Changes come in with new year

Deirdre Newman

The final domino in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s

alignment with required state standards will be gradually falling

into place this year -- standards-based report cards.

The district has already aligned its curriculum and assessment

with state mandates in subjects like language arts, math, social

science and science. Standards define what students are expected to

know and the reports cards will measure students’ mastery of these

standards for grades two through six.

The new report cards, approved by the school board Tuesday, will

be brought in throughout the school year to give teachers and parents

enough time to get comfortable with the changes.

District officials invited significant feedback from more than 300

teachers and close to 100 parents in creating the new cards, which

took about two years, said Bonnie Swann, director of elementary

education and curriculum.

In comparison to the former report cards, the new system will send

a definitive message to parents about what students know and what

they still need to learn, Swann said.

The cards are divided into different subjects with grades being

replaced by numbers that represent how much of the standard has been

mastered. Four is the highest, an above grade-level standard, and one

is the lowest as a below grade level standard. An ‘x’ signifies that

the standard has not been addressed yet, which will be more common in

the beginning of the school year, Swann noted.

In addition to the standards, students will also be graded the

traditional way -- Outstanding, Satisfactory, Improving and Needs

Improvement -- in categories like work habits and citizenship.

There is also room for teachers to suggest interventions for

students who are struggling in certain areas. And another section

provides parents with suggested home-learning activities like reading

with their children and having them create and solve math word

problems.

Workshops will be held throughout the year for parents to help

them understand the new reporting procedure.

The goal is to issue computerized standards-based report cards by

the 2003-04 school year.

Many trustees lauded the new system.

“I think it’s great,” said Serene Stokes. “It helps parents see

where their child is at any given time during the semester.”

New ways to grade

To help teachers gauge student progress against the state

standards, the district will be aided by a new assessment and

Web-based reporting software.

StandardsMaster, approved by the board Tuesday, is touted as a

high-tech, immediate-results system.

“It takes the guesswork out of student achievement,” said Kurt

Suhr, administrative intern at Rea Elementary School in Costa Mesa.

The committee that worked on devising the standards-based report

cards requested an assessment tool that would make the data used on

the cards consistent throughout the district. A state review called

COMITE also requires a way to benchmark the progress of students

throughout the year.

StandardsMaster expedites a lot of the work teachers used to have

to do by hand by scanning the results of a traditional paper and

pencil test, with results available within five to seven minutes.

Several reports can then be generated, including an opportunity to

praise students in English or Spanish on their achievements, and how

many students in a class mastered a certain skill.

Debbra Maury, who teaches fifth grade at Killybrooke in Costa

Mesa, said the new software will make teachers’ lives a lot easier.

“It’s taking a load off teachers to make assessment friendly,”

Maury said. “So you can get information that day and can see where

your kids are and use it to drive instruction.”

Trustee Jim Ferryman is equally impressed.

“I think this is fabulous,” Ferryman said. “This really is a

valuable tool in finding out where [students’] weaknesses are.”

A choice of books

The school district is trying two different elementary language

arts textbooks proposed by the state this year to see which one it

will eventually adopt.

New language arts textbooks are brought in every seven years and

for the next cycle, the state has recommended either Houghton-Mifflin

or Open Court. But instead of blindly leaping into one program or the

other, the district has chosen the methodical approach of

experimenting with each one, Swann said.

“I’m a product of pilot wars and want everyone to have a fair

assessment of both products and go from there,” Swann said.

For the first part of the year, teachers in second through sixth

grade will try Open Court. For the latter half, they will use

Houghton-Mifflin.

Students likely will not notice the difference, Swann said.

In kindergarten and first grade, teachers will use the same

textbook year-round to ensure consistency.

At the end of the year, teachers will come together and share

their opinion of the textbooks. Then a recommendation will be made to

the school board, Swann said.

The district used the same approach with different math textbooks

two years ago.

Science tests await

Science will be joining other subjects in statewide tests starting

this year with an integrated science assessment of high school

students and a standards test for fifth-graders.

For the first year, the integrated science test will assess

fundamental concepts and skills within the content standards across

all four disciplines of science -- biology, chemistry, Earth science

and physics.

In subsequent years, mastery will be gauged using three different

tests -- biology, chemistry and physics.

The fifth-grade science test will focus on fourth and fifth-grade

standards. A pilot test will be given next spring and the final

format the following year.