District Curriculum Accommodation Plan - DCAP

The District Curriculum Accommodation Plan as referenced during the School Committee meeting Tuesday, Nov 15, 2016

Franklin District Curriculum Accommodation Plan (DCAP) 2016 2017 from Franklin Matters

Live reporting: District Improvement Plan

2. Guests/Presentations

b. District Improvement Plan

Winslow, Sabolinski, Edwards

Goal

"We will define, identify, develop, and implement strategies to advance increased complexity and rigor across all curricula, instructional practices, and assessments within the Franklin Public Schools."

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looked at student work samples to see what was being done in light of what was needed

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Sub-Goals:

Standard 1 Instructional Leadership

• We will continue to align curricula to the Massachusetts Frameworks and develop corresponding common assessments to ensure that all students in each grade and course have the same opportunities to develop and demonstrate mastery in the required concepts and skills.

Standard 2 Teaching All Students

• We will utilize differentiated instructional strategies to meet needs of students at all levels, by using a Response to Intervention Program (RtI) and the implementation of high expectations for increased complexity and rigor for all learners.
• By implementing research-based curricula to support social/emotional learning all students will benefit from a safe and supportive learning environment.

Standard 3 Community Engagement

• Through effective partnerships with families, community members, and organizations, educators will promote learning expectations and initiatives that enable all students to grow academically, socially, and physically.
• Expectations for the appropriate mastery of concepts and skills and the demonstration of proficiency in these content and skills will be shared with families and the community, including celebrations of success.
• Through school-based activities and initiatives, we will create inclusive communities in all of our schools for all students and families, especially those coming from diverse backgrounds.

Standard 4 Professional Culture

• All staff will participate in the alignment of curricula, the development and implementation of common assessments, and will provide evidence of differentiated instruction in their classrooms.

• Using the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model, faculty and administration will collaborate and engage in professional activities to implement instructional practices that engage all students and establish expectations that challenge students to meet or exceed their potential.

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Looking to rebrand the school district

How do we talk about math today with the parents who might have had a different experience with math. How the classwork also translates to homework. 

More homework is not necessarily an example of rigor

revisiting our core values and mission
will want to look at transportation systemically since the late 90's
some of the traffic challenges around Horace Mann, Oak and the High School in particular
entering into negotiations with the FEA
exciting but a lot of work to be done


O'Malley - commend you for the overarching goal

Jewel - commend you on your planning, where are we 2-3 years from now, how do we educate parents?, parents are not used to thinking in the classroom right now; the classroom is different, how can we better facilitate kids helping kids? Many people think when we go to the new basis it is a down grade, it is not but we need to communicate that out better. I am in communication with other School Committees and they are not hearing what I hearing. Cross fertilization is the best way to get that done.

Franklin Public Schools: Upcoming Events

A message from FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT

FHS Curriculum Night on September 30 

Follow your FHS students' schedule and experience HS all over again

Remington / Jefferson Challenge

2K or 5K road race and complete SPARTAN Obstacle CourseSunday 10/5 at 10:45  at Remington/Jefferson       Races begin at 11:00Two Obstacle Courses ( 1 for adults and 1 for children)Great snacks and food available
See Remington/Jefferson web site and click onto PCC

 

Downtown Harvest Festival Sunday October 5^th 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Food, entertainment and fun- see Downtown Partnership web site for event schedule and sponsor list

JFK Ladybug Race

Kennedy School fun run on October 27^th  at 9:30 a.m.See JFK PCC web site for details

 

This e-mail has been sent to you by FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT. To maximize their communication with you, you may be receiving this e-mail in addition to a phone call with the same message.

To save searching for the sites mentioned here they are:

Remington Jefferson Challenge

Visit this page for more info and to register
http://teacherweb.com/MA/RemingtonMiddleSchoolPCC/RemingtonPCC/apt19.aspx

Ladybug 5K Road Race

Visit this page for more info and to register
http://www.ladybug5k.com/

The Franklin Downtown Partnership has more info about the Harvest Festival on their page here
http://www.franklindowntownpartnership.org/

"It’s a mammoth undertaking"

The MCAS data for Franklin was discussed at the School Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Still, the school district faces the daunting task of aligning to the new state standards for math and English, which will challenge both students and teachers, Edwards told the School Committee during its meeting on Tuesday night. 

In a broad overview of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test data from the district, Edwards discussed many of the changes and methods the school has adopted to reduce some of the proficiency gaps apparent in the scores. 

English scores have been consistently better than math scores, Edwards said. To address this trend, teachers and specialists have this year met with students needing extra math help for small group tutoring sessions.

