Times are very exciting here at Kipling as well as throughout our entire district. There are large scale and very noticeable changes such as 1:1 learning with IPADS and Chromebooks but there are also very important changes in regards to how we are measuring student progress and reporting to students and families.

Last year, a group of elementary educators got together to revamp our school report card -now known as a progress report. Prior to beginning the work, a team of administrators including myself attended a workshop in Springfield with Dr. Tom Guskey of the University of Kentucky, one of the leaders of standards based grading and reporting in the world. In addition to that the district brought Dr. Guskey here to Deerfield last winter to speak to our entire DPS109 staff.

The important thing to remember about all of this work and learning on the part of our staff was that the intention was not to create a better document to use for a report card, although we think we have done that too, instead it was to communicate to parents and students about academic progress in a more clear and informative manner. This brings me to the purpose we created that you will see on the top of your child’s progress report

Purpose of the Progress Report
The purpose of this progress report is to clearly communicate with parents and
students about the achievement of specific learning standards and student work
habits. It identifies students’ levels of progress with regard to those standards, areas
of strength, and areas where additional time and effort are needed.

You can view blank progress reports for all grades here – K-5 Progress Reports
In addition, here are parent guides for each grade level.
Kindergarten
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade

I would like also like to share with you 3 major changes in our new progress reports.

The 4, 3, 2, 1
We are reporting progress in a format that we believe will be easier to communicate progress toward specific learning goals. The marks are:

4 – Exceeding Standards
3 – Meeting Standards
2 – Working Toward Standards
1 – Not Meeting Standards

It is important to understand that a 3 is a good mark. When a student is receiving a 3 that means they are demonstrating an understanding of that grade level standard as would be expected. They have learned what we wanted them to learn. A 4 is specifically for exceeding standards – students are demonstrating ability beyond the expected level or are working at a higher level within the grade level standard. Here are a couple of examples that help explain. Example 1 Example 2

Also in grades 4 and 5 we are no longer using A, B, C, D to report student progress. Instead we are using the marks 4, 3, 2, 1 also. One thing that may pop into your mind is that we have just replaced ABCD with 4321. That is not the case. The change is not so much about the numbers or letters as to what they represent. For instance, I could assign the grades of Zebra, Elephant, Giraffe, and Lion and as long as we were in agreement on what they represented they would essentially serve the same purpose as an A, B, C, or D. The change is much larger than that – pay attention to the words that are associated with each number. When we measure progress against a specific skill or academic standard we are looking at how well students have learned and are able to demonstrate that skill or standard.

Assessing Mastery not Average Performance
In a system of traditional grading like most of us grew up in grades were determined by adding up total points earned or averaging all grades for the trimester. Lets look at an example often used by Tom Guskey that shows the folly in traditional grading.

The chart above shows possible examples for three different students. What they are learning can be anything you want. It could be finding key details in informational text or it could be math facts within 10 – it could be any standard that we are collecting evidence and monitoring progress on. I use the letter E to stand for the word evidence. The individual piece of evidence can be whatever you want such as a test, quiz, etc. Let’s look at these three students one at a time.

Student 1
This student didn’t start out well. Clearly he did not know the standard/skill at the beginning. But what we do see is steady progress and evidence of learning over time. Eventually on the last assessment we see that the student got a 99 percent.

Student 2
This student started in the high 70’s but he never really went anywhere after that. The student did not do any worse than he had at the beginning of learning but he also never progressed to a higher level.

Student 3
This student started out poorly for the first two assessments but then something clicked for her and she got it right away. On the 3rd assessment she clearly aced everything she did after that, to the point that on the last assessment she didn’t miss any.

Here is an example of 3 different students with very different levels of performance over varying spans of time. The problem with traditional grading is that when I average all of the work the students did all three students end up with a 79% or a C. That doesn’t really seem fair. And it’s not. Nor as a parent does the 79% or the letter grade of a C tell me which one of the C’s is my child. Averaging all of a student’s scores with equal weight does not account for learning or progress. To me the last of the five pieces of evidence is the most important and counts way more than any of the others. It tells me where your learning is at the end of all the instruction and practice. Have you mastered the skill or not?

Before we move on to number 3 you may be thinking to yourself – Where is the motivation if a student isn’t working for an A or B? The answer to that question is that the motivation shifts from the arbitrary A and the fixed mindset view of letter attainment to a growth mindset view that is focused on learning what you should learn. Think back to your own experience in college or school. We all have memories of working very hard for an A or B. But in the end what did it really tell us we had learned? Or did it just tell us that we worked hard? Don’t get me wrong, both are important. But our purpose in academic markings is to provide you information on learning and mastery not necessarily effort.

