These past two weeks have reminded me of something I have always known to be true in my gut and in my heart. Growth and success in schools is built…
Read More Trust, Collaboration, and Support: Must-Haves in Our Learning Environments
Author: Jonathan VanderEls
(Wordle created by Ellen Hume-Howard) I continue to be amazed and impressed by our staff’s progress over the past five years related to our implementation of a competency-based education system.…
Read More Setting the PACE: Teacher Assessment Practices in a Competency-based Education System
We have learned a lot over the past five years as our district has implemented a competency-based model of grading and assessing. Competency-based grading and assessment requires a significant shift…
Read More Finding a “Just Right” Scale in Competency Education
Last year, teams of teachers within our district, the Sanborn Regional School District in New Hampshire, became deeply involved in building Quality Performance Assessments. These assessments are designed to truly…
Read More Tackling Work Study Practices in a Competency-Based Educational System
It was a typical Wednesday evening in mid-October at our home. My wife and I were sitting on our couch. She was correcting papers, and I was doing some work…
This past August I had the opportunity to participate in an incredibly effective model of professional development hosted by our school district. It consisted of workshops and presentations from national,…
Wow! I can’t believe how much they’ve grown in just a few months! As parents, we’ve often heard this phrase when someone sees our children after a span of time.…
Our staff recently had the opportunity to wrap up a year’s worth of professional development related to building Quality Performance Assessments. During the 2013 summer and over this past school…
As I watched one of our teacher’s training sessions this past Wednesday, I considered how far we had come in grading practices in a fairly short period of time. Our…
This article was co-authored by Jonathan Vander Els and his colleague Ellen Hume-Howard, the Director of Curriculum at the Sanborn Regional School District. Looking closely together at student work can…
In our continued quest to gain more information about students’ learning, growth and progress, a standards/competency-based grading system has provided our school and our district timely, detailed information regarding the…
When I walk into our kindergarten classrooms now, seeing a five-year old moving her avatar to the “School Lunch” or “Home Lunch” box does not seem like a big deal.…
Read More Our School’s Utilization of Technology as a Vehicle for Growth
If you had asked me what the school’s or district’s goals were when I was a teacher nine years ago, I would not have been able to tell you with…
Read More The Laser Focus SMART Goals Have Provided for Our School
It is incredibly easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day responsibilities we have as principals. Although each day presents different challenges, a recurring theme emerges: An incredible amount of…
(Artwork by Leslie Carroll) “No one person can do it alone…” This statement is especially accurate in a school. Donna Johnson, assistant principal, and I recognized this truth prior to…
Read More Effectively Maximizing Teacher Leaders at the Elementary Level
Five years ago, our school undertook the monumental challenge of dedicating ourselves to a system which placed “Learning for All” at the forefront of our work. Donna Johnson, our assistant…