PLUMAS LAKE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICT
LCAP DRAFT GOALS AND ACTIONS
On March 26, 2014 the PLESD School Board held a Board Workshop to gain input from both the community and staff members on the Draft Goals and Action Steps for the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). The input given here will be incorporated into the Draft LCAP that the Board will discuss in April, May, and then approve in June. There will be several more opportunities for people to give input into the plan at regular School Board Meetings. Below in black type are the draft goals and action steps that were presented at the meeting. In green are the questions and comments made by participants. In red are the responses from the Superintendent to some of the comments, some comments do not have responses but are included as important input.
Student Achievement, Conditions of Learning, Pupil Engagement
1. PLESD will provide students a rich learning environment of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity in order to be college and career ready. Students will meet or exceed common core standard proficiency as measured by state and local assessments.
Should include TK- Transitional Kindergarten will be added to all of the grade ranges.
Will students be college and career ready leaving us? The California Common Core Standards build horizontally throughout the grade levels. The idea is that students are on track for this when they leave us to go to high school. We will look at this in the next draft.
a. PLESD will implement the California Common Core standards in ELA and Math for all grade levels. Implementation will be measured through classroom observations as well as standard proficiency on district and state assessments.
Where is early literacy TK – 2nd? A new action step will address this in the next draft.
Concern – consistency of where people are getting their resources. The Math and future Language Arts committees will help with this concern when the curriculum maps are created and implemented. This is a concern that we understand and want to balance teachers’ ability to develop curriculum and at the same time stay within a framework of acceptable materials.
Where is the training coming from? Training for the California Common Core has been and will be provided by Sacramento County Office of Education, PLESD staff, and outside consultants provide Professional Development targeting foundational Common Core standards.
Will manipulatives or hands on materials purchased? Yes, school sites are developing budgets for the 2014-15 school year that will include additional dollars for these types of supplies.
Actions:
1. Develop a curriculum map for each grade level. 2014-15= Math K-8 and English Language Arts (ELA) 6-8. 2015-16 ELA K-5.
What will curriculum maps look like? The curriculum maps will show a scope and sequence to the curriculum that will be taught throughout each school year for each grade level. Assessment windows will be identified throughout the year. Also, our current text books and any supplemental materials will be identified as resources for teaching Common Core State Standards. These will not be day by day lessons. It will be the responsibility of each classroom teacher to plan daily lessons to have his/her class prepared for the assessment.
Two comments: Want dates for implementation and Does ELA in 15-16 mean at the beginning of the year? The next draft will better define the timeline that these will take place during.
2. In English Language Arts a focus on writing, text dependent questions and text complexity will take place during the first two years of implementation.
3. In middle school Social Studies and Science will focus on embedded writing and technical text.
What are we doing with Science & Social Studies and the California Common Core Standards? At this point there are not new Social Studies standards. But both Science and Social Studies in grades 6-8 have been included in the Language Arts Standards. There are specific Reading and Writing standards that should be taught through Science and Social Studies. Staff development is currently taking place for these teachers and they are collaborating to develop methods to meet these standards. The State has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards and Riverside Meadows will begin the implementation of these standards next year.
4. Provide staff development on implementing best instructional practices including developing objectives, questions and activities that provide students with the opportunity to think at deeper levels
5. Provide staff development on specific content knowledge. With a focus on math and writing.
6. Evaluate curriculum to supplement current curriculum. When appropriate curriculum is developed by publishers, look to purchase core curriculum when needed and appropriate.
Multiple questions: Will manipulatives or hands on materials purchased? Does this include measuring materials, i.e. rolling measuring tapes –implementations materials and supplies? Yes, school sites are developing budgets for the 2014-15 school year that will include additional dollars for these types of supplies.
Define “supplement current curriculum.” This means that in the last 4 years we have purchase both Language Arts and Math curriculum. We will be using these programs as the basic program to meet the needs of the new standards but will need to look to some other materials to supplement the current California State Standards.
What is the plan to purchase Common core supplemental curriculum? At this point, the District is not comfortable with the quality of materials and curriculum available from publishers. Over the next few years it is our belief that the curriculum available to purchase will be far stronger. The District will look to purchase when these new materials are available.
Will this evaluation be done by committees? Staff will have input to these decisions.
Will there be different curriculums at different sites? No, the idea of the curriculum maps is to layout plans that are using much of the same books, materials, etc. Of course teachers will be able to choose to make the best decisions for their students if they are not getting a concept or if they need to be challenged more.
Will there be spiral review; including practice and assessments? The curriculum will build upon previously learned skills building literacy and math computation fluency. There will also be some explicit review and revisiting of topics.
Writing/text/complexity – when and who is doing staff development? The staff development is and will be done by District staff, Sacramento County office of Education, and outside consultants and will be ongoing.
b. PLESD will develop and implement an assessment system that supports the California Common Core. The implementation assessment system will be measured by anecdotal evidence collected showing creation, implementation, and utilization.
