History and Past K-16 Projects

Start of K-16 and our Goals

Original Charter:
The Incline Village School Improvement Project

Overview:
The Incline Village School Improvement Project is a program to help raise the level of education for elementary, middle, and high school students. When fully operational, the Project will define academic standards in the core curriculum areas for all Incline Village public school students, and will challenge them to demonstrate mastery of these standards.

To improve the quality of our education, the K-16 Task Force hired one of the nation's most prominent school restructuring specialists, Dr. David Conley from the University of Oregon. Over a three year period, Dr. Conley and his staff will help our three faculties develop a set of shared standards in English, Math, and Science with attached benchmark samples of student work that will be applied in all three schools. Conley's approach to school reform is to analyze data on student performance and determine the effectiveness of programs currently offered. Assessment methods need to be tied to demonstrated performance.

June 1999 -- Incline Village Schools goals:

School Profiles - What are our students' abilities

Examples of excellence for K-12 students in Language Arts

Articulated Language Arts curriculum for K-12 and aligned standards with Washoe County School District and the State of Nevada

Evaluation instruments that better help students and teachers identitfy learning

June 2000 -- the same Continuous Improvement Model as above for Math and Science.

June 2001 --- STARS
Students and Tutors Attaining Real Success (S.T.A.R.S.)

The K-16 Council's primary focus this year was implementing STARS, a comprehensive turoring program to help students meet specific standards identified by teachers. We believe this unique approach, a program outside of school hours, but with the collaboration of teachers, will effectively help individual students maximize their potential.

Raising the Education Bar: Local School Improvement Project Begins
January 1999
Harry Williams, Guest Columnist

One of the top concerns of Americans is improving the public education system. The first step toward this improvement is to set the standards in basic curriculum subjects. The second step is establishing performance benchmarks based on the standards. (Benchmarks are specific examples of classroom work that are used to measure an individual student's progress in meeting the standards.) The third step is to identify specific teaching tools that will enable the teachers to help students meet the standards. Finally, there is selecting and integrating remediation into the classroom program. Together, these steps form the process of the School Improvement Project sponsored by the Incline Village K-16 Council.

The K-16 Council is composed of the principals and educators from all three local public school and representatives from Sierra Nevada College, Truckee Meadows Community College and the Incline Village community. The Council adopted the School Improvement Project in keeping with its mission statement: "To provide advice, support, and resources to assist the Incline Village schools in their efforts to give students a world class education."

This year, Nevada adopted basic curriculum standards and mandated that these standards be in place in every school district by September 1999. These standards are precise. Further, the standards provide the benchmarks or progress points by which educators and parents can measure a student's progress toward meeting the standards. The Washoe County School District is aligning the State standards to the District's curriculum. Setting specific local (Incline Village) standards that meet and exceed State and County standards and the adoption of the local benchmarks to measure students' progress is where the K-16 Council's School Improvement Project begins.

The school staffs, with the approval of the District Area superintendent Dr. James Welsh, have begun the process of confirming and/or raising the standards, setting the benchmarks, adjusting lesson plans and building the remediation program for the students in our schools. To assist the process, the K-16 Council has engaged the services of a nationally respected educator, Dr. David Conley, from the University of Oregon. Dr. Conley and his principal assistant, Dr. Christine Tell, were instrumental in the implementation of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, a program that has won the praise of educators across the Nation. Drs. Conley and Tell met with local language arts teachers and administrators in September 1998 to kick off the School Improvement Project. Because reading and writing are the corner stones on which a successful basic education program is built, the Language Arts program is the first of the curriculum areas to be addressed by the School Improvement Project. Specifically, the writing content standards are the current focus. In December 1998, another meeting took place where benchmarks for the Incline schools writing curriculum were examined.

Once the Language Arts program is completed, the other subjects (Math, Science) will be addressed over the next two years.

The Incline Village School Improvement Project is an ambitious one that, once fully implemented, will offer our children a world class education. When compared with other programs of this type, for example in Oregon and New York, the Incline Village School Improvement Projects is right on target. Future articles will detail the standards and the benchmarks and answer the most asked questions about this critically important educational improvement project.

