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Contact Elin Ovick, Director of Curriculum and Instruction ovicke@libertyuhsd.k12.ca.us 925.634.2166 Demographics Summary The Liberty Union High School District Board of Education has adopted Board Policy that requires students, beginning with the graduating class of 2002, to meet content standards at a high performance level in all courses required for graduation. Therefore, the district has invested much of its professional development time over the past several years to help teachers understand the content standards and develop and deliver standards-based lessons. The district's central office and teachers at all schools are communicating the content standards to high school students and their parents/guardians. Using Rick Stiggins' assessment model, the district continues to make progress toward an assessment system aligned to content standards and yielding performance levels. Liberty believes that students must be involved in self-assessment and monitoring their progress as part of the standards-based learning process. Rubrics were developed for student and teacher use and they are aligned with district performance levels. General Rubrics Full Description Developing Standards The district has made progress toward a districtwide, standards-based education system. Teachers at all schools in the district, including the alternative high schools, are explaining content standards to their students and planning lessons based on standards. Teacher teams from Liberty Union High School District participated initially in county-sponsored work sessions to develop content standards. Since then, local standards were written and recently revised for greater alignment to the state standards. Courses of study have been rewritten to reflect this work. For several years, the district has conducted teacher professional development sessions to help teachers understand the standards. Every staff development day has focused in some way on standards. The Berkeley Teaching Alliance model was used to develop standards-based unit lessons by content area. The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) cycle of inquiry process has helped teachers to discuss and reflect on their practices and develop standards-based goals and lesson plans. Special Education Standards The expectation is that special education students will be taught the same content standards as regular education student. However, benchmarks for special education students may differ so as to measure achievement at the student's appropriate level of instruction. Communicating Standards The district expects all teachers to post the standards and benchmarks in their classrooms. Parents/guardians receive a booklet listing the standards. All students are given a listing of each course's content standards to place in their binder. The district has been piloting a standards-based report card and with an expectation for full implementation districtwide in Fall 2002. The district is converting to a SASI system for student data management and will use Parent Connect to further communicate with parents about student progress toward achieving standards/benchmarks. ParentCONNECTxp software by NCS allows parents to keep track of their children's academic progress via a web site customized for your school. Parents may view school program announcements as well as their students' schedules, grades and other achievement data, assignments, attendance, and health/immunization and other data. Parents can also communicate with teachers via e-mail or receive automatic e-mail notification of unexcused absences, missing assignments, or failing grades. Performance Levels General Rubrics Liberty Union High School District developed a set of four-point rubrics aligned with the district's general performance levels. The rubrics contain general descriptors that fit any grade level or specific course. Teachers receive continual professional development and are encouraged to modify the general rubrics to delineate descriptors for particular course standards. The intent is for teachers and students to frequently use the rubrics during and at the end of standards-based lessons. |