Waivers List
The Board's Curriculum&Instruction Committee met today; here's the agenda. I chose not to attend but I did want to post a couple of items from the agenda.
One is the Annual Report to the Board on curriculum waivers. Kyle Kinoshita, head of Curriculum, was kind enough to send it to me when it was left off the documentation.
There is an Annual Reports page in case you are interested in other issues that the Superintendent is required to report to the Board.
The other item on the agenda is a report from Caleb Perkins on the 24 Credit/Secondary Revisioning. I did smile at the Naviance portion of the report as he seems to be straining to say it's working. He doesn't give all the numbers so it's hard to gauge how many students are actually using it. It is interesting to see the different in the number of times it was accessed at Ingraham versus at Franklin.
Here it is in its entirety.
High School Course Offerings: In preparation for the start of 2019-20 course pre-registration, the Department of College and Career Readiness is collaborating with content area managers to refine an updated list of recommended courses by subject area for grades 6-12. We will share these updated recommendations with high school principals at the December 4th LLD and request their feedback.
Opt-Out Window: There will be an opportunity for families to make a decision for their 6th and 7th grade students to use or not use Naviance from Friday, January 4, 2019 through Friday, January 25, 2019. Once the opt-out window opens, parents and guardians can opt out their 6th-7th grade students from using Naviance by updating their application preferences in the Source or by contacting the College and Career Readiness team directly. Communications will go out to families of students in grades 6 and 7 the week of December 10th to notify them about the January 2019 opt out window.
There are several benefits to providing these students with access to Naviance. 6th and 7th graders will have the opportunity to utilize Road Trip Nation, Career Key and the Learning Styles Inventory to explore their interests, career options, and learn about their strengths. Students will also have access to the Naviance curriculum where they will learn about study habits, growth mindset, financial planning, goal setting, time management, future planning, college knowledge and more.
Usage metrics: Within under three months of usage, more students are starting to use Naviance every day. PowerPoint presentations aligned to the Naviance high school and beyond plan lessons have been created and loaded to Schoology for counselor use. Also, Naviance offers Tuesday webinars to support counselors with Naviance implementation. The following are some sample statistics we have on Naviance usage:
The College and Career Readiness team continues to support the roll out of the approved CTE plan and its seven strategies. As a next step, we are scheduling meetings with principals to discuss the offering of new course pathways, including Health Care and Medical Careers in high school and STEM innovation labs/design courses in middle school, starting in the 2019-20 school year. In addition, data collected from our Career Connected Learning Coordinators indicates an increase in career exploration activities (e.g., field trips to work sites) across a number of our high schools.
Supporting Students with “24 Credits”
We appreciate the opportunity to talk with the Board at the November 27th work session on secondary re-visioning and the plan to help students in 2019-20 earn 24 credits, meet graduation requirements, and graduate ready for postsecondary success. In addition to other items we will have discussed, we will have previewed the draft logic model (see below) that we have developed with Eric Anderson’s team to track schools’ progress in their efforts to help students earn 24 credits, meet graduation requirements, and graduate ready for postsecondary success. We will continue to meet with principals to refine this model and ensure that we are learning from our work this year so that our supports for students will continue to improve.
I look forward to seeing you and providing more details on these topics at the C&I Policy Committee Meeting on December 4th.
One is the Annual Report to the Board on curriculum waivers. Kyle Kinoshita, head of Curriculum, was kind enough to send it to me when it was left off the documentation.
There is an Annual Reports page in case you are interested in other issues that the Superintendent is required to report to the Board.
The other item on the agenda is a report from Caleb Perkins on the 24 Credit/Secondary Revisioning. I did smile at the Naviance portion of the report as he seems to be straining to say it's working. He doesn't give all the numbers so it's hard to gauge how many students are actually using it. It is interesting to see the different in the number of times it was accessed at Ingraham versus at Franklin.
Here it is in its entirety.
To: Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee
From: Dr. Caleb Perkins, Director of College and Career Readiness cbperkins@seattleschools.org
Date: December 11, 2018
RE: Update on 24 Credits and Secondary Re-visioning
Dear Committee Members,
I am writing to share an update on the progress that we are making with regards to secondary re-visioning and the 24 credit high school graduation requirement. Principals, educators, and central team members are all engaging in this work, with the goal of improving teaching and learning across our high schools, so that all of our students graduate ready for college, career pathways, civic engagement, and life. The following captures the major areas of work we have done since our last update.