Habits of Success
Reporting progress against academic standards means just that. We are no longer going to lump things like time management or organization into the academic grade. It doesn’t really make sense when you think about it. Let’s say a student has a difficult time following directions but they know their math facts inside and out. Should I penalize them academically for not following directions? I don’t think so. That said, it is important to report to parents and students how students are doing in areas such as following directions or organization. However, we need to separate those behavioral aspects out of academic grades. We call this section of the progress report Habits of Success. The reason we call it habits of success is that these are things that can be learned with deliberate concentration and practice which we believe will lead to success.

Habits of Success
Respects others’ rights, feelings, and property
Follows directions
Uses time effectively
Organizes self and materials
Completes assignments with quality and punctuality
Exhibits effort, commitment, and perseverance

There will be many questions and that is a normal part of the learning process. In the end we hope you find standards based learning and reporting a more informative means of communicating your child’s progress. I will end with a short video about standards based learning in case you are still wanting more.

This week while cleaning out the faculty lounge a few of the staff members came across a history of Kipling Elementary School that was put together by our PTO in 1989. As a former history teacher I was fascinated by the very rich history of our school. Some of it I had heard but much of it was new to me. You can read it here Kipling History

Here are a couple of neat things that stand out to me after I read this and put it together with what I already know.
-The name of our school was voted on by the students. Nearly unanimously they chose “Kipling”
-Including me, there have only been 7 principals of Kipling Elementary School since the school opened 65 years ago in 1949.
-The first Kipling field day was on May 15, 1953 and was organized by Jane Voisard and Dick Reed. Jane Voisard is the mother of current 4th grade teacher Jeanne Sayner.

I wanted update everyone on the outcome of our Pumpkin Contest. As you will recall Mrs. Thurman’s pumpkin was the winner of our contest which meant her class got to choose which charity would receive the funds we raised through all of the generous contributions of our students and families in the week leading up to Pumpkinfest.

At Kipling we are always looking for ways to tie everything into authentic learning opportunities for our students. Mrs. Thurman had her students partner up and research various charities her students were passionate about. The students used websites such as Charity Navigator to analyze and evaluate perspective charities. The students presented their findings last Thursday to the class, Mrs. Thurman, Mrs. Meredith, Mrs. Barr and myself. In the end the students did such a good job making the case for their respective charities that we could not select just one. There were 8 charities and just over $800 donated so we decided to give each of the charities $104 dollars a piece. The students were thrilled. Today the students were able to explain why they chose their charities to Dr. Lubelfeld. It was beyond inspiring to listen to these amazing young individuals talk about their passion for helping and why they chose their particular charities.

Below is the list of the charities that the students chose to donate to and here are some pictures of them today.

Acres of Love

Make a Wish Illinois

4 Paws for Ability

Orphans of the Storm

Paia Youth and Cultural Center

Turtle Island

Carolina Raptor Center

Animal Rescue

If anyone has ever wondered what the definition of a school community is they should have been at Kipling last week. Our staff decorated pumpkins for a contest that raised over $800 that students will donate to charity. On Saturday hundreds of people came to Kipling for our annual Pumpkinfest celebration put on by the PTO.

I have been thinking a lot this week about what a binds a strong school community together and makes things like Pumpkinfest possible. Any community is defined by some common characteristic that binds it together. On the surface one might think that this characteristic is the school itself. After all Kipling school is one thing that all parents, students, and staff have in common. In the time I have been at Kipling it has become clear to me that there is a much more important characteristic that binds our school community together and that is the deep commitment to the success of all of our children and students.

I cannot thank all of the parents, volunteers, and staff enough for all their hard work that made Pumpkinfest a success. More importantly, I cannot them enough for their commitment to the students of Kipling.

I want to share with you today the 4 critical questions that inform our work as a professional learning community here at Kipling.

What is it we want our students to know and be able to do?
This is where we begin. We have to have a clear and concrete idea of what we want students to know and be able to do. The state of Illinois has adopted the Common Core State Standards as our learning standards. These standards outline what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade level in both Math and English Language Arts. Last winter Illinois also adopted new learning standards in science known as the Next Generation Science Standards.

I am going to go one step further here and add that we also need to let students know exactly what we expect them to learn and be able to do. What we want students to learn and the levels we want them to perform at should not be a secret. Imagine how frustrating it would be to take a driving test and when you get in the car the examiner simply said “show me something” Without knowing the maneuvers he expected you to perform or the specific order he wanted them done how could you perform at your best.

