Proficiency-Based Learning

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

By Bill Webster, Superintendent
March 16, 2015
Issue

Observations

Plan of Action/Recommendations
(Bold Indicates School Committee Action Required)
A. Overall challenges
Virtually all schools that have made significant
1. LHS should make adjustments in our PBL implementation as
and frustrations with transformational changes such as PBL have made
appropriate but not step back from our overall direction and
implementation of
mistakes and frustrated many. We certainly want
commitment to PBL.
PBL
to minimize this but PBL is not something where
all the bugs can be worked out prior to
2. Except for possible changes related to the reporting software
implementation. We learn and improve in the
and grading system (see action steps 12-15) PBL should
doing. Teacher and communication
continue at Lewiston High School for the incoming freshmen
inconsistencies have raised appropriate concerns
for the 2015-16 school year, the class of 2019.
among School Committee members, and have
also fueled opponents to solicit parent and
3. PBL with improvements should continue this school year
student feedback for Lewiston Public Schools to
for the present freshmen, the class of 2018. The scope of
reverse course. The law for a proficiency-based
PBL for this class after this year should be dependent on
diploma remains in place (see Section H re
the reporting software and grading system direction (see
extension), and we already know that greater
action steps 12-15) and the degree of readiness of our
transparency in PBL has helped identify areas for
sophomore teachers. The determination of readiness of
needed attention and focus. PBL with its greater
our sophomore teachers will be made in a
rigor and student supports is also intended to
recommendation to the School Committee in May. Below
raise our LHS 4-year completion rate of 70% and
are two possible PBL approaches going forward for next
our low proficiency level much higher than the
years sophomores:
present 40% or so of students.
i. Continue PBL as in 2 above; or
ii. Many details would need to be worked out, but one
option would be to use mostly traditional grading
while still continuing many aspects of PBL including
separation of HOW scores, the use of common
assessment and retakes and a passing threshold of C.

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

Issue
B. Time that teachers
have for
collaboration,
professional
development and
common planning

Observations

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Plan of Action/Recommendations
(Bold Indicates School Committee Action Required)
We are expecting our teachers to collaborate in
4. We need to help ensure focus in all our meetings. Agendas
new ways in developing a common understanding
and minutes should be posted on Google Drive.
of PBL, common assessments and consistent
5. Our early high school graduation date (6/5) and number of
grading practices. PBL takes more time than is
snow days present options for teachers of seniors to provide
provided in the school calendar and has also
coverage for freshmen and sophomore teachers so they can
impacted teacher time available for other work.
further refine our PBL work for the coming school year. The
In addition, we need to broaden our approach to
Principal will finalize this once we firm up the date school
PD as needs vary from teacher to teacher.
ends.
6. We will schedule two voluntary -day workshops for
freshmen and sophomore teachers from 8am noon on
Monday, June 22nd and Tuesday, June 23rd. Participating
teachers will be paid $120 for each session unless additional
snowdays have the regular school year encompass one or
both of these dates.
7. LHS administrators will build a summer schedule so that
supports are available for teachers throughout the summer.
8. I will declare Wednesday, August 26th, Thursday, August 27th,
and Friday, August 28th as three required workshop days for
all LHS teachers, who will be paid at per diem rates.
9. One of these three days should be modeled on teacherdesigned PD to help ensure that a broader range of needed
PD topics will be covered.
10. The School Committee should give careful consideration to
the 2016-17 school calendar (i.e., the year after next) to
allow for a significant increase in teacher non-instructional
time for PD.
11. I will decide by 1/31/16, after the draft 2016-17 calendar is
public, whether or not to declare another 2-3 additional
required workshop days at the end of the 2015-16 year.

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

C. Reporting student
progress

This has been the most challenging issue in our

PBL implementation. Reporting has been
impacted by deficiencies in five major areas:
a. Insufficient number of summative
assessments.
b. The PowerSchool software being used

c. Misrepresentations on our grading practices

d. Inconsistencies on grading practices

e. Lack of clarity on comparing student progress

in a PBL system to our traditional grading
system. On one level the two systems are
incomparable as one students lack of mastery

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12. The Principal has communicated to teachers and will monitor

the expectations that each quarter going forward will include
at least 4 pieces of scored evidence in each content area.
13. We are assessing through school visits and the use of an
outside consultant the capabilities and limitations in a PBL
environment for three different software options
JumpRope, Educate and PowerSchool. This assessment will
be completed by this May. A software recommendation and
implementation timeline will be presented to the School
Committee in May for possible action.
14. Any implementation schedule that doesnt provide strong
assurance of readiness by the beginning of the 2015-16
school year will result in a return to our more traditional use
of PowerSchool with certain adjustments that will require
School Committee action such as the possible use of a 60100 point scale.
15. I apologize for the miscommunication that we are using
trending. Our software does not have this capability. Our
teachers have always been able to override a grade in
PowerSchool, but LHS Administration needs to provide
teachers clear guidelines on overriding.
16. Grading inconsistencies have always existed, but PBL has
provided greater transparency to this issue. The March LHS
workshop day will include teachers PD on developing more
consistent interpretation of rubrics and student performance.
This is ongoing work.
17. We will finalize a conversion chart over the next week that
will equate a PBL score using 10th of a point increments to a
specific numerical number.