Read more: http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x719498853/Franklin-School-Committee-reviews-MCAS-data#ixzz2DVpzAecG

Related posts
The MCAS presentation
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/franklin-public-schools-mcas.html

The School Committee agenda and links to associated documents
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/franklin-ma-school-committee-agenda-nov.html

Franklin, MA: Curriculum

Part of the agenda for the School Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 8 will be an update on curriculum from Joyce Edwards. Part of the presentation will reveal the plans for the MCAS replacement with PARCC.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium of states working together to develop a common set of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and careers.

More about PARCC can be found on their website http://parcconline.org/

Her presentation document can be viewed here:

Live reporting - FHS Program of Study

2. Guests/Presentations
b. FHS Program of Study – Peter Light


increasing graduation requirements
not that they weren't taking the 4th year of math, but that some of them may not be able to pass


we want to raise academic expectation but we also want to be able to enable them to succeed
some of them are bread winners in their families
we are being creative to get students through the program


proposing to reduce 4yr science and 4yr math to three years of each


recommendation is not out of line with other good schools, without the staffing levels to provide the appropriate instruction to our student, this is the best option


The curriculum development for AP Science is not up to where it should be. Found this by researching into why the AP Science course scores were not achieving comparable levels with the other AP courses. We can contract for a year, do the research and training, curriculum enhancement then restore the AP Science in another year.


Should look at the International Baccalaureate program to replace or augment the AP program. We have started exploring it, it would be about a $50,000 expense as the exams have to go to Switzerland for processing. 


Sabolinski - the first sign of trouble comes from our lower learners, the budgetary challenges are here. We can offer better educational services by making these changes by backing off these requirements. We can offer other choices to students with the current resources.





Franklin, MA

Teach real math through computer programing

In this TED Talk, Conrad Wolfram says:

... the part of math we teach -- calculation by hand -- isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.

This is a full TED Talk, it will last 17 minutes but it is well worth it.



I remember struggling with word problems for a time in my early schools days. Some additional help was required and then one day, it clicked. I realized that the words could indeed be changed to an equation, that the equation could indeed be solved. Since then, problem solving has been one of my strengths. Not even the world's worst word problem stops me any more:

If a hen and a half laid an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a monkey 

with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a dill pickle?

Once I found this problem in Tom Robbins novel "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", it went to memory and hasn't left yet.

Do you have a memorable word problem?



Franklin, MA

Curriki - collaborative open source curriculum

For the education community amongst us, this site I recently found seems to be quite good. It's about page tells us:

Curriki is more than your average website; we're a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world.

Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. Our name is a play on the combination of 'curriculum' and 'wiki' which is the technology we're using to make education universally accessible.

Curriki is built on the XWiki platform, an open source development platform and "Next Generation Wiki" application developed in Java and released the LGPL open source license.

Curriki is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.

Go explore Curriki here

Change the math pyramid

Are you going to use calculus in your real life? Probably not. The odds are you would make better use of statistics! Listen to this simple proposal on a change to math curriculum.



What are the odds of this proposal succeeding?

What is a better sale? 2 for 1, or half off?

"online coursework can be an excellent option"

When most people think about online learning, they think about adults taking online university classes. Or they might think about the online training that occurs in many workplaces. But online learning opportunities occur in the K-12 sector as well and are increasingly popular with students and their families.

The Sloan Consortium estimates that at least 1 million K-12 public school students took an online course last year. This represents approximately 2% of the national K-12 public school student population and is a 22–fold increase since 2000. About 20 states have statewide virtual high schools that deliver online courses to students across the state.

Dr. Scott McLeod writes on his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, this post about online learning opportunities.

As you read the following, do a simple replacement exercise, substitute "Franklin, MA" in place of Iowa.

A robust online learning infrastructure for students makes a lot of sense for the state of Iowa (and I’m glad there’s a bill in the Iowa House to consider it). If we’re honest with ourselves, we will recognize that most of our school districts will NEVER be able to provide the curricular diversity that most of our graduates need to be effective digital, global workers and citizens. If we’re truly honest, we also will recognize that the Iowa Communications Network (ICN) is not a viable future option. The ICN is a closed, aging network and the course offerings (and monies) there, like everything else in the world, must move to the Web. Whether it’s a statewide virtual school or some other model, we must significantly increase the number of online courses available to Iowa students if we are to provide them access to the high-quality learning opportunities envisioned in the Iowa Core Curriculum.

You can click through to read the full article here.

Franklin has started exploring this option and should continue to do so. It is not a silver bullet to save money. There will likely be some contractual and procedural changes required to implement appropriately. It will be some work but it should be worthwhile to develop our children for life and learning in this new world.