in Schools
An update on Standards-based Grading at Park City Schools
On Wednesday, the Park City School District School Board met and discussed Standards-based grading (SBG) with Traci Evans, Interim Associate Superintendent of Teaching and Learning.
After watching the hour-long session, I have a much clearer understanding of where we are with the new method of learning being implemented at Ecker Hill, Treasure Mountain, and soon other schools. Your view of the program will likely depend on your expectations.
If your view is that SBG is a process where students, parents, teachers, administrators, and board members are developing the plan as we go along, then you are probably OK with the district’s implementation. You may conclude that in any complex transition, you’re not going to know everything up front. Therefore, you have to adjust to changing conditions on the ground. Or as Mike Tyson said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
The opposing view is that the school district is changing one of the critical tenets of how education works — one that has been in place for a hundred years. You may conclude that in a change this large and complex, a detailed plan would be in place ahead of time that addresses every detail of the transition. Or as Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
I agree more with the latter viewpoint. I believe the fundamental issue with SBG right now is that initial planning wasn’t detailed enough. Due to lack of planning, implementation has been difficult. Poor execution has then led to confusion across parents, children, and teachers. Now, the school district is scrambling.
I believe this assessment is supported by the school board member comments in Wednesday’s meeting about parental confusion with the process. It’s also supported by Ms. Evans, who at one point in Wednesday’s meeting said they might not even ultimately stick with SBG’s 1-4 grading scores. It is also supported by a school board member who asked the question, “but is the goal that the district is migrating to this [SBG]?” If School Board members don’t know the extent of plans regarding SBG, it clearly indicts the planning process. By the way, the school board member never received an answer in the meeting.
I believe this view is also supported by teachers rewriting student goals mid-year to be more in line with SBG, by a parent FAQ on SBG being published two months into the school year, and by the haphazard training of teachers.
Ultimately, my critique of Park City’s SBG implementation isn’t meant to point fingers or assess blame. Wednesday’s meeting showed that the School Board, Superintendent Gildea, and Ms. Evans have nothing but our childrens’ best interests in mind. I think many of our school administrators believe SBG is the right path forward. I have to admit judging our children on what they know, based on a set of standards, sounds good. The question is how you get from a hundred-year-old system to the new world order.
It seems the school district’s answer to this is communication. If only the public would show up to meetings, and if only they would listen, and if they just knew what we knew, then they would understand. The problem is that those trying to communicate to us are true believers in a land of skeptics. No amount of talking at us, saying the same thing over and over, is going to convince us.
I believe they still need what they didn’t have in the first place — a PLAN. Give parents, students, and teachers a 200-page plan that is comprehensive and understandable for the sixth-grader on up. Then, make sure it details every aspect of SBG for Park City schools. Tell us why the district is doing it and when. Give us all the rules. Go into detail and tell us whether SBG’s 1-4 scale will be converted into A-F and how it will be converted into GPA. Tell us specifically what standards will be graded for each grade-level. Give us examples of what represents a 1, 2, 3, and a 4 in common subjects. Provide us mandates that should be observed by teachers, such as when a student can retake tests and whether all assessments should provide 1-4 grading (i.e., in SBG sometimes a test only has a maximum of 2 if the subject matter being tested isn’t designed to test complete proficiency). Answer every question you can think a student, parent, or teacher may have. Document the training plan to get all teachers up to speed. Then demonstrate how teachers will be evaluated based on the new structure, which will likely require working with the Park City Education Association to make sure they are on board. There are likely dozens of other components which would make up a comprehensive plan. I’m not talking fluff, PowerPoint highlights, or presentations designed to convince people that SBG is good. I’m talking about a plan that shows thoughtfulness, foresight, and is in excruciating detail.
The Park City School District needs to provide a document that shows that the district has all its ducks in a row. It should be the hymnal that administrators, teachers, and students sing from. If something is not in the PLAN, then it doesn’t exist.
Yes, it’s an incredible amount of work. However, it should have been work that was all completed before the SBG process ever impacted one child. This is a big shift. We’re not talking about what color a hallway should be painted, or even what the design of a new Treasure Mountain school should look like. This is more fundamental. We are talking about how every child will be educated in the school district for decades to come.