Special Education – The Common Core structure difficult for students they may need more specific support? The California Common Core standards are going to be difficult for all students and students with disabilities will also need additional supports. The new standards are very much asking students to be able to use information to solve other problems instead of just regurgitating information to answer questions. All PLESD Education Specialists attended a Common Core training targeting students with disabilities. Common Core Lessons are designed to provide multiple pathways of differentiated learning that allow all students to access grade level standards. Common Core State Standards are sequential and supports many learning styles.
SBAC formative assessments. There are some formative assessments that are being developed by the makers of the new online testing. There has not been much information about when these will be available for Districts to use. When they do become available the District will evaluate them to decide if they would be good assessments to use throughout the year.
Actions:
1. Develop benchmarks for each grade level for both Math and Language Arts.
2. Implement a pacing guide that allows students to be prepared for the scheduled assessments.
3. K-2 reading diagnostic assessments will be created/ purchased. Staff will receive training on diagnostic assessment including giving, analyzing and selecting interventions.
Smarter Balance. Computer technology based K-2 assessments – can be done faster/streamlined. See SBAC formative assessments above.
Important – do we want to drill down into that much detail? This comment came after a discussion about what diagnostics should be used. Those types of decisions should not be made in these goals and action steps.
Date for implementation. This will be added to the next draft. The District is looking to have these fully implemented by the beginning of 2015-16.
4. All District assessments will use the District data system to gather and analyze results.
Remove Illuminate (Keep generic) This change will be made in the next draft
Illuminate – Report cards – are we considering doing: Yes, the District knows that the report cards will need to change to reflect the new standards and will most likely use our assessment data system to create these report cards.
Illuminate – rubrics inconsistent – Layout changes. The District will look into this.
Reading diagnostic – Getting K-2 teachers input. The District plans on including input from TK-2 teachers on these decisions.
5. Train staff to utilize the data system to its fullest to ensure the influence of student assessment data on both the short and long term lesson planning and instruction of all students.
When will 5 occur? This training will occur during the 2014-15 school year.
c. Students will be proficient with 21st century tools in order to be college and career ready. Implementation will be measured through standard proficiency on district and state assessments.
How do you evaluate if $ spent toward right tools? (Appropriate for grade levels?) The District plans on using survey data from teachers, students, parents as well as other data to evaluate the effectiveness of the technology tools.
Multiple comments: What are the other tools? How do we balance these? And What are the 21st Century skills we will focus on? Include sub actions for 21st Century skills.
The 21st century skills are grouped into 3 groups which then each have subdivisions. The first area is Learning and Innovation Skills- which includes Creativity, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication and Collaboration. The second area is Information, Media and Technology Skills- which includes Information Literacy, Media Literacy and Technology Literacy. The final area is Life and Career Skills- which included Flexibility, Adaptability, Initiative, Self-direction, Social and Cross Cultural Skills, and Productivity.
Actions:
1. The District will develop a common understanding of “21st Century Skills” and the importance of overtly teaching the skills.
2. By 2014-2015 teachers will have received comprehensive professional development on the use relevant technologies that increase student achievement.
How will we receive? The staff development will occur through different methods for those who learn differently. Some will be online, some will be in small groups, some will be on Monday’s, some will whole staff, and some will be to go to conferences or outside presentations.
By 2014-15 is that by the end? In the next draft this will be described as ongoing staff development instead of using the 2014-15 date. The staff development has already started and will need to be ongoing.
What are Chromebooks? Chromebooks are small laptop computers that run exclusively through the internet using the Google interface.
Is Brian (Director of Innovation and Instructional Technology) available? One of the main reasons we created this position was to have someone who could provide the staff development needed to change the way that students learn using technology. He will be a main trainer.
3. By 2015-2016 PLESD will reduce the technology to student ratio to 2:1.
1:2 Ratio. This will be changed in the next draft.
Are these ratios based on labs or classroom? Will they continue to work on labs? The ratio will be the number of computers available on carts. The District is transitioning from a computer lab model where students access technology 30-50minutes per week to technology use in the classroom room environment on a daily basis. The computer lab model is an old model that gives students access to technology for a specific number of minutes a week at a specific time. Instead the new model gives them access to technology in the classroom setting when they need it to learn.
4. By the end of the 2014-15 the network infrastructure will be capable of supporting 1:1-2:1 ratios.
What does C4 mean? This means that there will be enough wireless coverage to support all of the devices in the District. Also, that there is enough bandwidth so that the internet remains fast enough to support all of our devices and programs.
d. PLESD will provide the necessary professional development for teachers to plan and provide relevant, quality instruction that engages all students and causes learning. Student engagement and learning will be measured through classroom observations as well as standard proficiency on district and state assessments.
D & E – Can these be combined? Duplicated? (a5)(e2) The District sees these as two different goals. D is a staff development goal and E is really an implementation of good teaching. Of course these are both related but they are separate.