Date: December 11, 2018
RE: Update on 24 Credits and Secondary Re-visioning
Dear Committee Members,
I am writing to share an update on the progress that we are making with regards to secondary re-visioning and the 24 credit high school graduation requirement. Principals, educators, and central team members are all engaging in this work, with the goal of improving teaching and learning across our high schools, so that all of our students graduate ready for college, career pathways, civic engagement, and life. The following captures the major areas of work we have done since our last update.
High School Course Offerings: In preparation for the start of 2019-20 course pre-registration, the Department of College and Career Readiness is collaborating with content area managers to refine an updated list of recommended courses by subject area for grades 6-12. We will share these updated recommendations with high school principals at the December 4th LLD and request their feedback.
We will also include in these updates any new course offerings, including ones recently approved by the Board per Superintendent Procedure 2026 Per the latter, we are greatly appreciative of the Board’s approval of the large number of courses on October 30th. Given that vetting process and per SP 2026, we do not anticipate the need to bring the same volume and types of courses to the Board for approval in going forward (e.g., competency courses for new world languages will likely not require additional review).
Finally, we will incorporate updated guidance on the process for requesting waivers for particular courses (e.g., Physical Education). When all of this guidance is finalized, it will be added to the graduation bulletin posted to the Seattle Public Schools website, and communicated to students, families, and schools. The intent of this work is to build a coherent and comprehensive picture of our district expectations for coursework in middle school and high school.
Naviance: Students in grades 6 and 7 are scheduled to have access to Naviance at the start of second semester, January 31, 2019, of the current school year.
Finally, we will incorporate updated guidance on the process for requesting waivers for particular courses (e.g., Physical Education). When all of this guidance is finalized, it will be added to the graduation bulletin posted to the Seattle Public Schools website, and communicated to students, families, and schools. The intent of this work is to build a coherent and comprehensive picture of our district expectations for coursework in middle school and high school.
Naviance: Students in grades 6 and 7 are scheduled to have access to Naviance at the start of second semester, January 31, 2019, of the current school year.
Opt-Out Window: There will be an opportunity for families to make a decision for their 6th and 7th grade students to use or not use Naviance from Friday, January 4, 2019 through Friday, January 25, 2019. Once the opt-out window opens, parents and guardians can opt out their 6th-7th grade students from using Naviance by updating their application preferences in the Source or by contacting the College and Career Readiness team directly. Communications will go out to families of students in grades 6 and 7 the week of December 10th to notify them about the January 2019 opt out window.
There are several benefits to providing these students with access to Naviance. 6th and 7th graders will have the opportunity to utilize Road Trip Nation, Career Key and the Learning Styles Inventory to explore their interests, career options, and learn about their strengths. Students will also have access to the Naviance curriculum where they will learn about study habits, growth mindset, financial planning, goal setting, time management, future planning, college knowledge and more.
Usage metrics: Within under three months of usage, more students are starting to use Naviance every day. PowerPoint presentations aligned to the Naviance high school and beyond plan lessons have been created and loaded to Schoology for counselor use. Also, Naviance offers Tuesday webinars to support counselors with Naviance implementation. The following are some sample statistics we have on Naviance usage:
- Seniors at all of our comprehensive high schools have logged into Naviance. They have logged in 6700 times in total.
- Ingraham High School seniors have logged into Naviance 3362 times.
- Franklin High School seniors have logged into Naviance 776 times.
- West Seattle High School seniors have logged into Naviance 728 times.
- 787 seniors have added colleges to their application list in Naviance (this is up 10% from November 5th)
- At Roosevelt HS, 53% of 9th graders have taken the Learning Style Inventory to understand their learning preferences. Over 20% of 10th graders at Interagency SW and Roosevelt have learned more about their personality via the Do What You Are survey.
The College and Career Readiness team continues to support the roll out of the approved CTE plan and its seven strategies. As a next step, we are scheduling meetings with principals to discuss the offering of new course pathways, including Health Care and Medical Careers in high school and STEM innovation labs/design courses in middle school, starting in the 2019-20 school year. In addition, data collected from our Career Connected Learning Coordinators indicates an increase in career exploration activities (e.g., field trips to work sites) across a number of our high schools.