If this is a transition we really want to attempt, then we’ll likely need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on getting help from experts in order to produce a detailed plan. That’s OK. If we really believe in it, and we want to change the fundamental direction of our schools, then that is money well spent.
I’m not sure what that means for the kids and teachers at the test-tube known as Ecker Hill. Perhaps teachers can decide independently if they want to continue SBG. Then the 1-4 grades some teachers want to use can be converted by our school district’s software into A-F. That would give us time to fully plan out a transition.
As I take a step back, I’m convinced that we didn’t fully plan our move to SBG. That said, I’m still not fully-convinced that SBG is the right direction. As I pointed out in a previous article, students in SBG have been shown to receive lower ACT scores.
Likewise, here is an article from a junior at a high school in Kentucky, talking about why she thinks SBG can be detrimental. As you start to research SBG, it’s not all that clear-cut. What seems like a great idea at 30,000 feet is often less clear once you get in closer.
However, as I’ve said before, I’m not an educator. At some
My hope is that if we take a step back and intricately detail how we would roll out SBG, it may give our educators a chance to step up and use their experience to tell us whether we are going in the right direction. If we are, then they can provide ideas on how to get it right.
Note: If you’d like to watch the video of the meeting and form your own opinions, you can watch it at the link below. You want to click on the link and then click on the Assesment Task Force link on the right side. While I’m grateful that they provide video at all (most other government
https://video.pcschools.us/videos/video/9787/
in Schools
The Park City School District’s grand experiment continues
Do you remember your high school grade point average? How about your college GPA? The concept of a GPA and an F to A grading-scale is what most of us grew up with and has been around over 70 years. There is even a saying about that, “A students work for the B students at companies founded by C students.”
If you’ve always felt that the traditional grading of F to A isn’t quite right, then I’ve got good news for you. You can start to forget everything you knew about the archaic method of schools judging your child. The F through A grading-scale isn’t quite dead, but the Park City School District (PCSD) is showing it the door. In its place is a new-fangled grading system. Let me introduce you to 1-4 grading. The fancy name is standards-based grading (SBG) or sometimes called standards-referenced grading (SRG). And it’s coming to a school near you.
Instead of your child receiving an F, D, C, B, or A in a subject, they will now receive a 1, 2, 3, or 4. Generally speaking, a grade of ONE, according to Park City Schools, means “the student requires assistance.” TWO means, “The student has many of the prerequisite skills but has not yet achieved mastery on the Utah State Core Standard.” THREE means “The student has completely mastered the Utah State Core Standard.” FOUR means, “The student has gone above and beyond grade level expectations and has applied extended thinking and application of the standard in novel situations.” Specific 1-4 goals are also written for each and every project, assignment, and assessment to adhere to the state’s core standards.
The goal of SBG is to assess whether students have competency in a subject. Standards will drive our children’s education. Effort, discipline, and homework don’t impact scores (those are included in a citizenship/behavior score that doesn’t affect 1-4 grades). Children are graded on whether they are proficient in a concept. Currently, Ecker Hill uses SBG throughout the school. Treasure Mountain implements it in many classes. By 2022, Park City School District (PCSD) hopes to implement it throughout the system.
You may be thinking that SBG sounds like a good idea. I think most people probably do because it looks great in concept. That’s where the Park City School District’s grand experiment begins. This year, PCSD introduced SBG to Ecker Hill Middle School. From most accounts, teachers were not adequately trained. Parents were not adequately informed. Students didn’t know what was going on. If you’d like detail, here is a survey completed by over 40% of PCSD teachers that support those assertions. I have also read hundreds of comments from social media about parents not able to explain the process to their children. I’ve talked to kids who don’t understand the grading process — at all.
You see, SBG is confusing. As a reminder, a score of 3 means proficient in a subject and 4 means that a student has demonstrated a level of understanding beyond proficiency in a subject. So, is a 3 an old-world A or is a 4 an old-world A? The school district would likely tell you to stop trying to equate the new with the old. They would say the new world order is that we are NOW judging mastery — and previously we weren’t. So, what were the importance of grades before? Forget that. After a hundred years of A’s meaning proficiency, it is a tough task to retrain teachers, parents, and kids to understand that 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.
