School Journeys

In response to requests for samples of programs and documents which schools have created to address the Standards of Accreditation, CPSS now offers more professional development related to the Standards and topics of secondary school redesign. 

CPSS knows that teachers and administrators also wish to see sample documents. This section of the website provides stories told through a school's documents of successful efforts to create

• a set of core values, a set of beliefs about learning, and a set 21st century learning expectations that address academic, civic, and social competencies; 
• analytic rubrics developed by teachers to be used school-wide with all students;
• other documents created by schools related to school-wide learning expectations

Mashpee High School, located in Mashpee, MA on Cape Cod and serving 483 students in grades 9-12 has spent the previous school year developing school-wide analytic rubrics for use in assessing the school's recently developed 21st century learning expectations.

Principal Jane Day, working with a staff of 56, engaged the faculty in a process which resulted in a set of analytic rubrics that will be useful to teachers in assessing individual achievement of the learning expectations.  First, a common format was provided to teachers for the rubrics. Teachers then worked in cross-curricular groups to develop the rubrics.  Each group reviewed a cross-walk which provides links to key concepts developed by NCREL, ISTE and P21 (see 21st century learning tab for this crosswalk).  Teachers were encouraged to select language from the cross-walk as well as from the Common Core State Curriculum Standards for use in their rubrics.  The rubrics were then shared with the entire faculty, and the tweaking process began.  Through a series of meetings, the rubrics were refined to the point that content areas could now review them to see how they could be used with existing curriculum, lessons, and instructional strategies.  Each content area was asked to select three of the expectations for which they plan to teach and to assess.  Targeted levels of achievement were identified, and the school is now in the process of using the newly-developed rubrics with students. Teachers are very positive about the work they have accomplished and are eager to see how useful the rubrics are, especially with regard to assessment of the 21st century learning expectations. 

Mashpee HS Statement of Core Values
Mashpee HS School-wide Rubrics
 

Charles E. Shea Senior High School, located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and serving 1055 students in grades 9-12, is preparing for a decennial visit in May of 2011. 

Chris Lord, Shea's principal said, "On the first day of school in late August of 2009, the entire faculty met by pre-established Standards' committee and applied the Commission Rating Guides to school practices in order to refocus on the 2011 Standards for Accreditation.  Armed with this information, the faculty then met to establish a new mission. After three re-workings of the document, a fourth version was presented to the district office, and the district now has adopted a set of learning expectations for all of the district's secondary schools.  Proficiency on the learning expectations in each class and for each student is now reported out on reportcards/progress reports.  In addition, the appropriate learning expectations are identified in the student portfolio, now a requirement for graduation.  This takes the learning expectations from the mission statement to the curriculum to the teaching all the way to the final graduation assessment--student portfolios.

Shea High School's new document