Inclined to Success: The Effect on You and Your Child of the K-16 Council's School Improvement Project
March 1999
Cindy Lindelien, Guest Columnist

Inclined to Success, We Can Expect More....
You’ve probably heard these phrases associated with the Incline Village School Improvement Project. Perhaps you read about the Incline Village School Improvement Project, sponsored by the Incline Village K-16 Council, or Dr. David Conley, the Project consultant to our local schools, in the paper. But what will it mean for your child or for you, as a parent of an Incline student?

Higher Expectations
This Project begins with our schools shifting to a “standards-based” curriculum for Language Arts, Math and Science, as has been legislated by Nevada. With the assistance of Dr. Conley, a respected expert in this field from the University of Oregon, Incline schools are focusing on Language Arts in the first year, to be followed by Math and Science in subsequent years. Educational standards specify precisely what a student is expected to know, perform or demonstrate in the specific content area (subject) for their grade level. Nevada’s academic standards are high, and in line with other state standards and national standards. It has been demonstrated that when students know what is expected of them, they strive to perform to that level. This concept is fundamental to a standards-based education. As a parent, you can expect that your student will strive to meet the standards set by the state and district. Results are measured by what the student has really learned, not just by what material was covered that year.

Measurement of Your Child’s Progress
Part of the Incline Village School Improvement Project is for teachers to establish and agree on benchmarks which define mastery of the standards for all grade levels. Actual examples of work which meet the standard, exceed the standard, and demonstrate working towards the standard will be used as benchmarks to assess students’ work. In this way, all teachers can grade students’ work consistently, and students and parents can know specifically what is required to meet the standard. When information is collected about where each student’s progress is, compared to the standards, instruction can be more easily tailored to meet the students’ needs. Remediation plans or accelerated instruction can be put in place when needed.

Teamwork
Three partners are needed to provide the best education possible: teachers, parents and students. With specific standards put in writing and clearly stated for each grade level, all three partners will be working toward the same end result. As a parent, you will know what the teacher’s goals are for teaching your child and what your child’s goals are for mastery at his or her grade level. Communication between teacher, parent and student can be much more productive and objective using standards and benchmarks for measuring and discussing student progress.

Responsibility
To achieve the best possible results from the Incline Village School Improvement Project we must all participate. Teachers and principals at all three Incline Village schools are preparing to integrate these standards and benchmarks as part of their teaching process. Students will need to be informed of what they’re expected to learn and put forth their best efforts to meet the standards at their grade level. Parents can help their students be successful by staying informed of the standards for their child’s grade level, and what progress the child shows toward meeting those standards. With the implementation of this project and participation by parents, teachers, and students, We Can Expect More.

Standards and Benchmarks
Nevada has adopted standards and benchmarks in Language Arts, Math and Science. The K-16 Council's School Improvement Project provides the teaching staff with extra tools to develop and implement these standards in an accelerated and more effective manner. Content standards establish academic skills that all students are expected to know in a particular subject area Kindergarten through the 12th grade. Benchmarks measure student proficiency at a particular grade level in each standard. During the first year of the Project, the focus on Language Arts has developed standards and benchmarks such as these examples:

Writing Content Standard
Students write using standard English
grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization and spelling.
Grade 3 Benchmark: Identify and correctly use subject/verb agreement and past and present tense in writing simple sentences.
Grade 8 Benchmark: Apply the rules of usage and grammar such as subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, and verb tense in writing.
Grade 12 Benchmark: Apply the rules of usage, grammar, and capitalization with few significant errors; use modifiers, parallel structure, and subordination correctly in writing.

Reading Content Standard
Students read to comprehend, interpret and evaluate
informational texts for specific purposes.
Grade 4 Benchmark: Draw conclusions about texts and support them with evidence from a variety of sources.
Grade 7 Benchmark: Assess the reasonableness and adequacy of the evidence used to support an author's position.
Grade 12 Benchmark: Critique the power, logic reasonableness, and audience appeal of arguments advanced in public documents.