To complicate it more, teachers can now give tests that don’t test total proficiency. So, a teacher may decide that the maximum “grade” on a given test is 2. Then your kid comes home with a 2, despite the fact they knew everything on the test — because the test wasn’t designed to test proficiency. The child and parents don’t understand why their kid received a ‘C’ or ‘D’ on the test. In the old world, it would like saying the best you can get on a test is a C. The nuance is tough. Unfortunately, in some ways, the subtlety can be soul-sucking for kids.
Even worse, teacher training for SBG seems to have been haphazard. Teacher training appears to have been a combination of some people attending a course on SBG, others being trained by those teachers who participated in the training, some teachers received some Skype-based training, and others were told to read a book.
When you are turning teachers’, parents’, and kids’ worlds upside down, like when implementing SBG, it can’t be this way. It has to be implemented impeccably. The people who are charged with delivering SBG must be experts. Those people are the teachers, and it’s evident in many cases they weren’t provided with the tools necessary to implement the vision.
I’ve heard talk that teachers at Ecker Hill will soon be rewriting all their SBG goals in more student-friendly language. If true, six months into the school year seems a little late to ensure that students can understand the goals they are graded on.
All that said, like a freight train, standards-based grading is likely coming to all Park City schools. Multiple committees are working on it within the district, and it’s likely to expand to elementary schools and the high school.
In elementary school, it will be interesting to see how SBG will interact with dual immersion programs. Research shows that dual language immersion (DLI) children are often behind in some subjects in the first few years. Then in later years, they are often ahead of their non-immersion counterparts. H
Then comes issues with high schools. Typically high school grades are of prime importance to college applications and scholarships. If you read about college admissions relating to standards-based grading, you will often read that admissions officers are always looking for the best candidates, regardless of whether they are in a system using traditional grading or standards-based grading. Yet, when you dig deeper, a couple of factors stand out. First, the job of admissions is to compare students. To do that, an admissions officer often needs a conversion-rate from 1-4 grading to a GPA. Take this example from Vancouver i-Tech Preparatory, which is often cited as an example of how to convert to SBG grades when needed. Yet, in the Park City School District FAQ on SBG, they state, “Question: Is a 4 similar to an A? Answer: No. It might make sense to convert the levels of proficiency to the traditional grading system but we avoid doing this because we are no longer averaging learning. In standards-based learning, we describe what a student has learned and to what level.” So, is Park City not going to convert SBG scores to GPAs for colleges? How will this work out? Will the district figure this out? Eventually, they may, but it shows the level of detail and thought needed. Much of this should have been figured out before the entire process started.
As important, standards-based grading may also impact ACT scores negatively. This should be important
It’s important to note that Matt Townsley, the author cited above, isn’t militant against SBG. He states that “Traditional grading practices have been used for over one hundred years, and to date, there have been no meaningful research reports to support it.” Likewise, Townsley has also cited studies showing higher academic achievement with SBG.
That said, why were students ACT scores lower when they were in an SBG environment?
Mr. Townsley and Mr. Vargas could not provide a definitive reason for the lower scores. However, they speculated that differences could be based on students “playing the game” with teachers when it came to traditional grading. This then led to a better ability to complete standardized testing. The authors suggest that educators implementing SBG should try to learn as much as they can from other studies and anecdotes in the scientific literature. It’s truly the wild west right now with SBG.
The other long-term issue with SBG is its impact on our teachers. By most accounts, many teachers at Ecker have been left blindsided by this effort. That leads to inconsistent implementation. However, we may not have seen the worst of it. One of the major tenets of SBG is that a child can take a test as many times as necessary to show proficiency. Will Park City mandate that practice? If so, how does a teacher work in that environment? If any parents are going to push their kids to take a test three times to show proficiency, it will be in Park City. How much teacher time will that require? My guess is a lot.
