Curriculum and Assessment
Many words like common core, rigor, higher-order thinking skills, text complexity, and so on speak of the high expectations for student learning. Effective building leaders understand these concepts and are able to successfully promote them among their staff. Second only to high-quality teaching, skillful building leaders that know their curriculum and assessments are the best indicators for student success. A building leader MUST create an environment in which every student is expected to learn at their highest levels. Staff and students are supported and are able to demonstrate that high level of learning.
Kansas Education Systems Accreditation (KESA)
Build Your Own Curriculum
MTSS Process: Interventions/Collaboration
As Mission Valley moves toward embracing the new accreditation system in Kansas for improvement, we are set to focus on building upon the 5 R's:
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Relationships - with staff, students, families, and community
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Relevance - connectedness with curriculum, instruction, student engagement, and technology
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Responsiveness - readily reacts to leadership, early childhood, district climate, and nutrition and wellness
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Rigor - challenging our stakeholders in the areas of career and technical education, professional learning, resources, and data
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Results - evidence of achievement, growth, gap, and other measures
The first year of implementation will be spent analyzing our needs assessment and identifying goal areas.
In 2008, the Leadership Team, including myself, went through extensive training on the Multi-Tiered System of Supports. As a result our reading, mathematics, and behavior curriculum has been "mapped" and interventions have been established. Currently, Kindergarten through sixth grade participate in "walk-to-interventions" Monday through Thursday for reading and math. Planning and preparations are done in grade level meetings on Collaboration Fridays. This complex and effective program works partly because of relentless planning, preparation, and execution by administration. Some of the tasks that had to be overcome in order for its success:
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Professional Development - Teachers had to be trained and given time to analyze data, build curriculum, access resources, and plan for instruction.
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Resources - Materials for interventions/enrichment were selected based on research. Support personnel were hired and trained in order to support school improvement goals.
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Schedule - It took creative and determined planning to produce an overall calendar and schedule that worked for all grade levels, resources, and student needs.
As a future building leader, these are the very tasks that need to be tackled daily in order to create an environment in which every student's needs get met and they continue to learn at the highest level.
In 2010, the district administrators made the choice to utilize Build Your Own Curriculum as part of the professional development component of school improvement: Resources supporting this initiative were multiple training sessions from a specialist from the state department as well as time to work on the grade level/subject curriculum. After several years on implementation, this initiative was discarded. I mention this as part of my development as an administrator because I find it important to learn from every experience, no matter how successful. After discussing the topic with my mentor, I came to acknowledge several key conclusions: buy in from all stakeholders is essential, great training does not always ensure success of programs, training is received differently according to each staff members experiences and knowledge level, you have to weight the cost/benefits carefully, and it's important to know when to learn from and let go of decisions.
KESA -
Needs Assessment
Multi-Tiered System of Supports
Friday Collaboration/Math
MTSS -
Assessment Plan
MTSS -
Needs Assessment
MTSS -
Reading Intervention Planning Guide
KESA -
Facilitator Guide