How will we know when they have learned it?
Once we outline what we want students to learn we need to have some way to see if they have learned it and assess our success in teaching it. This is where assessment comes in. There are varying levels of assessments. We have state assessments such as ISAT – this year will be the first year for the new PARCC assessment. We have local universal assessments such as MAP. This year we also are administering our District Common Assessments four times a year. The first of these coming at the end of October. These assessments are given to all students in a particular grade level and are specifically over what standards have been taught. There is a big difference between an assessment such as MAP which is not grade dependent and adaptable to the student and an assessment like our District Common Assessments that covers specific standards and are intended to measure if students mastered what we have been explicitly teaching in class. Both serve valuable yet independent purposes. In addition to these we have formative classroom assessments that are given throughout instruction. Finally, we also cannot discount students own assessment of their work and skills as valuable information when evaluating learning.

How will we respond when some students do not learn?
The primary purpose of school is students learning and growth. We need to ensure that all of our students are progressing toward mastery of grade level standards and expectations. When students do not learn the first thing we must do is reflect on our own instruction and delivery. Do we need to reteach a concept or explain something in a different way? In many cases that is all that is necessary. Some students may need more assistance or a little push in order to be successful. This is where our RtI or Response to Intervention process comes into play. In RtI we give students more support in math or reading that is in addition to what they are receiving through normal classroom instruction. For instance, if a student receives 70 minutes of math instruction in a normal day that may be bumped up and they would receive 100 minutes a day of math with RtI. It is also important to make sure that we have the right intervention in place for students to make progress. It is not enough to just say that math is difficult for a student and they need additional support. Often times we must further assess to see what specifically is impeding the students progress. In math it can be any number of things such as understanding of basic numbers and operations, fact fluency, or an understanding of place value just to name a few. In English it could be decoding words, vocabulary, working with complex text, or any other number or combination of things. It is simply not enough to say “do more math” or “do more reading” There is an enormous amount of science and research behind instruction that guides the way we support students that may struggle. The one thing that is for certain is that we expect all of our students to make progress and achieve mastery of grade level standards.

How will we respond when some students already know it?
This is an important question for us as well. We must keep students challenged and engaged if they have already learned what we are teaching. This is why assessments such as MAP are valuable in providing us an idea of skills and concepts students should be working on regardless of grade level. Differentiation of instruction applies to all students not just some. I am happy to say that I see differentiation happening daily at Kipling. In fact, 11 of our teachers are working on an evidence based entry for National Board Certification based solely on differentiation. We also look for tools and resources that help us guide student learning. One of these new resources we have implemented this year is called Study Island. Study Island creates an individual learning path for students in grades 3-8 that is customized based on their NWEA MAP results. We always want to challenge and push our students to their highest achievement levels.

Today MAP reports are being mailed home for your students. I am sharing this video with you from my friend and colleague Scott Schwartz, Principal at Walden Elementary School that gives a detailed explanation of how to read and interpret your child’s MAP report. Please remember that students will take the MAP assessment again in January and late spring. This will give us additional data points so that we can look at a students growth over time. Please let me know if you have any questions.

National Board Certification
One of the most challenging and rewarding things teachers can do to enhance their knowledge and demonstrate their skills is to pursue National Board Certification as a teacher. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an organization that is dedicated to advancing student learning and achievement by defining clear standards upon which teachers demonstrate their expertise. Being a board certified teacher in many states including Illinois earns teachers the designation of “master teacher” on their professional educator license. However, nationwide only about 3% of teachers earn this honor. The main reason for this in my opinion is the rigorous nature of the certification process. Teachers do not become Nationally Board Certified by just saying they are doing specific things – they have to prove it.

National Board Architecture of Accomplished Teaching and Five Core Propositions

A look at the process
Beginning this year the process to earn National Board Certification is at minimum a 3 year journey. It begins with the teacher choosing their certificate area. An elementary school art teacher would choose art while a 4th grade classroom teacher would likely choose reading or middle childhood generalist. In all there are 25 different certificate areas in which teachers can apply for certification. For each certificate area the candidate must complete a combination of portfolio entries and assessment center exercises demonstrating, with evidence, how they are meeting and applying the standards of National Board in specific components. Those components are: Differentiation in Instruction, Content Knowledge, Teaching Practice and Learning Environment, and Effective and Reflective Practitioner. The journey will begin this year with teachers focusing all of their efforts on Differentiation in Instruction and moving to a different component next year. The portfolio entries and assessment center exercises are scored in many cases by multiple scorers – all teachers and all familiar with the NBPTS and the process. Not everyone passes the entries and they need to retake them. In fact in some years the first time pass rate is less than 40%.

Leading the Way
I am happy to say that here in DPS109 teacher pursuit of NBPTS is another example of how we are raising the bar for education. This year we have over 40 of our roughly 290 teachers beginning their pursuit of National Board Certification. We already have 9 master teachers – so with 49 out of 290 holding or pursuing NBPTS we have nearly 1 in 5 teachers with or seeking this high professional honor! As a district, we have the 3rd highest number of teachers in the state of Illinois beginning their certification process this year. We are only behind Chicago Public Schools (400,000 students) and Elgin (56,000 students). Or to put it another way the Deerfield 109 cohort of National Board candidates represents 5% of all teachers in the state of Illinois pursuing National Board. Not bad for district with a little over 3,000 students. I am proud to say that 12 of those 40 teachers are from right here at Kipling.