So, is SBG right for Park City? Truthfully, I don’t know that I’m qualified to provide an answer. The age-old joke is that everyone thinks they are an expert in education because everyone attended a school once in their life. What I do know is that Park City’s implementation was bungled.
What seems likely is that the district will need to figure this out within two years. That is when Ecker kids, who are currently under 1-4 grading, will enter high school. At that point, it’s time to sh*t or get off the pot. Once kids hit high school, they need to understand what game they are playing.
One way to look at it is the school district has two years to get it right and they probably will. The other way to look at it is that the district’s actions have negatively impacted kids who will be entering high school soon — and they can’t get that time back.
Ultimately, I hope that we take a step back. Is SBG something we want? If so, how and where do we implement it? Many districts start in K-6. Do we even want it in high school? What’s best for Park City?
More importantly, have we as a community even had those discussions yet?
Studies show SBG provides for higher levels of academic achievement. So, SBG is not a crazy idea. However, studies also show that lower ACT scores may accompany those results. Most importantly, it’s hard to see how academic achievement can be increased if teachers aren’t provided the tools to implement it consistently and accurately in a way that both students and parents understand.
Ultimately, there should have been no rush to implement SBG last fall. Traditional grading has existed for 70 years, and we weren’t going to win any awards for rushing into a new paradigm.
Yet, it seems like we have got ourselves into a bit of a quagmire. Hundreds of children (those at Ecker) are now impacted by a rushed program that wasn’t well thought out. Does the school district double down and continue to push this and impact thousands of students? Do they think a couple of committees can solve the issues in time for the 2019-2020 school year?
Perhaps the better option is to take a deep-breath and
If the district doesn’t reassess this process, they are looking at a far worse outcome than the failed 2015 bond election. People may begin to
That would be a far cry
in Vail
Snowbasin is on Epic Pass Next Year
Good news. Your Epic Pass will provide access to Snowbasin next year. Maybe that will reduce pressure on PCMR/Canyons… but I doubt it. It likely adds some folks north of Salt Lake who will pack parking lots in Park City more than ever.
It looks like 7 days at Snowbasin for Epic Pass holders and 2 days for Epic Locals. Then pass holders get 50% off after their days have been exhausted.
The question I always have is how much more is the Epic Pass going to cost next year.
For more info, here is the press release:
https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17403891-sun-valley-snowbasin-join-epic-pass
in Buses
Google Maps update makes riding Park City buses much easier
Understanding which Park City bus to take can be confusing. For those who ride the same bus every day, it probably seems simple. However, for those of us taking different routes, once or twice a week, it can be hard.
What do the bus colors mean? What is inbound versus outbound? How do I know when the next bus will come? What if I miss it? How will I get back from wherever I’m going. It’s
For the last couple of years, the best tool to navigate the buses was an app called My Stop Mobile (recommended by Park City and Summit County). It would show you routes, buses, and stops. It probably took me six months to figure out how to use the app effectively. Unfortunately, recently the app seems to be providing shoddy results. Often it won’t tell you when the next bus is coming. It won’t show you where buses are anymore. It will tell you no bus is scheduled today for the bus stop you are waiting at. It is confusing.
On Sunday morning, while trying to get back from Deer Valley, I gave up on My Stop Mobile and tried Google Maps and it was brilliant. It showed me the bus stop closest to me. It then showed me all the colors of buses and in how many minutes the bus would arrive. If I wanted to know where the bus was going, I could click on the bus and it showed all the stops. It was easy.
If you’ve had trouble navigating the bus or haven’t ridden because you’re not sure how it works, I’d give Google Maps a try. You’ll want to make sure you have installed the newest version of the app. After launching the app, click on transit at the bottom of the app.
Then you’ll want to scroll down and show the Stations Nearby (It’s at the bottom of the screen). You should see the closest stations.
Google will tell you about the next buses that will arrive at your location. That’s great information. You’ll then need to figure out which one of the buses you want to take. Do you want the Green 2 or the Orange 4, or perhaps other departures. When you click on that item it will show you all the stops. It will look something like this:
It’s not perfect, because you still need to translate what the “official stop” names mean, but it’s generally easy to deduce where a stop is located. So, it becomes much easier to figure out when the bus will come and which to ride.
