Superintendent’s Review 2017-18 – First Discussion Forum

Introduction

On Tuesday January 23, 2018, the district hosted the first Elementary Math Discussion Forum at the District Office Governing Board Room. Over 60 parents, staff members and teachers participated in the meeting to discuss the Superintendent’s goal of evaluating the state of elementary math instruction within the district. The meeting format was the Design Thinking paradigm where small, mixed groups of parents, teachers, and administrators sat at tables to empathize with each other, identify strengths and “areas for growths” (i.e. issues and problems), and share them for wider discussion. Strengths and issues were written down on post-it notes, collated on large sheets of paper affixed to the meeting room walls, and staff then grouped similar strengths and issues into common themes.

Prior to the group discussions, Superintendent Sinnette provided background on elementary math issues in the district, her reasons for making review of elementary math instruction one of her goals this school year, commended the teachers for their work in implementing the new Common Core State Standards and “delivering quality instruction” in the first year of the Everyday Mathematics and Math In Focus textbook adoptions, and she constrained the scope of discussion and possible actions. She declared off limits:

  • Deviating from the state-mandated Common Core standards.
  • Reversing the May 2016 decision to adopt Everyday Mathematics as the de facto textbook for grades K-5.
  • Shortening the adoption period of Everyday Mathematics.
  • Considering any actions that were not “research based” or “best practices.”

In addition, Sinnette reminded all in attendance of other constraints such as budget and time allowed to discuss specific issues. Finally, before releasing the small groups to discuss the district elementary math program’s strengths and areas for growth, she charged all attendees to work together toward finding creative solutions for parents’ concerns.

Identified Strengths and Areas for Growth in Elementary Math Instruction:

The district published minutes from the first Elementary Math Discussion Forum two weeks after the event. The minutes may be viewed in their entirety here:

Elementary_Math_Forum-Minutes.2018.01.23

In total, 101 individual Strength and 113 Area for Growth post-it notes were posted during the two discussion group sessions and transcribed in the minutes. It should be noted that groups worked differently — some collected common identified strengths and areas for growth from the entire group on post-it notes and submitted them, while others allowed individuals within the group to submit their own post-it notes. Thus, the presence of an individual item does not indicate whether one or many members within the group identified the submitted post-it.

The following areas of strength were summarized by staff in their published minutes:

  • Students are motivated and engaged
  • Teachers support students’ needs
  • Small class sizes
  • After-school offerings (e.g. Math Olympiad and Mathzilla!)
  • Students learn from each other as they work in collaborative groups
  • Strong conceptual understanding of math
  • Parental support

The following areas for growth were also summarized by staff in the minutes:

  • Lack of differentiation
  • (Not) using parents as a resource
  • Misalignment of curriculum between 5th and 6th grade
  • Pacing concerns with the curriculum
  • Lack of differentiation & acceleration opportunities for students who are ahead
  • Lack of support for students who are struggling

Defining the Problem – Major Areas of Concern:

Next, the Superintendent and other staff distilled the 100+ identified areas for growth into areas of major concern. The following three major areas of concern were identified, though the list was admitted to be incomplete:

  1. Tutoring
  2. Lack of Differentiation
  3. Communication

Regarding the first area of concern –– tutoring –– the LCMP elementary parent survey conducted in May 2017 found that 57% of parents tutor or supplement their kids in K-6. Their reasons are varied:

  • 52.6% – “Not challenged enough with math in school.”
  • 50.0% – “Feel child isn’t learning the proper type of math in school.”
  • 17.1% – “Struggle with math in school.”
  • 17.1% – “Other” (see question 9 for all responses here)
  • 11.8% – “Just trying to keep up with others.”
  • 1.3% – “Teacher recommended it / assigned it.”

(Note: respondents could select more than one reason).

Further, 62% those who tutor or supplement started since the year that Everyday Mathematics was adopted, over 50% spend two or more hours a week tutoring, and 67% tutor only in math. During the forum on January 23, 2018, the meeting only identified three of the above reasons for tutoring (i.e. moving ahead, struggling with math in school and keeping up with other) and they were given equal weight. Many parents in attendance at the meeting felt this a misrepresentation of the problem, trying to cast tutoring as a problem per se, not a symptom of a lack of differentiation and mathematical rigor needed for higher education. In addition, it casts those who supplement or tutor in an unnecessarily negative light, implying that parents are trying to get their own children ahead at the expense of others.

Regarding the third major area of concern identified — communication — it was felt by many at the meeting that this was a mischaracterization of a large unnamed issue — problems with the curriculum. During the sharing phase of the meeting, parents related frustrations with understanding the methods and vocabulary used in the Everyday Mathematics curriculum. The meeting facilitators chose to characterize this as a communication problem between teachers and parents, rather than a problem with the curriculum itself.

Shared Concerns or Comments:

After the group brainstorming and problem definition sessions, the Superintendent invited meeting participants to share any concerns or comments they had with the whole group. The following concerns were expressed (as summarized by staff in the published minutes):

  • Parents hire tutors for a variety of reasons (to support struggling students, to accelerate their math level, to help with homework, etc.)
  • Lack of and consistency of differentiation for students at all levels
  • Request for parents to not impart a competitive nature towards kids
  • Call out on the challenge of differentiation for the teachers
  • Defense of heterogeneous grouping — students appreciate teammates’ level of knowledge and support/take care of each other in the mixed group
  • Lack of resources available for the advanced kids
  • Reading intervention for students exists, but not for math intervention
  • Kids are not able to learn from failure, we need to teach them how to survive failure, kids need to be constantly challenged to gain resilience
  • Concerns with not enough homework practice
  • Some parents are unfamiliar with the methodology and vocabulary of Everyday Math
  • Praise for teacher created video tutorials for parents and students
  • Math links sent home to parents contain examples of newly learned concepts as well as vocabulary
  • Call for data to evaluate the effectiveness of math experiences
  • Supplemental work needs accountability, grade reflection as possibility
  • Revisit acceleration if it is a best practice
  • Local resources (like JPL parents) not being utilized
  • A parent mentioned that another parent’s suggestions were not being considered
  • Can teachers use both the Everyday Math terms and the other terms (e.g. “friendlynumber” / complementary numbers)?
  • Vertical articulation between 6th through 8th grade teachers should take place. A teacher responded that the adoption for 6th grade (i.e. Math In Focus) is aligned with 7th and 8th grade adoption and articulation is taking place.
  • Process for teachers to differentiate by using questions and problems
  • A teacher commented that there was a misuse of the word “differentiation” by parents. “Differentiation” and “acceleration” have different meanings and the words were being used interchangeably.

Problem Solving Phase:

The forum attendees were then asked by the Superintendent to move toward thinking about solutions to address the themes identified earlier in the meeting. The following partial list of actionable solutions were proposed, although the meeting ended before all ideas could be presented:

  • Re-visit grade-level acceleration.
  • Re-visit single subject acceleration.
  • Provide teachers with an accelerated, supplementary curriculum.
  • Create pull-out opportunities by (math) ability.
  • Create a homeschool cooperative for students whose needs in some subjects cannot be met in a traditional public school environment.
  • Create a program for high school kids to provide (remediation) support for elementary students during the school day.
  • Let parents tutor or provide advanced instruction and remediation support.

The meeting was cut short due to time constraints. The Superintendent closed the meeting by announcing that she would schedule a second forum to continue the problem solving and discussion phases of the process. The second forum occurred on February 26th, 2018 and is summarized on the next page:

Superintendent’s Review 2017-18 – Second Discussion Forum