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Contact Becci Gillespie, Superintendent/Principal bgillespie@pgrove.k12.ca.us 916.655.3235 Demographics Summary Leadership at Pleasant Grove Joint Union Elementary School District, a one-school rural district, recently changed but progress continues toward a fully functioning standards-based system of education and accountability. A focus on standards began in 1999. The superintendent/principal is the leader of the standards-based movement, facilitating weekly meetings, reviewing lesson plans, coaching staff, and designing long-range strategic plans. Full Description The superintendent is also the principal at Pleasant Grove Joint Union Elementary School District, a K-8, one-school rural district with one teacher per grade level. The former superintendent/principal moved to the county office of education before the 2001-2002 school year. The current leader is continuing the standards-based education initiative. Instruction and principal-teacher conference have been focused on content standards since 1999. Two professional development days each year are focused on understanding content standards and aligning curriculum and assessment. One-hour staff meetings are held on a minimum day each week. Staff meetings usually address issues of implementing standards-based education and evaluating school effectiveness. Parents/guardians were informed of the shift to standards-based education. In 2000, standards-referenced report cards were introduced. The next step in implementation is establishing an assessment system that identifies specific instruments and conversion of scores to performance levels. The assessment system will establish consistency in grading practices across all teachers. Weekly Meetings: Weekly staff meetings focus on professional development and team learning. This practice institutionalizes behaviors of a learning organization. Team learning includes effective teaching strategies, analyzing results, and making data-based decisions about the school's program. Federal Class Reduction funds were used for two years to pay release time one day per week for a teacher to provide curriculum development and support, and lesson demonstration and team teaching. Each Monday is a minimum day (by adding minutes to other days) in which teachers participate for two hours in curriculum and instruction dialogues and problem solving. The superintendent facilitates meetings and ensures that the focus is on professional learning. Informal accountability is embedded in the meetings--teachers are expected to describe teaching to standards and assessment results. Accountability Dialogues: Teacher leaders and the principal review teachers' lesson plans as part of periodic, individual consultations about teaching practices. Use of teacher leaders provides more opportunities for professional learning and infuses shared leadership. The conference with teachers about their trimester instructional plans is the primary method of accountability. Teachers' trimester lesson plans are expected to focus on the "big ideas" representing clusters of content standards. A teacher identifies key standards and curricula for emphasis in the trimester lesson plan. Teacher-leader conversations include how students will be assessed and strategies to differentiate instruction. Standards-Based Report Cards: Leadership began several years ago with a long-range plan to develop standards-based report cards that would be understood and accepted by staff and students' parents and/or legal guardians. Teachers began explaining content standards and performance standards during parent-teacher conferences. Parent brochures were distributed. Groundwork was laid to introduce standards-based report cards. The process is not complete; a next step is identifying specific assessments in the grading system. This means establishing criteria for converting test scores and other assessment results to performance levels across all grade levels. One benefit will be a stronger link between assessment and program decisions. |