At the high school, we are moving towards a standards based education approach to instruction. In a standards based system teachers identify course standards from either the common core or from the Oregon Department of Education content standards and teach to those standards in each course. They identify the "priority standards", those that are most critical to know and develop lessons around those standards. Students will be expected to demonstrate that they know and understand identified standards, usually by some form of a classroom assessment. In this system, students are typically allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and so re-testing is allowed. The key piece before their is a re-test is that the student will need to increase their understanding of the content. Additional time spent on learning content will be necessary for students wanting to take a re-take. Tests will typically represent 60-70% of the course grade, with homework representing a much smaller portion of the grade. Extra credit is no longer an option in SBE classrooms. In addition, students may receive two grades in each course, an academic grade (tests, quizzes, homework) and a behavior grade (attendance, behavior in class, tardiness with submitting work etc.). We are working, as a staff on implementing this system, a common one in many high schools across the state and nation. In short, we move from a system of accumulating points in a course for extra-credit, tests taken once, homework etc to one where tests become the primary indicator of learning.

The weather has turned and it feels more like fall now. In some ways the rain and clouds bring familiarity to the time of year. The upcoming week at the high school will be busy with classes and sporting events. There are a few issues looming on the horizon for schools in Oregon. One is the new ruling on instructional hours. The state passed some legislation that will require schools to offer a minimum number of instructional hours at different grade levels. For the high school the number of hours is 990. We must look at this closely for next year, which is when it begins to impact us. The other issue is the mascot issue. We are working with ODE and local tribal councils to see if it might be possible to keep our mascot. We need to know definitively very soon as changing the mascot is a process and it brings with it financial costs in making the change. I have been very impressed with our students through the fall. We have a wonderful group of young people in the school now and they all seem to be working towards meeting graduation requirements, which have increased in difficulty in the last few years. Our sports teams are doing very well, as they have in each of the past three years that I have been serving as the principal. We are closing in on the time of year where playoffs and state competitions begin. I believe that there may be a number of our teams moving on to post season play, a great accomplishment! Please do not hesitate to contact me either by email or phone should you have any questions about anything here or outside of this post. Have a great week!