A Very Productive Day
By BFA Ghostwriter, 10-23-2019
On Friday, October 18, 2019, the BFA faculty and staff participated in an In-Service day.
Flexing to meet the needs of the school community as a whole, the original plans for the day were altered. Assistant Principal Sara Kattam sent a link to a document for faculty and staff to list their needs and wishes for the In-Service, with a focus on transcripts and Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements.
Background:
The In-Service came at a time when BFA and the MRUSD were being challenged by students and families about the accuracy, reliability, and worth of the transcripts that BFA had supplied for seniors. A number of meetings and forums took place, involving parents and their students, as well as students taking action on their own during the school day.
In response to the deeply felt concerns of seniors and their families, Superintendent Kevin Dirth requested that Bill Kimball, the new Assistant Superintendent, take on the task of responding to the BFA transcript concerns.
Kimball was partnered with Sara Kattam, the new Assistant Principal for Student Learning. Dr. Preston Randall, BFA Guidance Director, was also deeply involved in the ongoing meetings with parents and their families.
In-Service
Session 1: Faculty Meeting/Transcripts Update
The In-Service started shortly after 8:00 AM, with Kimball, Kattam, Database Administrator Melissa Hayden-Raley, and long-time BFA math teacher Luke Cioffi on the stage in the Performing Arts Center.
Kimball led off by thanking the faculty for their patience, and for their good work. He mentioned that the theme of the day was going to be to “slow down,” and work together to address the needs of the students and their families as the top priority.
He briefly touched on the plans for the day, and a detailed schedule was provided. Kimball and Kattam used some slides used at the senior/parent transcript forums to provide an overview of what had transpired, and what issues had come up as a result of the work done to address parent and senior concerns.
One of the key points was that over the last three or four years BFA has worked to implement the Proficiency-Based Learning model mandated by the state of Vermont, the variance in approaches to both instruction, and methods of scoring the proficiencies, have varied widely by academic department. Though this was the approach sanctioned and directed to the faculty by the previous leadership, the variance in the approaches has made creating a concise, statistically accurate transcript very challenging.
Consequently, a few significant changes on how ALL departments will numerically enter and calculate average scores for PBGRs have been made. These will allow for more accurate and predictable results for student assessment. These were reviewed.
After reviewing more slides in this “Updates/Transcripts Overview,” the next step was “Q & A.”
One of these questions for Kattam was whether the deadline for Progress Report grades and comments might be extended. After some consultation, and in the spirit of “slowing down and doing it right,” the deadline was changed from the 23rd to the 28th.
A wide-ranging set of questions and responses from Kimball and Kattam followed. Questions varied from leadership roles, to PBGR instruction in general, to scoring for transcripts, to PowerTeacher vs. Unified Classroom.
After running over the time originally allotted for the 1st session due to the many questions, Faculty/Staff moved to the Cafeteria and the Library.
Session 2: Proficiency-Based Learning Circles
In a change from recent practice, the faculty/staff CHOSE the Proficiency-Based Learning circles they would participate in. The goal of having a broad representation of academic departments within each group led their selections. One volunteer from each circle accessed the suggested questions
In these circles, framed to be similar to the restorative circles introduced last year, each participant
Session 3: Standardized Reporting/Unified Classroom
The next session had everyone back in the PAC. The purpose of this session was to clearly and explicitly show the steps that all faculty/staff are to use to create and record assignments in Unified Classroom. Some settings were locked in the grade book to provide more consistency with reporting for progress reports.
Melissa Hayden-Raley, and math teacher Luke Cioffi were both up on stage, with Cioffi projecting his online grade book on the big screen. Cioffi led through his Unified Classroom page and demonstrated how to create an assignment, and how to score it. As he explained various steps, questions were raised and most were answered by Cioffi, or by Hayden-Raley. For those that will require more in-depth attention, the creation of a Helpdesk Ticket was suggested.
Presented in this way, everyone watching learned some things, and even the presenters suggested that they too learned some new things.
Toward the end of this session, Business teacher Mary Brouillette spoke about Transferable Skills and the assessment and reporting for this aspect of Proficiency-Based Learning. Everyone doing this the same way will make the information usable for parents and students to get feedback on attitude and effort, in addition to the actual performance measured more by the PBGRs.
A Lunch Break followed.
Session 4: Unified Classroom Coaching
Faculty/Staff reconvened, by department, in either the Library or the Cafeteria. This afternoon session was called “Coaching Session for Unified Classroom to support all teachers in implementing the morning session.”
During the next two hours, members of each department clustered together, and helped each other with any scoring issues, assignment creation, or details regarding the comments that are a required aspect of BFA’s reporting within the time frame that encompasses basically the first two months of the school year.
The “experts” cycled through the groups, responding to questions, and giving advice. There was a high energy level in the rooms, and the work done was productive and positive, with everyone working toward common goals.
The last hour was devoted to individual Teacher Preparation time, and to work on completing the required online Safe Schools Training.
Conclusions:
Overall, the faculty/staff came away from the day with very positive feelings about the transparency of where we are, and where we are going. Staff felt a sense of renewed hope in moving forward to better define systems and structures surrounding Proficiency-Based Learning at BFA.
It was easy to overhear faculty members suggesting that this was one of the most productive In-Services BFA has seen in years.
