BIDDEFORD, Maine — The Force is clearly with the Biddeford School Department.
On Tuesday, staff and teachers from Biddeford’s schools gathered for the year-opening meeting, an annual rallying cry that can sometimes be a bit on the dull side.
So, district Superintendent Jeremy Ray worked with several colleagues to craft a script tying the Star Wars universe into recent shifts in Maine’s education landscape.
Scrolling yellow text flying by in space opens the video, as it does in each Star Wars film, laying out the background.
“In a period of unrest in the world of education, a rebel school department is using local data to drive instruction,” the text reads. “Working against the dark side, the STAR assessment alliance seeks to move young padawans toward the light side where instruction is personalized and standards are transparent.”
The performance is rife with references and jests that any Star Wars fan or educator will appreciate. Bonus if you’re both.
For example, Darth Mandate, filling in for antagonist Darth Vader and referencing education policy mandates, “finds your lack of testing disturbing,” a reference to the abrupt end of the Smarter Balanced standardized assessment after its debut year.
The computer-adaptive test didn’t go over well with many teachers, and legislators this spring agreed to dump it. A panel organized by the Department of Education is now working to find a replacement for this year.
The video comes complete with a teacher in costume as everyone’s favorite Wookie, and a rather underwhelming lightsaber duel.
The message district leadership tried to convey is that in spite of all the constant changes in education — new mandates, heightened focus on proficiency-based diplomas, Common Core standards, and concern about overtesting — teachers are still the best suited to measure of their students’ success.
The video also lauds progress toward proficiency-based learning, a system under which high school diplomas and progression through grade levels are based on a student’s mastery of subject areas. “Pathfinders” were referenced several times during the meeting. This group of about 100 staff members have received special training on how to help students reach these proficiency expectations.
The themed performance was pretty topical, as it comes a few months in advance of the release of the seventh episode in the Star Wars saga: The Force Awakens.
This is just one example of a growing national trend of school districts trying to liven up their start-of-year meetings.
“Each day, we ask teachers to get up there and compete against everything else in a student’s life to get a message across, and I need to hold myself to those same standards,” Ray said Friday.
Check out this one from the West Des Moines Community School District in Iowa, where teachers and staff were welcomed back with a rather impressive performance of Les Miserables’ “One Day More” — rewritten by educators, for educators.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.