Learn about Bonny Eagle High School’s transition to a proficiency-based system, which has been ongoing for the past five years. The work began with the identification of standards and development of summative assessments and is currently focused on formative instruction. Using a combination of Assessment For Learning (AFL) strategies, technology, and teacher ingenuity, we are improving instructional practices. As a result, student engagement is increasing and the number of students who need to remediate assessments is dropping.

Participants will see how we are getting a big impact with the use of a 1/2 time instructional coach and a handful of AFL teacher leaders to help change instruction building-wide. Learn how this work is not “one more thing” but can reduce teacher stress. At the same time, our students are beginning to take ownership of their learning.

Participants will leave with an understanding of how one high school is improving student learning by focusing on the identification of clear learning targets and helping students track their own progress as they prepare for summative assessments.

How can schools create a transcript that accurately represents student achievement in a proficiency-based system? At Baxter Academy, students do not receive a single grade at the end of a course, so traditional reports and transcripts are not an option.

After redesigning its grading scale and assessment system, Baxter Academy created an easy-to-read, easy-to-interpret transcript that represents a student’s learning over time.  Baxter’s unique transcript is built around accurate reporting on student achievement of standards using graphs and charts. The school is piloting this transcript with its first graduating class and will have feedback from post-secondary institutions as well as college acceptances to share.

Participants will learn about Baxter’s unique grading and assessment system and transcript and will leave with ideas about how to bring this authentic approach to standards-based reporting back to their schools.

A myth of secondary school family engagement that we hear too often is that families want to drop their kids off in ninth grade and pick them up at graduation. Is this true? (Hint: Nope.) Families want to be engaged! But even if they know that we should build partnerships with families, secondary school teachers and staff can feel overwhelmed by the thought of engaging with every family regularly, especially when they may teach over one hundred different students a year.

In this session, presenters from 1647 Families and the schools they partner with will lead an honest conversation about how the work of strengthening family engagement and partnerships is currently being done in 1647 partner schools. Presenters will explore these questions: How can staff members build equal partnerships with families in the middle- and high-school space? How can we “undo” the power dynamic between school and home that exists? And how do we create welcoming schools for all families—and support staff in doing so?

Participants will receive a brief overview of positive family engagement strategies, including proactive positive communication, re-vamped academic events (e.g., conferences), and home visits. They will also hear about the strategies that have not worked, and the lessons learned from them. Participants will walk away with tactics to try in their classrooms, teams, and/or school.

In this session, participants will hear about one school’s innovative initiative to provide alternative paths to student success with a student-designed personalized learning opportunity, which allowed students to design their own individualized learning pathways. Presenters will share how they believe this high-quality learning opportunity deepens its commitment to equity for all learners.

Presenters will outline their framework for planning and implementing a dynamic student-centered, student-motivated, student-driven project-based course. They will share their implementation strategies and explain how the course found its rhythm. Students will present their “passion projects” and comment on how their autonomy contributed to rich learning, original craftsmanship, and meaningful assessments. They will explain how their work habits connected to their academic performance.

Participants will learn to plan and grow a vibrant and personalized project-based learning course completely driven by student choices.

Two years ago Milton High School undertook a complete revision of its core curriculum in grades 9–12. Using the conceptual framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as a starting point, Milton High School set out to design curricula and instructional practices that modeled creativity, innovation, critical thinking, and collaboration using relevant, project-based, student-centered strategies that focused on real-world skills that students could apply outside of high school and in whatever life path they chose. To avoid the trap of incrementalism and stay within tight budgetary limitations, Milton developed a comprehensive, systematic improvement process that fluidly moved from development of new curricula to the implementation of a 1:1 technology initiative starting with this year’s freshman class to the delivery of the professional development needed to make it all successful in the classroom. Join educators from Milton High School as they share the challenges and successes faced on the way to realizing a 21st century learning program for every student.

At Harwood Union High School, students are not only taking a proactive role in designing their own education and planning for future learning, but in serving as leaders in the school community responsible for creating the systems and structures necessary to ensure a personalized education is possible.

In this interactive session, administrators and teachers from Harwood Union will focus on the benefits of a shared leadership model in which adults and youth lead together. The presentation will provide the rationale for this type of shared leadership model and describe the practical elements as they relate to the implementation of personalized learning.

Participants will have the opportunity to construct a proposal or plan for instituting a distributed and shared leadership model inclusive of teachers and students in their school, and will leave with an understanding of the benefits of a distributed and shared leadership model inclusive of both teachers and students.

North Country Charter Academy is a mission-driven public charter school collaborating with ten school districts to solve an intractable dropout problem. The school offers a personalized, competency-based curriculum that utilizes a blended, distance-learning model in which students work independently and at their own pace in a brick-and-mortar building with the support of a certified teaching staff. Students are provided multiple pathways and opportunities by which to complete high school, and they earn credit when they demonstrate mastery of subject matter. Over the past ten years, the model has contributed significantly to a 74% reduction in the number of dropouts in Grafton and Coos Counties in Northern New Hampshire and has graduated a total of 362 students – 78 of which had been prior high school dropouts.

Participants will leave this session with a clear understanding of how the North Country model operates and how they can adapt this model for use in any type of educational setting.