Kipling Elementary National Board Candidates (not pictured: Lynn Surico and Erin Christopoulos)

So what sets us apart in Deerfield? It’s simple. We have amazing people. Our teachers are dedicated professional educators who spend countless hours in the pursuit of what is in the best interests of their students. There are other districts – larger than Deerfield – that cannot find 1 teacher willing to take on this process. We have over 40!

Why Does This Matter?
The main reason this matters is because the body of research on the impact that National Board Certified teachers have on student outcomes is rock solid. In over 200 studies done on the effectiveness of National Board certified teachers nearly all of them show that their students have a significant increase in learning and achievement. In addition to this National Board teachers are also more likely to mentor teachers and take on leadership roles in the school. National Board teachers tend to raise everyone up along with them.

Join me in celebrating not only our Kipling teachers but all teachers that have the dedication to pursue this high honor!

Every once in a while we all come across something that we feel encapsulates us or speaks to us. Something that gets at who we are and what we stand for. It may be a book or poem, possibly a song or a movie. I came across something this summer that I feel sums up how I feel as a teacher, educator, and parent and I am happy to share it with you here.

I first saw this quick video over the summer and it immediately struck a chord with me. It is just a quick little video from Google but it sums up in so many ways the way I feel about teaching and our obligation to the future – our students. It is such an exciting feeling to know that the great achievements of our future will be accomplished by the little ones in our classrooms right now.

I am beyond proud to be a part of a school district that has taken so many steps to give our students the opportunities this video talks about. I point to our new STEM and CMA labs at the middle schools. I also point to our 1:1 initiative that is integral to preparing our kids to be successful in the world of the future. To me this video sums up what we mean in our district mission when we say Provide educational experiences of the highest quality that engage, inspire and empower each student to excel and contribute in a changing world. At Kipling we want our students to realize that questions often are more important than the answers as they develop a love of problem solving that will last a lifetime. There is a future to be made amazing and I am reminded of that daily as I watch students in our classrooms learn and grow.

One of my favorite reads of the last few years is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol Dweck. Like the work of John Hattie and his compilation of research in Visible Learning the work of Carol Dweck has been a professional subject of learning and study for me. Dr. Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and is a leading researcher in the areas of developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality. What is fascinating to me about her research is that her findings on student achievement, growth, and motivation are contrary to what is commonly believed. In this post I will give a very basic explanation but more importantly share with you some excellent resources that speak with far more eloquence on this topic than I do.

Carol Dweck and myself in Evanston earlier this year.

Dr. Dweck’s research shows that individuals have two possible mindsets. The first is a fixed mindset where you believe or are led to believe that your qualities such as intelligence are set or fixed. The second mindset is the growth mindset that is based on the belief that your qualities are able to be cultivated through effort. The idea that hard work and effort pay off is not ground breaking. But what is interesting is that for a long time we have thought of qualities like intelligence as fixed. Dr. Dweck’s research finds exactly the opposite. Intelligence is also a characteristic that can be developed with the proper mindset.

So how do we foster a growth mindset? It turns out the easiest way is in our everyday language and praise. Dweck’s research says to focus praise on the process and on qualities such as effort rather than outcomes. We often rush to tell students how “smart” they are when they get a good grade on a test yet we rarely think of what message that sends them when they come to something truly challenging and are not successful the first time. What we want is for the student to persevere in that moment and continue trying until they achieve success. The hard part is that many students have learned to see effort as something that reflects on their intelligence in a negative way. They think that if they have to put in a lot of effort then that must mean they are not smart. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more we can get students to focus on growth and embrace the process and challenge, rather than just the outcome, the more they will achieve. Here is a great cover story from New York Magazine that goes into this in much more depth. The Inverse Power of Praise

Another researcher that has done a lot of great work on mindset and effort is Angela Lee Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and findings on what she terms “grit” are very interesting. Here is her TED talk on GRIT.

We are passionate at Kipling school in trying to help students develop a growth mindset. We want our students to persevere when things get challenging and reach their full potential. The picture below is from our own Mr. Schwartz. This is a bulletin board he has put up in his music room that helps students see how to think with a growth mindset.

This week all students at Kipling and across DPS109 will begin taking the MAP assessment. MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress and is a computer adaptive assessment taken by millions of students across the country. I have made a video that explains the assessment, how it is scored, and how we use it here in DPS109. Hopefully, this video answers many questions you have about the assessment. If after watching you have additional questions please feel free to contact me.