Page 2 November 26, 2015 Kiwanis Club of Hawthorne Installs New Officers and Board Outgoing Officer (2014-2015) Gregg McClain presides over meeting. Provided by Bill Salfity, Kiwanis Club The Kiwanis Club of Hawthorne recently held their Annual Installation as they celebrated their 76th year of community service. Past President Chip Errera served as Master of Ceremonies. Past President and Past Region 8 Trustee Dick Huhn was on hand to officially retire the Outgoing Board of Directors for 2014-2015: Marco Cueto, Chip Errera, Jerry Flory, Don Harris, Doug Herbst, Andrew Jacoby, Norm Morton, and Bill Salfity. He then retired the Outgoing Officers for 2014-2015: Treasurer Dick Huhn, Secretary Sharon Skaff, Immediate Past President Rick Carver, President-Elect Gregg McClain, and President Silvio Serrapica Outgoing President Silvio Serrapica presented Bill Salfity with 2014-2015 Kiwanian of The Year Award and Secretary Sheron Skaff with Fine Fellow Award. Dick Huhn then installed the new Board of Directors and Officers for the 2015-2016 term: New Directors are Chip Errera, Jerry Flory, Don Harris, Dick Huhn, Andrew Jacoby, Norm Morton, and Bill Salfity. The new Officers for 2014-2015 term: Treasurer Doug Herbst, Secretary Sharon Skaff, Immediate Past President Rick Carver, President-Elect Marco Cueto, and President Gregg McClain. Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time. • Wiseburn School District Shares Common Core Results By Cristian Vasquez Back in August of 2010, the California State Board of Education adopted the new K-12 California Common Core Standards for school districts across the state. For the Wiseburn School District, like all the other district across the state, those new testing standards’ have been made available. However, the new testing standards, designed to provide a more detailed and accurate description of achievement and which have been implemented, are a significant departure from the old system used by the state. Due to the change, the district has been working with its LCAP [Local Control and Accountability Plan] committee to include parents and stakeholders into the transition phase of state testing. “The LCAP Committee members have been very understanding about this being a baseline year and that we are in a new “It really is challenging to students on a variety of levels but the most important thing is that it challenges them to think in the assessment.” system,” Wiseburn Deputy Superintendent Instructional Services Dr. Chris Jones said. “I believe this is a better system than what we had previously but it is also a harder system. It really is challenging to students on a variety of levels but the most important thing is that it challenges them to think in the assessment.” The scores not only reflect the state’s new measure of academic competency among students, but also represent a change in the test–taking mechanism implemented by the state. Among the many differences in state testing is that achievement on the tests within the new California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) system is reported along two lines: broad achievement on the subject area test is reported as either Standard Exceeded, Standard Met, Standard Nearly Met, or Standard Not Met. Second, achievement on more specifics topics [referred to as claims] within the subject area test is reported as being either Above Standard, At or Near Standard, or Below Standard. In every grade level tested, Wiseburn students were either at Standard Met or Standard Exceeded at higher rates than the state average. Overall, in the English Language Arts test, 60 percent of Wiseburn third through eighth graders met or exceeded the test standards in comparison to 42 percent at the state level. In the Math SBAC results, those same students out performed the state average 37 percent to 35 percent. The test results also determined that in ELA, 14 percent of Wiseburn students were at Standard Not Met [34 percent at state level] while 26 percent of the district’s students nearly met that same standard [25 percent]. In math, 23 percent of district kids fell into the not met category [36 percent state level] in math, while 40 percent registered as nearly met [30 percent state level]. “We had stronger results in English Language Arts than we did math so we are looking at that. [Nearly Met] is a group we definitely want to focus on,” Dr. Jones said. “Now we have a baseline and we know where we are at but we had an intuition about where we need to work on things. We are now working with the Math Leadership Corps at Loyola Marymount University on a coaching model that is focused on improving classroom instruction based on Cognitively Guided Instruction for Math. For ELA we can look across our data and see if we have achievement gaps with different groups, such as special education or English learners.” Despite the new state-imposed testing standards, state officials are offering few guidelines as to how school districts assist students who fall below the established standards. Unlike the days of No Child Left Behind, the state is now allowing the district’s administrators the flexibility and responsibility to bring students who do not meet or exceed testing expectations up to par. “Under the old system of No Child Left Behind, you as a school district have to follow federal and state guidelines exactly to the one-size, fits-all approach and it was not successful on a national level,” Dr. jones said. “I hope we are headed into a more reasonable system of accountability and it looks like our state is headed that way. If the federal government allows states to go in that direction, it’s going to be a good thing.” New to the state testing approach is that with CAASSP, which tests for English language arts/literacy and math among third through 11th grader students, is test taking on a computer that gives the student a follow-up question based on their answer. This is a significant departure from the multiple-choice, paperbased test used for the STAR testing, which had been the norm since 1998. Knowing about the changes to come, district officials were as proactive as possible to prepare students. “Last year we helped prepare kids via computer labs where students were rotated through the labs because we didn’t have enough computers,” Dr. Jones said. “That shifted this year since the bulk of our kids will be taking the test on Chromebooks, as part of our implementation of a 1:1 ratio of students to computers in the classroom. So students should be more familiar with the machine they are using when taking tests online.” Assessments were so different under the prior testing standards that it was more challenging for districts track student achievement. Under the new requirements, assessments are so closely aligned that it is easier to analyze a student’s achievement throughout their academic career. Part of the district’s goals for students is to develop “college and career” readiness for 100 percent of students via the implementation of Common Course State Standards at all grade levels. Class reduction in TK- third grade, increased staffing, increased support for arts education, providing supplemental common core instruction, are just some of the steps to be taken in order to better prepare students. “The tough part is that this is new for our students, so our baselines do not translate from the old system,” Dr. Jones said. “Our LCAP committee understood that concept, as do our school site councils who analyze the data for each individual school; our parents are great partners. We aren’t trying to simply teach to a new test; we are trying to help the kids think and learn.”• “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” - william arthur ward
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