Come hear three students reflect on equity in education, the meaning of success, and authentic student engagement. Tianna Ridge (Attleboro High School, MA), Jamaal Hankey (Essex High School, VT), and Anna Parker (Yarmouth High School, ME) will discuss the experiences and relationships that have contributed to their success. Tianna, Jamaal, and Anna will share their hopes for all students, and will challenge us to think about how we can each support, inspire, and engage all of the young people with whom we work. At the close of the plenary, participants will be asked to make a personal commitment to learning and leading for equity in their own way, informed by these students’ perspectives.

How should states in northern New England approach issues of racial and ethnic equity in their education systems? What does it mean to achieve equity and close gaps in a largely homogenous region? This session will draw on Maine’s experience of developing a big-tent alliance of organizations in the education sector and beyond to address these crucial issues. We’ll share key lessons from the efforts of the New England Alliances for College and Career Readiness more broadly, then explore in depth the Maine alliance’s work to balance its focus on racial and economic equity. Session participants will learn about, analyze and discuss the work of MaineSpark’s Future Success track to empower racially diverse student populations to reach college and career readiness. Educate Maine will then lead participants in a critical conversation about approaching equity in their own classrooms, schools and districts.

Session participants will learn about approaches to discussing and working toward racial and ethnic equity in education systems, reflect on lessons learned from Maine in this area, and leverage their own expertise and experiences to generate new ideas for connecting with and engaging diverse communities in authentic ways.

In this session, presenters will describe how High School in the Community has advanced mastery-based learning to help all students take more responsibility over their own education, while they also address skill deficits, acquire college- and career-ready skills, and excel in their areas of interest. To make the session more resonant and authentic for participants, it will be structured as a mastery-based lesson! So whether you have never heard of mastery-based learning, or whether you already changing practices in your school or classroom, our mastery-based approach will both broaden and deepen your understanding.

When parents and family members have the opportunity to develop key skills to support their children’s education, monitor progress, and advocate for them when necessary, they can partner more effectively with schools to ensure student success. The Right Question Institute’s evidence-based school-family partnership builds parents’ skills of asking better questions, participating in decisions, and playing three key roles in their child’s education. Using this strategy, parents learn to ask their own questions about their children’s education, and educators learn how to build parents’ skills for more effective participation by using a set of simple methods.

Session participants will experience the school-family partnership strategy, will explore the art and science behind the methods, and will practice integrating them into their work. This session will prepare participants to use this strategy, which has been applied to a variety of setting producing consistent results, at their schools and share it with colleagues.

In this session, participants will: 1) experience the Right Question Institute’s school-family partnership strategy 2) explore examples of implementation of the strategy; 3) acquire resources and materials.

This session will introduce participants to the key elements of proficiency-based learning through an in-depth investigation of the instructional process in a high school chemistry course. The presenters will describe a flexible instructional cycle that includes frequent formative assessment and a balance of whole-class instruction and personalized time for practice, re-teaching, tutoring, and extension work. They will also share systems and strategies that teachers can use to manage highly differentiated classrooms, empower students to monitor their own learning, and create a growth-mindset culture. Additional examples from the humanities, mathematics, world languages, ELL classes, and other scientific disciplines will also be discussed to illustrate how Burlington High School teachers are applying proficiency-based structures across the curriculum.

Participants will leave with concrete strategies and an array of materials they can adapt in their own classrooms, and ample time will be provided for participants to ask questions and participate in discussion.

At Poland Regional High School, a flagship public high school for proficiency-based education in Maine, an emphasis on self- and peer-assessment and a school-wide process for reassessment has supported students towards successfully reaching their learning goals. Teachers have implemented classroom tasks specifically designed from the current leading guidelines for self- and peer-assessment in hopes of making each student’s learning process transparent. Furthermore, a school-wide process for reassessment has been adopted to ensure each student has the opportunity to demonstrate their best learning on summative assessments. In this session we will walk you through the process that our science, math, and humanities classes have developed for self- and peer-assessment as well as outline the process we took to develop our school-wide reassessment protocol.

Participants will leave this session with practical approaches to teaching self- and peer-assessment; an understanding of how reassessment opportunities can reinforce learning and how assessment strategies are managed in a proficiency based/ standards-based system.

In this session participants will learn how to use research-based NEASC CPS Standards which define best practices as a tool for self-reflection and peer review. Through a process of self-reflection based on evidence and in collaboration with stakeholders, schools can develop a vision for learning with specific and measurable goals for success. Participants will use collaborative practices to explore the NEASC CPS Standards for Accreditation, focusing on student learning. We will do a crosswalk with the Global Best Practices to see how to align school improvement efforts. Participants will experience elements of the self-reflection process including the review of student work, classroom observations, document review, survey data, stakeholder interviews, and peer review. With the Standards in mind and the understanding of the essential components of self-reflection, participants will develop an outline for a process to improve learning, achievement, and well-being for students.

Regional School Unit 2 has been implementing K–12 proficiency-based learning for several years now. Join the presenters as they describe how their model has given students significant amounts of voice and choice in their learning. In the district’s three high schools, students have authentic opportunities to design their own learning pathways, learn at their own pace, and engage in learning experiences that not only match their interests, but that build upon the resources and opportunities that exist in the wider community. In this session, participants will learn about the structure, schedule, and other design elements that have empowered the district to dramatically increase personalization for students without watering down standards.