School Board holds presentation on Common Core Implementation

PLAINS – Five concerned citizens attended the Plains School Board of Trustee meeting on Monday, June 17 to listen to the Common Core Standards presentation.

Eliza Thomas, Director of Northwest Montana Educational Cooperative, was asked to present information on the Common Core implementation to both the school board members and those interested in the program.

According to the Common Core website, the Common Core State Standards help provide teachers, parents, and students a clear and defined understanding of what students are expected to learn.

Thomas, the consortium director, said the program has 22 member districts – one of which involves Plains Public Schools.

“What we do is we help you meet accreditation standards through the state of Montana,” said Thomas.

Thomas explained the Montana Board of Education adopted the Common Core in November, 2011.

“We are expected to align our curriculum to the adopted standards that have been accepted by Montana,” explained Thomas.

Thomas stated not many differences were seen after Common Core was adopted other than in math and English Language Arts referred to as ELA.

And of the changes that did occur, they occurred on a smaller scale. Thomas explained from a math standpoint “it might be that long division with two digit numbers has been moved to fourth grade instead of fifth grade. Or that fractions have been moved to third grade.”

As for reading, the emphasis changed primarily because there is now a stronger expectation for writing in the classroom, context area and the general writing experience.

She explained groundwork was conducted prior to the adoption and the consortium started, creating pacing guides before the Common Core came into place. The pacing guides help ensure that students all over the country are on the same track for educational progress.

“What’s nice is that if students move from say, Montana to Kansas, the expectations are the same,” explained Thomas, stating previously each state had its own expectations of learning standards.

The objective of the Common Core is to get students college or career ready, whatever path they chose to take.

As the initial presentation wound to a close, the question and answer period opened up to those in attendance. Many of the attendees were worried about the cost of updating the computers and systems to allow computer based testing.

Elementary School Principal, Jim Holland, stated a test took place in early Spring to measure the capacity of the bandwidth and to evaluate whether or not the school’s resources would allow them to complete the test without issues.

“Our school passed that part of the test,” said Holland.

Superintendent Thom Chisholm explained the school’s technology fund would not be affected by the Smarter Balanced testing.

“Even if we elected to do all our assessments on paper, it still wouldn’t change what our technology fund is. And our technology fund right now is ahead of these needs,” said Chisholm.

Thomas added to that stating most schools in Northwestern Montana are good from a technology standpoint because of their efforts to keep up with modern technology.

“It is an ongoing cost for students to have this technology but it is one that existed prior to Common Core implementation because we have tech standards as well,” explained Thomas.

Paula Snyder asked if the pacing guides have already been implemented or if they will be implemented for the 2013-2014 school year.

Holland explained over the last six years the school began aligning the standards to what they teach, where they teach it and when they teach it. He said the school will put the standards in place this fall.

Thomas added some of the standards have already been put in place because they are not that different to the things the school was doing prior to receiving the standards.

Kathy Hassan expressed concerns about a lack of parental knowledge to what the students are learning.

“My research on a lot of it said that it will become more extensively involved with computer testing in other words parents or parental rights are kind of put on a backburner. I’m told they aren’t allowed to ask what’s being taught once it is adopted,” said Hassan, citing two brochures, one from the Heartland Institute and the other from the Pioneer Institute.

Although Thomas was unfamiliar with both of the institutes she stated parents have the opportunity to go through the right channels to obtain information, explaining the district is a public school.

“For us, what we focus on here is Montana and what we can do in Montana. And our Board of Public Education has adopted the Common Core so in response to that our objective is we need to follow those Montana Context Standards,” said Thomas, adding that all the curriculum is posted online and is readily available for anyone to review and learn about.

“I would encourage you to go in and read the actual curriculum documents because often times people read various literature posed about the documents but they don’t actually take the time to read the documents,” said Thomas.

High School Principal Jim McDonald said the information is available on the Office of Public Instruction’s website.

Another concern voiced by the attendees was that with the new pacing guidelines put into place, teachers have less freedom to cover a subject they enjoyed or had previously done a unit on in the past.

Thomas stated that is not necessarily true. “If the teacher is really interested in a particular topic that had been something they had done and had done well for years, if it met the standards then they could still use that.”

She explained the program still leaves room for how the teachers want to teach certain material.

“It still leaves open the how, it just more clearly defines the what,” said Thomas, stating she earlier gave a presentation on pugs – a dog she is very interested in – and arranged the lesson plan around her topic, allowing the kids to conduct research on the topic chosen, while fulfilling the pacing guidelines.

As each question or concern was debunked or explained, the citizens at the meeting left with a greater, more in-depth understanding of the Common Core program.

Thomas ended the presentation by saying the students of Plains are ahead of many.

“I can’t say this in every district I go to but the students of Plains are very, very fortunate and it’s evident in their performance…You have some really dedicated teachers that come in a ridiculous amount of time…and your leadership supports them in that,” said Thomas.