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Contact Rob Schamberg, Superintendent rschamberg@camino.k12.ca.us 530.644.4552 Ext. 213 Demographics Summary Camino Union School District, a one-school district, is progressing toward an integrated, standards-based system of education and accountability with leadership from the superintendent and principal who both joined the school district in 2000. They have produced several standards-based products, as well as instituted a process that blends professional development with staff meetings and strategically builds teacher leadership skills to mentor peers and facilitate internal workshops. Two products clearly define content standards linked to curricula, instruction, interventions, and assessment:
Black Oak Mine's Web site is: http://bomusd.k12.ca.us/bomusd/pages/curric/SAAHome.htm. Camino's Parent Guides for grades K-8 are Word files and the district has made them available for interested school districts: Camino Parent Guide for Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade Sixth Grade Seventh-Eighth Grade Camino Staff Guide Full Description Camino Union School District has one K-8 school with about 600 students. The superintendent and principal came to Camino in 2000 from Black Oak Mine Unified School District, a K-12 district, where they were assistant superintendent and reading specialist, respectively. The superintendent also functions much like an assistant principal and director of special education and research. Much of Camino's work draws from prior work in Black Oak Mine. Camino adopted the state content standards and then highlighted key standards, using parent-friendly language, in its Parent Guide for each grade level. The Parent Guide, Standards, Assessment, and Accountability Guide for Teachers and Administrators, Individualized Learning Plan (ILP), and other concepts and materials were adapted from Black Oak Mine Unified School District. Parent and Staff Guides The Parent Guide briefly explains standards, assessments, accountability, retention, prevention and intervention, and the ILP. General instructional services, tips for parents, and assessments and communication of results are described. Subsequent pages list the key content standards by category - language arts, mathematics, history-social science, science, physical education, health science, visual and performing arts, and technology. Camino Parent Guide for Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade Sixth Grade Seventh-Eighth Grade A staff document -- Standards, Assessment and Accountability Guide for Teachers and Administrators -- provides a clear picture of the standards-based education system:
Key Standards The superintendent and principal led teachers in the identification of key content standards. These standards receive highest priority attention in the classroom and are the focus of communication with parents. Teachers are to address all standards but concentrate instruction on key standards that are critical to grade-level promotion and state assessment topics. The superintendent believes that staff should not quickly adopt the work of another district -- the process of identifying key standards aligned to the state assessment system helped teachers to deepen their understanding of the standards as they debated importance and meaning. Instruction Classroom instruction is aligned with extended-day intervention strategies. A well-defined set of core instructional practices articulated across grades is a work in progress. The Teachers' Resource Guide lists 300 "student concerns" linked to appropriate instructional strategies. Interventions target key content standards in language arts and mathematics that students have not mastered. Often, the after-school teacher is the student's classroom teacher. After-school and Saturday interventions offer acceleration for underachievers and enrichment for other students, such as Spanish-language reading for primary-grade students. Leadership and Culture The new leadership in Camino, the superintendent and principal, first established a strong foundation for staff to want to work together on changing curricula, instruction, and assessment practices -- the culture of a learning organization. Subsequent staff workshops and meetings maintained a focus on improving standards-based instruction. Funding sources were pooled to provide ample opportunities for individual and team professional development. School/district leaders build leadership capacity of teachers. Accountability for implementation is developing, but a variety of methods are already in place. The superintendent and principal want all teachers to be leaders. A Professional Leadership Team, consisting of the two administrators and four teachers, was established. The teachers have learned to facilitate school workshops and meetings. Other teachers attended external workshops and were given roles as site mentors and workshop facilitators. All teachers are expected to collaborate and share their knowledge and skills. They are encouraged to facilitate staff development sessions in their area of expertise. The shift from language arts last year to mathematics and science this year has allowed a natural shift in leadership when teachers have more expertise in one area to share and mentor other teachers. Leadership has a long-range plan of incremental steps toward a comprehensive system of education and accountability. The superintendent and principal work with teachers collegially. The two administrators have moved teachers from only making individual decisions about their own classrooms to team decisions that impact grade levels and the entire school. Success breeds more success -- that is, as teachers use data to discover challenges and show improvement, the culture of team-oriented, data-based decision-making grows. The superintendent is a transformational leader who serves as:
Previously, teachers tended to work more in isolation. As they began engaging in the cultural norms of a learning community, beliefs and behaviors were institutionalized and applied in later workshops on changing curricula and instruction. Workshop materials and activities from Tribes TLCā (by Jeanne Gibbs, CenterSource Systems, LLC) have been used extensively to develop a caring, learning community of adults and students. Tribes focuses on cooperative learning in classrooms. The goal is to establish responsive education that addresses students' social and emotional intelligences to support their academic learning. Back to District Practices Table Professional Development Language arts standards were the focus of professional development and staff meetings in 2000-2001. Mathematics and science standards are the focus in 2001-2002. Other topics that supported or extended the focus were included. For example, teacher and student use of technology is a "supporting" focus in 2001-2002. It takes time and a variety of opportunities to learn how to use new standards-based curricula and instructional strategies. Camino's agendas for staff development in 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 reflect themes and "coming back" to a topic after practice in classrooms. Camino Professional Development Guide 2000-2001 Camino Professional Development Guide 2001-2002 Most all-staff and grade-level meetings involve professional learning as an extension of staff development days and sessions. Informational items are placed in bulletins and memos, leaving meeting time for questions, sharing ideas, professional dialogue, and problem solving. Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) is perceived as a positive source of mentoring, and is certainly not a punitive intervention reserved for teachers who receive unsatisfactory evaluations. PAR and Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment are two examples of individualized learning opportunities for teachers. Improving instruction of standards critical for student promotion is a common thread across all meetings. Reporting and Using Results Administrators are in the process of strengthening accountability for implementation of ideas from professional development. Every staff development session includes an evaluation form asking teachers to state what they learned and what they will implement. Some methods of accountability that teachers do implement "statements of intention" include the following:
Using results is the foundation of decision-making in Camino Union School District. The Individualized Learning Plan (ILP) is a reporting form for basing intervention decisions on assessment data and monitoring progress. The process of data-driven decision-making began with a problem the school was facing -- many discipline referrals, especially in the upper grades. Individualized Learning Plan An ILP is developed for each student at risk of retention or in need of interventions. The ILP shows trimester assessment data linked to classroom, extended day, and home strategies. Assessment scores are compared to targets each trimester. If accelerated learning is not realized, adjustments are made in the interventions. The homeroom teacher is the "case carrier" who monitors student progress and judges effectiveness of ILP strategies to accelerate student learning. The ILP is an example of an accountability tool for individual teachers and individual students that supports the data-to- decisions-to-monitoring-results process. The process began with the principal presenting to staff discipline referral data and challenging them to explore and experiment with strategies to reduce the number of referrals, especially for seventh and eighth graders. Some actions included hiring a half-time culture director and starting an advisory period and modified block schedule for longer class periods in grades 7-8. As a result, discipline referrals were greatly reduced in 2000-2001. The cohesive system of standards, assessment, and accountability are driven by three questions:
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