disposal to figure out how to solve this problem how can I collaborate with people at my level like could I text my friend and say what's the homework right that translates to ten years from now could I ask my co-worker how to do the TPS report or whatever it is or how do I talk to my boss about I'm just having trouble meeting this deadline can we talk about it right so those are

▶ 58:49 Speaker 6: certainly very transferable skills thank you yeah further questions seeing none

▶ 58:57 Speaker 1: thank you so much you're welcome thank you thank you well thank you for the

▶ 59:04 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: opportunity next on our agenda is the policy and planning subcommittee first on that subcommittee is the strategy overview and I will invite the the superintendent to give a very brief history.