Google has made it much easier to use Park City Transit. Currently, I believe it is the preferred method of using the service. If you give it a try, let me know how it works for you. Likewise, if you have any questions, let me know. I’m happy to help.
The newest issue with Kilby Road
Just when you thought it was safe to back in the water… new Kilby Road issues have surfaced.
Since its inception, Kilby Road has been a problem. Kilby Road is the road that runs from Fresh Market, at the base of Pinebrook, to Walmart. The curves that were created to slow traffic cause traffic to go into the bike lane. That’s dangerous, and make people car sick, but it’s not a problem in winter because people just drive through the bike lane and thank god there are no bikes.
However, a new issue has arisen. On Friday I was driving on Kilby headed west back towards Fresh Market and a car was in my lane and headed right at me. I stopped when I saw the car headed at me — and I assume my honking and flashing of lights caused the car to stop and back up.
While this was the first time I have been involved in an incident, I have seen two other cars turn right out of Fresh Market and go onto the wrong side of the divided road. This used to not be a problem, as there
Now, for whatever reason, people are going down the wrong lane and they can’t get back to the correct side. I’m not sure why people are choosing the wrong side of the median. It makes sense to me but I have done it a million times.
Regardless, Summit County needs to get this figured out before something bad happens.
in Sundance
We’ll miss you Robert Redford
Each year I tune into Sundance’s opening press conference. I love the Q&A with Robert Redford. He tells it like it is.
This year Mr. Redford opened the festival by saying “This press conference has been going on for 34 years. Having done this for 34 years now, I think we are at a point where I can move on to a different place. I don’t think the festival needs a whole lot of introduction anymore, it runs on its own course.”
He then thanked the volunteers and left the stage — likely not to return.
Instead of the interesting question and answer that typically followed Redford’s remarks, where Mr. Redford would expand upon a plethora of topics from the state of the industry, to VR, to the history of Sundance, we were left with six “Sundancers” who expounded on fluff and self-indulgence. When they started comparing themselves to the Avengers you know this thing ain’t what it used to be. It felt like a bad Bravo show airing at midnight. Where’s Andy Cohen when you need him?
Who knows why it’s ending this way. Perhaps the festival has outgrown Mr. Redford and it’s no longer what he envisioned. Perhaps he does want to get back to the art. Perhaps he is turning it over to the next generation. Perhaps he is tired and has given what he can (thank you
Regardless of the reason, without Robert Redford’s face and influence, the festival won’t be the same. It was inevitable that the day would come, but it seems too soon.
Redford was Sundance’s soul. It was named after the most famous part he played. How do you replace that? I’m not sure, but Sundance better
Sundance has been about authenticity. Some of that is now missing.
in Buses
Give the Ecker Hill Park and Ride a shot. It may make your ski day even better.
Those of you who follow the Park Rag know I can be skeptical of our bus system. I don’t think we, as a community, are people who embrace the bus. Yet, if the bus experience is better than a car, you may be tempted to try it. That is what I hope you’ll find when going skiing with the Ecker Hill Park & Ride and the 6 Lime Bus. Let me start by asking a question. If you live in Pinebrook, Summit Park, or Jeremy Ranch, how do you get to PCMR, Deer Valley, or Canyons? You probably get in your vehicle, drive to the resort, and hope there is parking. Then you circle the lot, park, unload your SUV, walk a mile in your boots, with your skis in hand, dragging your kids in tow, and finally get to the base of the resort. Let me present an alternative. Drive to the Ecker Hill Park and ride. Nobody goes there, so there is a ton of parking. Unload your vehicle in peace, and a couple of minutes later the 6 Lime bus will arrive. You’ll then be driven directly to the base of Canyons in lass than 15 minutes or to PCMR in 21 minutes. If you want to go directly to Deer Valley via the 6 Lime, get on the bus that leaves Ecker at 12 or 42 minutes after the hour. The 6 Lime becomes the 4 bus, which goes to Snow Park Lodge. You’ll be there in 35 minutes. Despite the resort you choose, you’ll walk about 2 minutes to the lift. You won’t have to stress over parking or lug your equipment a mile across a parking lot. Yes, you could drive to each resort in a little less time, but once you factor in parking, if you can find it (PCMR we are looking at you), it’s a wash and a lot less stressful to take the 6 Lime bus. Getting back from the resort is a little more complicated because you have to pay attention to inbound versus outbound buses and potentially make a connection. It’s not hard, you just need to know how it works. So, here are the tricks:
- If you are coming back from PCMR, catch the 6 Lime OUTBOUND. That will take you back to Ecker Hill.