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

D. Student motivation
and assessments

of one standard would make them less than

proficient in PBL even though they might
otherwise have a 90 average in a traditional
system. Until we are 100% PBL, however, we
must have a clear, concise conversation chart,
however flawed the comparison.
One complaint is that our PBL system does not
provide explicit motivation for students to do
formative assessments. Much of the issue may be
remedied as we expand PBL to other grades. It
still raises questions for all grade levels about how
we better develop internal capacities in children
to learn and practice appropriate behaviors on
their own. There are areas for further
investigation ranging from PBIS where we reward
students for good behavior to teacher language
that may reinforce that the student is working to
meet teacher expectations rather than the
students own. (At the Teaching & Learning
Conference last week I was exposed to the work
of Peter Johnson on this subject.)
In addition, teachers who have been working
independently are now being asked to develop,
use and score assessments in a consistent
manner. This is challenging work and represents
part of the thinking behind action steps 2, 3, 4 and
5 above. We need to continue expanding the
number of common assessments to ensure
greater consistency in grading and content
knowledge. We also know that the lack of
sufficient additional and alternative assessments
has hindered the implementation of PBL.

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18. While developed with good intentions, the NY and IE
designations should be changed to 2 and 1, respectively,
in order to communicate more clearly where students are
academically. This change will require amending School
Committee policy.
19. I would like to add to the charge of the District PBL
Committee to explore on a broader scale school impact on
student initiative and motivation.
20. As discussed in last weeks District PBL Committee meeting,
a true PBL system does not give any weight to formative
assessments. We can, however, still increase their
significance by requiring students to demonstrate readiness
to take a summative assessment. Going forward, freshmen
teachers after agreement in their content area may identify
formative assessments that must be completed before a
student can qualify to take a summative assessment.
21. Prior to the end of this school year we will evaluate the
results of the action step above and consider possible
options for the following school year that might include:
i. to continue the procedure for the following year;
ii. revert back to no weight given to formative
assessments;
iii. assign a scoring weight of 10% to formative
assessments; or
iv. blending formative and summative assessments to
focus more on evidence of students meeting standards.
22. Our Special Education and ELL staff are being charged to
develop further alternative assessments for all students
challenged by present assessment tools. Alternative
assessments do not change the standards to be met.

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

E. Communication to
We have heard many stories of inconsistent
parents and students messaging. Lewiston High School has already
begun to address this area through
communication home, monthly parent meetings,
a recent session with all freshmen, and teacher
training. This work needs and will continue.

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23. Lewiston High School teachers will provide feedback on
student work (formative and summative assessments)
within 2 weeks of the assignment completion except for
major research papers and projects. In such cases teachers
will communicate the timeline for feedback when the
project is assigned.
24. A user-friendly district and school PBL handbook will be
drafted and distributed prior to the end of this school year.
It will incorporate more clearly much of the information
provided in School Committee policy and the PBL website.
25. There will be a parent meeting each month during the 201516 school year.

F. Supports to help
students

One of the premises of PBL is that student receive 26. We will pre-enroll in summer school at Lewiston High School
extra support to achieve proficiency and also
any freshman who is not proficient in a standard or
additional opportunities to excel. We have much
standards at the end of the school year. Summer school
more work to do here, and these areas are a
work will only focus on standards not yet met. We need to
major part of the School Committee approved PBL
provide transportation options to students.
extension with DOE.
27. The 2015-16 school year will include interventionists and
class time to work with students who begin the year already
behind in demonstrating mastery.
28. Our Guidance Counselors will work with each student and
parent/guardian in developing a graduation plan for
students who end the summer of 2015 without one or more
standards not met.

PBL Report and Recommendations to Lewiston School Committee

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G. Graduation
Requirements and
Academic Honors

We have already announced that the PBL grade

29. The School Committee will review and consider supporting
for a class will be to the 10th of a point and be the
the proposed change in state law on graduation
basis for academic honors. The School Committee
requirements.
discussed but took no action on other
recommendations of the Scholars Committee to
30. Priority standards should be broken down by quarter to be
give greater weight to honors and AP courses.
covered in order to form the basis for the reporting of
We do need to address the issue of academic
quarterly academic honors.
honor rolls and supports and options for students
who may not be able to meet proficiency-based
31. Work on how the guiding principles will be incorporated in
graduation requirements. The Committee on
the graduation requirements needs to be addressed as
Graduation Requirements for Special Populations
soon as possible. Our DOE extension needs to be amended
has recently drafted legislation that addresses at
to exempt the guiding principles from our graduation
least some of the concerns voiced on a state-wide
requirements until there is clarity on how they will be
level. We have yet to finalize how the States
incorporated. This will require School Committee
Guiding Principles will be assessed for graduation.
approval.

H. State Support and

Requirements

A support team from the Maine Department of

Education (DOE) will be visiting Lewiston High
School in the near future. They will assess our
current progress, made suggestions and help us
revise, as necessary, our DOE extension for
Proficiency-Based Diplomas. As the School
Committee knows, an extension is not a waiver as
the PBL requirements are in law, but we can be
granted an extension of another year in areas
where additional time is needed. Any extension
amendments will be due DOE this summer.

32. Provide DOE a copy of our proposed draft legislation on

graduation requirements for their input and consideration.
33. Revise as appropriate our PBL extension application for
filing this summer.