YORK, Maine — A new teaching and grading method at York Middle School will be the jumping-off point for a community discussion Wednesday, March 4, at the York School Committee meeting.
Parents are expected to show up in droves to voice their opinion about proficiency-based learning, a system of instruction fully implemented at York Middle School this year that has drawn both heartfelt praise and fierce opposition.
“We’ve been getting a number of calls and emails about this. So much concern has been raised that we thought we should give parents an opportunity to speak,” said committee chair Tim Fitzgerald. “I’m assuming it’s going to be mobbed Wednesday night.”
Proficiency-based learning breaks down courses into “standards” that each student is given multiple opportunities to master. In a one-year pilot program, York Middle School also eliminated letter grades this year. Instead, report cards indicate if students have learned the standard, are still progressing or have exceeded proficiency.
Maine passed a law that requires high schools to offer “proficiency-based diplomas” by 2020. It has given each school district leeway on how to meet the law, but it has required schools to offer “multiple pathways” toward learning.
Parents’ questions about proficiency-based learning run the gamut, from concerns that accelerated students are not being challenged enough to the opposite worry — that children who don’t understand a standard will have to move on regardless.
Those who support it say that a proficiency-based learning system is already in place in the elementary schools, so instituting it at the middle school is a natural next step.
A separate set of questions arise for parents over the pilot report card system. The school has contracted with software company Mastery Connects to provide the report cards, which show multiple layers of information about students that parents and students can access.
Some parents support the new system, because it shows them where their child is at any particular point in a lesson, even down to the day; but others say it’s confusing and overwhelming.
There also has been concern that parents were not sufficiently consulted before proficiency-based learning was fully implemented at the middle school this year. And this redounds to their concerns about how proficiency-based learning is going to be instituted at York High.
“I think a greater concern is about what a standards-based diploma is going to mean at the high school,” said Fitzgerald. “I can understand. Being an old-fashioned ABC person, this is different.”
He said, at this point, there is no intention of eliminating letter grades at the high school — a key concern among parents who wonder if their child will be at a competitive disadvantage when applying to colleges.
Fitzgerald said, on face value, he supports proficiency-based learning because it targets individual students and gives them the support they need to understand the course material.
“The biggest question I’ve heard is how do you find time to move forward with a majority of students when you have students who need extra help in an old-fashioned school calendar like we have?”
He said parents and community members are being invited to speak during the public comment portion of Wednesday’s meeting. The input will help the committee in advance of a proficiency-based learning forum in April or May. He said there will be introductory remarks by Superintendent Debra Dunn and York Middle School Principal David Williams, “and then we’ll just open it up and away it goes.”