The development of the Oak Ridge Keys to Success was intended to provide a vision of what we, Oak Ridge Schools’ staff, parents, and the Oak Ridge community, believe to be important goals for our students and children to strive towards as they prepare themselves for college and careers. To develop the Keys, input was sought from every Oak Ridge school, from parent organizations, and from multiple community partners. To these audiences, the question was asked “What would you want for your child/student at these different ages in order to prepare them for college and careers?” The response was incredible. We collected about 3,800 pieces of data and analyzed them to determine the 30,000-foot view top choices. There was so much data that it was impossible to address every piece of input in Keys at this level; however, additional input will be embedded into building scorecards and departmental goals.
The following are some frequently asked questions and answers about the Keys:
Why do we use the word “all” in the Keys? Doesn’t that make these Keys unattainable?
Remember that the Keys are visions. They are targets, but no one will be penalized if 100% of Oak Ridge students don’t make 100% of the Keys. Often, students won’t attain one or more Keys, and they will still be successful in college and careers. However, by using the word all, we keep the focus on all of our students. Is there a student we would not want to be reading at or above grade level in third grade? Or for whom we would not wish to have an ACT score that will permit them to attend University of Tennessee, Knoxville?
On our district and building scorecards, we will create SMART goals based on our baseline scores and how we think we can progress. For example, if currently, 56% of our third graders are reading at or above grade level, we might want to set a SMART goal as a district that 60% of our third graders will read at or above grade level in the next year or two. We will gather input from staff on the development of these SMART goals.
What does a scorecard look like?
Here is an image of a subset of an overall district score card:
You can see on the scorecard that there is a baseline percentage and then levels 1-5 (intervene, concern, midpoint, progress, and vision) are developed around that baseline. Here, for example, the advanced placement participation percentage baseline is 24.4%. The district said that this baseline correlated to a level 3 (shown in yellow). Their target was to increase from 24.4% to 25%. They would evaluate at the end of the year to see if they made progress (level 4), achieved their vision (level 5), or even fell to level 1 or 2. Ultimately, the scorecard centers around SMART goals built off of baseline measures. We will develop similar scorecards for our district and our buildings.
An ACT composite of 27 is really high. Could we use average ACT composite of 27 instead?
Again, these are targets and not requirements. By focusing on the individual student rather than the school average, we pay more attention to individual goals. Maybe one student is predicted to have a 19 on the ACT but we can work with her/him to move in the direction of 27 and maybe ultimately attain a 22. The movement towards the goal for each student is the point.
Where did the financial literacy Key come from and how will we measure it?
The financial literacy Key came from the community. We had an incredible number of community members express the importance of our students being financially literate by graduation. Therefore, we felt that it had to be included as a Key. Luckily, we already have great programs in place at the high school in civics and economics classes. We are still determining how we will be able to measure when a student is financially literate. We will be starting conversations around this measure in the near future and we will include teachers of the high school courses relating to financial literacy in the conversations.
What will we do if dual enrollment or industry certification programs conflict with AP courses or sequences?
Our AP programs are outstanding and are a credit to Oak Ridge High School and the district. We want to maintain our excellent AP portfolio. The goal of every student participating in AP, dual enrollment, industry certification, or military preparation is not to replace or hinder AP with dual enrollment; rather, it is to extend opportunities for students who may not currently be on track to take AP, and, particularly, to help students enter career paths for local businesses and organizations. Increasing dual enrollment and industry certification opportunities will obviously have to be done very carefully so as to not negatively impact AP, but it does bring many interesting possibilities to the table.
What will military preparation look like in Oak Ridge?
Oak Ridge is currently home to the Civil Air Patrol, an outstanding organization. Civil Air Patrol is an Air Force auxiliary program in which students (cadets) participate in aerospace education, leadership, survival and emergency response training, physical fitness and moral leadership. Cadets can also compete for academic scholarships to further their studies in fields such as engineering, science, aircraft mechanics, aerospace medicine, and many others.
In addition to this already fine opportunity in the Oak Ridge community, we are investigating the possibility of starting a Marine Corps Junior ROTC program in Oak Ridge. Conversations are just in the initial phase.
What about grade levels not indicated on the Keys?
Building scorecards tied to the Keys will include measures for other grade levels as well. Obviously, we can’t move our students to reading at or above grade level in the third grade, for example, without the extraordinary efforts of teachers and teachers assistants in Prekindergarten, kindergarten, first grade and second grade. Similarly, we won’t have students proficient on the science portion of the EXPLORE exam in 8th grade if they haven’t had excellent science instruction leading up to 8th grade. The efforts of all grade levels are essential in working towards the Keys.
What about content areas not indicated on Keys measures, such as physical education, music, foreign language, art, or social studies?
First, it is important to note that physical education, fine arts and foreign languages are graduation requirements in high school and often have prerequisites in K-8, so they are a part of the “graduation” part of the Keys. Also, as there are many careers that require talent in the fine arts or in foreign languages, we can investigate more dual enrollment programs in these areas when they make sense.
Social studies can easily be argued to have significant impact on reading and English language arts at the very least. It can additionally be considered to include mathematics and financial literacy.
Ultimately, achieving Keys is an interdisciplinary endeavor. For example, mathematical practice 1, which we can shorten to the Key word perseverance, can be found in any content area, from physical education, to fine arts, to reading. We just need to see how our efforts in various disciplines overlap and support each other.
How does Special Education fit into all of this?
In our district as in all districts, we have students with special learning needs. As we implement Response to Intervention in our district, we will be including our learning disabled students into their grade level, core content classes. They will therefore be included in working towards attaining these Keys. Our students involved in Comprehensive Development Classrooms (CDC) learn independent living and functional academic skills that will enable them to work towards aspects of financial literacy and career preparation. Our students receiving the support of gifted education will also be working towards attaining the Keys.
What kind of support will we get as teachers?
We are going to gear professional development around the Keys. We already have and have had significant professional development around Common Core in literacy (including literacy in social studies, science and CTE) and math. We also have plenty of teachers who participate in or lead rigorous professional development in AP.
We will additionally offer specific professional development around Explore, ACT, and financial literacy. We will create a menu of professional development opportunities that align to the Keys so that teachers who want to better understand various Keys will have opportunities to learn more about them.
I feel like my feedback about the Keys has not been considered.
Every single piece of feedback has been read and considered. Often, the feedback fit better with scorecards than it did with the 30,000-foot view; however, that does not mean that it was ignored. Please continue to add your voices to your buildings’ and departments’ development of scorecards and goals.