- If you are coming back from Canyons, hop the 6 Lime OUTBOUND. That will take you back to Ecker Hill.
- If you are coming back from Deer Valley, look for any bus. Ask the driver if the bus is going to the Old Town Transit Center (95% of them are). From there, catch the 10 white to the Kimball Junction Transit Center. Then hop on the 6 Lime OUTBOUND to get back to Ecker Hill.
It’s really pretty simple. Unfortunately, if you haven’t done it, it seems daunting. I think that’s why a lot of people don’t try it. I remember reading about the first few weeks of the 6 Lime bus service in the Park Record. They quoted ridership, and I realized my family represented 5% of the riders. My biggest fear is that not enough people will take the 6 Lime and they’ll cancel it. I personally love it. It’s so much better than driving. I can check email, read the news, and not personally over-pollute the environment. The next time you are headed to the resort, you may want to consider using the Ecker Park and Ride. The bus comes every 15 minutes. If you try it, I’d be willing to bet you’ll never go back to your car. It’s just that easy and carefree.
in snow
To those of you skiing, I salute you
For those of you who could sneak out of work and capture some Utah Powder, I am jealous. I hope it was awesome. Every time I look from my office window and see the snow going sideways, I think of this magnificent winter song by Matt Pond PA.
in Community
What Park City needs is a little patience
It’s funny how 18 inches of snow can destroy a community — especially a mountain community. People are pissed. Why aren’t our roads plowed better? Why is traffic so bad? Why wasn’t school closed? Why am I the only one who can drive? Where did the idiots come from? Where are the snow plows? I get it. I could barely snow blow my driveway this morning (the most snow in 3 years). My kid’s school bus never came. My dog chewed through her leash because she was tired of waiting for the school bus. My other kid’s daycare had blocked off the parking lot because people would get stuck. It’s a bit of a mess. However, you are what you make of situations like these. My neighbor ended up driving my kid to school (thank you). The teachers at my daycare started driving up from SLC at 6:30 AM to make sure they were there on time (thank you). My wife left early for work, knowing traffic would be bad. I got my kid to daycare 30 minutes late, but he got there. I started work late, but it is what it is. Park City isn’t South Beach. Winters shouldn’t be easy. Days like today are few and far between, but they happen. I personally wish they would happen more often. That’s one of the things that makes this place interesting. Park City isn’t all Sundance, Vail, and unicorns. Or perhaps, I like days like today, because it reminds me that it doesn’t have to be that way. What I’d hope for is a little more patience. We’re all in this together. That’s the fabric I would hope would be sewn into Park City’s ever-changing DNA.
in Election
Thanks for the support
A few days ago my wife and I were discussing the election. She turned to me and said, “It could have been worse. You could have got fewer write-in votes than Grizzley the Philadephia Flyers Mascot.”
For those unaware, I ran for Summit County Council as a write-in candidate. In the end, I received 1,159 write-in votes — which exceeded my wildest expectations. Unfortunately, with an 80% turnout, I would have needed at least 7,000 more people to write me in to have had a chance.
In the end, incumbent Glenn Wright won the election. I’m sure he’ll do a fine job. His dedication to the environment will serve us well over his four-year term.
The next election for County Council is in two years. If any readers are considering running, now is the time to start planning. If you’d like to talk, I’d be happy to share what I’ve learned.
With that… back to work. A lot is going in Summit County and Park City.
Parkrag
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