District Committee Meeting Summaries

The following district committees met on Monday March 19th:

District Instructional Strategies Committee

• The DISC committee reviewed last month’s phone call with Ken O’Conner (author of A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 fixes for Broken Grades).
• Began a discussion on a common definition of Standards Based Grading and reviewed examples of standard based grading documents from other districts.
• Groups split into secondary and elementary in order to better examine the pros and cons of the documents.
• The DISC will work on development of a district implementation plan in April and May.

District Literacy Committee

• The elementary DLC reviewed feedback from teachers in schools on the many components of the Wonders Assessments (i.e. Diagnostic, Placement, Weekly, Unit, Benchmark, and Inquiry).
• The committee is still seeking feedback on the assessments in Wonders.
• This feedback will be used to help with PD and to align the ELA essentials to the most appropriate assessments this summer.
• The committee discussed the need for ongoing PD with Wonders, the depth of the program and how it does and can support student learning.
• The committee discussed the various experience of teachers in PCSD and how to support and address those varied needs.
• The committee also viewed the drafted format for the revised PCSD ELA (elementary) essentials.
• Drafts should be completed by the end of March and shared with teachers and each school DLC committee member for content and format feedback.
• Please talk with your school rep for detailed information or with any questions.
• The Secondary DLC is in the process of choosing book titles to purchase from Pearson as part of our textbook purchase last spring.
• Representatives from each school brought their preferred texts for the units in the textbook.
• The committee then spent the rest of the meeting trying to find commonality in texts that would work for all the schools.
• We addressed concerns from departments about what it means to have district required texts.
• For our next meeting, representatives will bring back thoughts from their departments. We hope to do a final approval and then decide what books we actually need to purchase.

District Math Committee

• The District Math Committee met on Monday, March 19th.
• The meeting was opened with professional development on one of the instructional strategies from the book “Principles to Action.”
• Each month the committee has been exploring one of the instructional strategies for good mathematical instruction and exploring how Go Math and Big Ideas support those strategies.
• This month the topic was Purposeful Questioning. If you would like more information on Purposeful Questioning, please reach out to your math committee member.
• Elementary also discussed scope & sequence and assessments for next year based on feedback that was provided at the January Grade Level Meetings.
• In April, the math committee members will bring proposals for next school year and teachers will be able to provide additional feedback.

District Social Studies Committee

• The Social Studies Committee has been working on developing and aligning a Student Profile containing the key knowledge, skills and dispositions that students should master, beginning in elementary and culminating in high school.
• The committee has used the past two meetings to cross walk the profile with state content, literacy and writing standards.
• Once finalized, this work will provide an important lens for reviewing and purchasing any new social studies curriculum.