Supporting Students with “24 Credits”
We appreciate the opportunity to talk with the Board at the November 27th work session on secondary re-visioning and the plan to help students in 2019-20 earn 24 credits, meet graduation requirements, and graduate ready for postsecondary success. In addition to other items we will have discussed, we will have previewed the draft logic model (see below) that we have developed with Eric Anderson’s team to track schools’ progress in their efforts to help students earn 24 credits, meet graduation requirements, and graduate ready for postsecondary success. We will continue to meet with principals to refine this model and ensure that we are learning from our work this year so that our supports for students will continue to improve.
I look forward to seeing you and providing more details on these topics at the C&I Policy Committee Meeting on December 4th.
Comments
NW
-long road
Thanks. I have emailed Rick Burke, Mary Margaret and the rest of the board. In fact Mary Margaret (head of the science department) and I have had a long conversation about the curriculum - with the entire board copied in every email. I am happy to share the conversation with anyone interested. Rick, as an engineer, is concerned about this as well.
In the past, though, I have seen a big difference between the school board being aware and concerned about an issue and a school board acting on an issue. It usually takes a large group of people showing up at school board meetings before there is enough impetus for action.
-NW
Negative input is definitely not encouraged
NW
UWScienceProfessor
I'd take an online STEM curriculum that's updated over one that's over 20 years old any day.
UWScienceProfessor
First off, the waivers list reveals that science curriculum waivers have been granted to 19 schools (including what looks like all the District's middle schools) and to all use the same curricular materials -- Amplify Science.
That amounts to a de facto curriculum adoption.
Yet, Amplify Science never came before the School Board for approval or even review.
Secondly, if Amplify Science is under consideration for the current Science curriculum adoption that is in progress, this gives the Amplify product and vendor an unfair advantage over other materials and vendors that may not have had the benefit of this waiver and de facto pilot process.
Rightly or wrongly, this looks like another end-run around the Board; an attempt to quietly bring in and embed a new product before the official adoption process (as prescribed by Board policy) has even been conducted, and to give one product an unfair advantage.
Another problematic element of this issue is that there have been many complaints about Amplify’s Science curriculum, last year when I was still on the Board, and since: Not enough hands-on experiential components, lack of engaging material, too reliant on impersonal online direction (rather than interaction with an actual teacher)-- adding up to a lost year in science for some students.
And then there’s the provenance of the product and its vendor. Originally owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Company, Amplify was sold in 2015 to a group of investors, and Joel Klein and Larry Berger. (https://newscorp.com/2015/09/30/news-corp-completes-sale-of-amplify-digital-education-businesses/ & https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/07/news-corp-sells-amplify-to-joel-klein.html)
When the product was first brought to the Seattle School District, it was an assessment -- Amplify mCLASS Beacon -- which was controversial and flawed. Various teachers and principals complained about it. Parents said that the test results were being kept from them. The district’s own survey revealed the mixed responses from school staff about the product. (https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/14-15agendas/061715agenda/20150617_Amplify_Survey.pdf)
Another issue -- Amplify’s assessment product was first purchased by the District without Board approval. The price of the Amplify test just happened to be just under the $250,000 threshold required for Board approval. I believe it was something like $249,000 (I have a copy of the contract somewhere). Despite all the issues, staff sought to expand the use of the Amplify tests throughout the district. So about a year later, they were obligated to bring the contract renewal to the Board because the cost to expand it had surpassed the $250,000 mark. Based on the negative responses from schools, the Board voted it down.
That was the last time those of us on the Board had heard of Amplify until it was revealed to the Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee in mid-2017 or so that it had re-emerged as a Science curriculum that was being used by nearly 20 schools via the waiver process. (Directors were duly alarmed by this belated news.)
This looks like an abuse of the waiver process, and intentionally or not, these actions come across an effort to bypass Board oversight (and policy) and public scrutiny.
Directors were right to be alarmed and demand oversight. The Superintendent should also step in and require her staff to follow policy. And this may impact the current science curriculum adoption.
-- Sue Peters