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RSU 2

Educators hear story of Colorado district

Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth and Richmond

FARMINGDALE -- A few years ago, Adams County School District 50 in metropolitan Denver took a risk in an effort to improve.

Three years later, the 10,000-student school district is doing away with grade levels and letter grades and embracing what administrators there call student-centered classrooms.

"What we were doing was not really working for our children," said Copper Stoll, the district's former chief academic officer. "To continue to do what we were doing, which was not getting results, was almost malpractice."

Regional School Unit 2 -- which serves 2,300 students from Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth and Richmond -- is embarking on a similar transformation. Stoll on Tuesday shared her district's tale with RSU 2 teachers gathered at Hall-Dale High School for three days of training before the start of school.

The Adams County district's transformation isn't entirely complete, Stoll said, but she said the change to standards-based education -- in which students have to show they've mastered particular skills before they advance to the next level -- is showing results.

Standardized test scores in English that were dropping have stabilized, and the standards-based approach has energized students who previously weren't engaged in school, Stoll said. Now, she said, students are excited at the prospect of ascending at their own pace through the 10 levels of achievement -- rather than 12 age-based grade levels -- the district has set up.

"How many kids run to take a test?" she asked. "But they are so excited that they can show what they know. You don't have to wait for everybody else to finish it, too."

Students aren't only motivated by the specter of promotion at their own pace, Stoll said, but by their role in designing a classroom tailored to their needs, and not the teacher's.

"Giving kids more choice and voice in their classroom is something you can do at the start of this year," Stoll told the RSU 2 staff members. "It's a partnership."

Stoll spoke on the second of three training days for RSU 2 staff in the educational approach championed by the Wasilla, Alaska-based Re-Inventing Schools Coalition. The coalition's co-founder, Richard DeLorenzo, is working as a consultant to the Maine Department of Education and a handful of Maine districts working to adopt the group's educational approach.

"This is pretty powerful for us to start the year this way," said Christine Chamberlain, RSU 2's curriculum director.

Teachers at Hall-Dale Elementary and Middle schools in Hallowell and Farmingdale, respectively, have used standards-based education and grades -- which range from 1 through 4, rather than A through F -- for a number of years. With consolidation, district schools in Dresden, Monmouth and Richmond have begun some standards-based teaching.

Similar to the Adams County district's high school, Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale last year began phasing in the standards-based educational approach and grades, starting with the freshman class. The reformatted report card used by the high school has sparked some opposition from parents concerned about its consistency and how it appears to colleges.

But there's more to standards-based education than the report card, Chamberlain said. Stoll said the report card was among the last changes her Colorado district made.

"It's all about changing instructional practices," Chamberlain said. "When 50 percent of kids are graduating proficient, we need to do something about that."

Linda LaJeunesse, who teaches fourth grade at Hall-Dale Elementary School, called the Re-Inventing Schools approach "an exciting idea" and said she was anxious to try out some of the recommended practices in her classroom. But it won't be easy, she said.

"It is a lot of work," she said. "It requires changing our way of doing things, which is always hard."

Michelle Neal, a parent from Monmouth who chose to attend Tuesday's workshops, said she was excited by the prospect of a district-wide adoption of standards-based education.

"It makes it more about each individual student, as opposed to a student body," she said. "I can see it making the kids much more excited because they see their progress."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com