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Curriculum Update
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Origin and meaning According to Richard M. Sherman, co-writer of the song from Mary Poppins, with his brother, Robert, the word was created by them in two weeks, mostly out of double talk.
By Ann M. Phillips, Curriculum Director
The 2012-13 school year has felt just like DOUBLE TALK – so many changes so fast. And just when you develop a plan – the requirements change. Increasing the rigor level of performance (learning) with New content so all students are college and career ready while also developing ways to show the accountability (teaching)
Both are wonderful goals – and are being asked to change in a very short amount of time.
Click on the video link below to view an ad from EDS – it is a good reference for what we are trying to do –
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2zqTYgcpfg
The following are the initiatives that the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and the Ohio Legislature require to be in place:
Resident Educator Program – the NEW mentor – new teacher program that has specific requirements over the first 4 years of a new teacher’s career. Mentors and teachers are learning together to complete the very involved requirements and products. Year 2 has just been implemented and years 3 and 4 are still being designed by ODE. At last count, there were close to over 600 pages of information, requirements and checklists. The mentor role was how to balance the vast requirements without killing the beauty of teaching for the first and second year educators.
NEW Common Core Math and English Language Arts Standards and NEW State Standards for Science and Social Studies – Last year the district made sure all teachers of these subjects had a general overview of the new content and level of expectations. Changing what is to be taught for kindergarten through 12th grade in 4 subject areas all at the same time – has been hard to balance. Teachers are learning about the changes while still teaching the old standards because the students will be tested on those until 2014.
Students in grades K-3 were instructed almost entirely on the NEW standards this school year, full implementation for grades 4-12 – with a few transition areas – will be in place for the 2013-14 school year. Teachers have been developing their understanding of the new standards and planning for instructional changes.
3rd Grade Reading Guarantee – Last summer the legislators passed requirements regarding reading expectations and interventions to be in place for the 2012-13 school year. With only a few months to plan, all students in grades K-3 had to be tested and Reading Improvement Plans (RIMPs) created and monitored. The literacy specialists, principals and teachers embraced the tasks required and made it all happen. Beginning with next school year, any 3rd grader not scoring at least a 392 on the OAA (Ohio Academic Assessment) in Reading, must have additional intense instruction in reading in 4th grade. With this new legislation, current teachers of grades K-3 who do not already have additional credentials for teaching reading, have until the 2014-15 school year to obtain the training.
OTES – OPES – SGM – SLO – Value Added & Linkage
(Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!)
Another new requirement is the full implementation of the OTES (Ohio Teacher Evaluation System) and the OPES (Ohio Principal Evaluation System) for next school year. This year the principals attended a 3- day training and took a test to be credentialed to use the OTES with the teachers. The superintendent and principals with assistant principals took similar training to evaluate principals.
Teachers learned about Student Growth Measures (SGM) and Student Learning Objectives (SLO) in order to create assessments that can be given at the start and end of a school year to measure student growth in learning.
Principals and teachers of grades 4-8 work with Value Added data. This is the information generated from the state tests that shows growth of learning over a year. Linkage is what the principals and teachers complete online in advance of the state tests to LINK the appropriate teacher or teachers of each subject to specific students. The teacher value added reports are based on what students are LINKED to them for instruction. Once the Value Added reports are available in the fall of the next school year, principals and teachers meet to evaluate the reports. As the new tests begin in 2015, teachers of specific courses in high school will also have value added data.
The SLO and Value Added data will be used as 50% of the OTES (teacher evaluation).
New Assessments for 2014-15
The new standards will be assessed with new tests for the 2014-15 school year. We are working to understand the new content and rigor expectations as well as preparing for online tests (on a computer type devise). Planning has started to have enough devices as well as certain technology skills students will need. To support the requirements for the new tests and to show growth for the new teacher evaluations, the district has purchased STAR Renaissance online tests for grades K-12 in reading and math. The reports inform teachers of current achievement levels and provide learning resources for intervention. We also purchased TestingWerks, a data warehouse, to collect all of the assessment information on students over multiple years.
Right now it is “onebigtask” - just like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The roots of the word have been defined as follows:
Super = above cali = beauty fragilistic = delicate expiali = compensate docious = educable
But, the educators of Springfield Local – your district - have embraced the challenges and are meeting them -
Going above and beyond –
To stretch the MINDS of students and educators
So as not to compensate for lack of growth
And to know all are educable – students and educators
While not losing the beauty of teaching and learning
It is a delicate balance
