While discussing the changes we are implementing throughout the Hopewell Valley Regional School District, I am forced to reach into the virtual cliché closet and pull out my “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” meme.
When I joined the board of education, we identified many areas that needed improvement. Coming from a business background, I found that progress often felt frustratingly slow, yet looking back, we have been in a continuous state of improvement that reveals substantial advances on most of our academic and social-emotional initiatives at a pace that is atypical in the academic world.
Consider that in 2009, the board began discussing significant inconsistencies across schools, teachers and classes. We set specific expectations that students should achieve similar educational outcomes and achievement, regardless of their assigned teachers or schools. At the same time, we set unrelated goals for students to feel more connected to the school community and become conscientious global citizens.
In 2011, the district began addressing our goals by adjusting curricula across elementary schools and implementing short benchmark assessments to assure consistency. We also adjusted high school by implementing a rotating drop schedule to build in more class time for inquiry while improving access for co-curricular activities.
Next, our board spent many hours discussing homework. At TMS, some teams had reputations for having the most homework; students in the same school and grade had significantly different workloads. This example and others led to many philosophical homework conversations about why? How much? When? And more.
We asked the questions and Dr. Thomas Smith, the superintendent, led a 40-person committee of teachers, parents, administrators and students to find the answers. By 2013, after years of work, our district became one of the few in New Jersey to establish a comprehensive homework regulation and policy. We have fine-tuned it over the years.
As a result, our district has realized improved, meaningful and consistent homework, plus more homework-free vacation periods for recharge. Although our new schedule and homework policies were controversial at the time, both are fully incorporated and no one wants to return to old ways.
Pleased with our progress, we moved onto a larger question of grading. Dr. Smith has been meeting with a new committee for about a year and has begun answering new questions. What should grades communicate? Can grading be fairer?
At present, our grading scale makes it almost impossible to recover from a failure. For example, if a student receives zero on an assignment and 100 percent on the next assignment, the overall average grade is a 50 percent, which is still flunking. Under a 4.0 scale, the flunk-and–ace scenario would average to C and there is opportunity for recovery.
Beginning in 2017-18, elementary schools will provide more meaningful report cards by sharing skills-mastery info. Secondary schools will convert marking period grades to a 4-point scale. The committee will continue meeting to solve longer-term grading concerns relating to consistency. For example, if grades communicates mastery, how should other variables affect grading: homework? Late work? Re-dos? Extra credit? Effort? Neatness? Attendance? Course difficulty?
Dr. Smith is also leading a character and culture committee that is building a framework to infuse mindfulness, character development and cultural competency into all aspects of student learning.
Our updated project-based curricula have increased academic engagement. Further, the board’s 2013 decision to remove activity fees resulted increased co-curricular participation levels. Couple curricular and co-curricular improvements with expected results from new committee work, and it equals a solid foundation for all students to be critically thinking, engaged global citizens.
As we approach the end of the school year, all of this important work and preparation takes place in the background. Yet next year you may be pleasantly surprised as new and interesting changes emerge.Watch for a new look and feel to all report cards. Students may come home and initiate fresh and inspired conversations. Some changes may be subtle, but suddenly the atmosphere may feel kinder and somehow less charged.
We have asked a lot, and our staff and administration has always risen to the challenge. Through a steady, proactive approach, our district has delivered an evolving environment where parents understand their children’s development and needs; teachers provide guidance and encouragement; and students are motivated to master their classes while armed with new skills to employ outside of the classroom.
It is a marathon and Hopewell Valley families are winning. Enjoy your summer. We will be here training.
Lisa Wolff is president of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District Board of Education.
from the schools,
