Leveling — Again, the Big Topic at Board of Ed

Leveling.

Although no action was taken regarding leveling, it was the word of the evening at the Board of Education meeting on Monday night, June 20.

Parents, administrators and board members approached the word from different angles and with different opinions, though everyone spoke of their desire to avail students of excellent educational opportunities.

First, parent Lori Sender told the Board that she had spoken to Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Rosetta Wilson and found that, with the absence of 6th grade math-microleveling (a practice in which math supervisor Candace Bettys further separated students within levels for targeted instruction), far fewer 6th graders would be accelerated into 8th grade math than in previous years when math micro-leveling took place.

"The numbers are in for math acceleration and they don't look good," said Sender. "The number of 6th grader to skip to 8th grade has gone down, not by 10 percent, or 20 percent, or 30 percent or 40 percent or 50 percent. It's 60 percent down." Sender said that 22 students would be accelerated as compared to 55 last year. Sender said that from 2006 to 2010 — under microleveling — the number of accelerated students varied from 33 to 55.

"I'd hate to see that that would be the lasting legacy of this Board," said Sender. "I believe you will do the right thing." At a Board meeting earlier this year, the Board discussed the Superintendent's .

Parent Barbara Ray's concern with leveling was different. Ray was concerned that "the majority of special education students are being placed in Level 2 classes" and "that Level 2 classes are becoming de facto special education classes, and that the achievement of our special education students is declining drastically at the middle school level in comparison to the rest of the [student body]."

Ray cited district data that showed that the percentage of students with IEPs (individual educational plans) in Level 2 language arts classes increased from 27% in 2008 to 53% in 2010 and from 25% to 44% in level 2 math classes during the same time period.

As at the April Board of Education meeting, Ray asked that Superintendent Brian Osborne "investigate and report on what is currently happening with inclusion in our middle schools."

Michael Paris likewise said he was "uncomfortable with the number of kids with IEPs in what has been designated as a non-college track level."

Paris said he "urges a policy statement addressing how to track IEP students in levels," but also he said, "The big problem is labeling, sorting and tracking our students. We shouldn't be doing that."

"Children are being harmed by the status quo."

Board President Beth Daugherty assured Ray and Paris that the administration was "looking at the data."

Later, board member Mark Gleason brought up Paris' characterization of Level 2 during a discussion of the draft Columbia High School Five Year Strategic Plan. Gleason said that there was no district or Board definition denoting Level 2 as "non-college track."

"We need definitions and we need to have everyone understand," said Gleason with regard to levels. "There's been too much mystery for too long on the intended differences between the levels. We have to get clearer about the intended differences before merging them or getting rid of them." [Wilson assured Gleason that the Task Force on Equity & Excellence would shortly be working on definitions of the levels.]

While presenting the CHS Strategic Plan, CHS Principal Dr. Lovie Lilly had proposed a pilot program combining Levels 2 and 3 in 9th grade for English language arts, social studies and science.

Board member Wayne Eastman had posited an opinion that perhaps Levels 2 and 3 were chosen for combination because that proposition would elicit less opposition from parents than if Levels 3 and 4 where combined — .

Board member Andrea Wren-Hardin took umbrage with Eastman's comment, saying that those levels where not chosen for that reason. Earlier, Lilly had stated that the Strategic Plan included a pilot combination of Levels 2 and 3 rather than 3 and 4 because it was "more manageable" and "students who appear to be stuck in Level 2 — those students would have an opportunity to be taught at Level 3."

During the CHS Strategic Plan presentation, the word "barriers" came up often in discussion of student achievement. Ultimately, Board member Lynne Crawford said she wanted to see every child provided with rigor in their eduction. The biggest barrier to this, said Crawford, was leveling.

"Agreed," said Dr. Lilly.

Finally, levels came up again in the annual Satisfaction Survey results. With 167 high school students responding, 3 of the top 5 "most satisfied" areas related to level placement (in social studies, language arts and science).

However, with 960 community members (or parents) responding, two of the areas of "least" satisfaction pertained to levels: "understanding what my child's level placement means" and "communications of level placement procedures."