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News Feature
by Anne Berleant “Where are we going to bring kids to [by] the end of eighth grade?” Rachel Kohrman Ramos posed this question late in December. “What are kids going to learn, and by when, and how?” This is of importance across Peninsula elementary schools because Common Core standards are expected to be fully implemented in schools across Maine by September 2012, Ramos said in a recent interview. She was hired last month to facilitate this process. “I’m here to start the conversation that needs to be started,” Ramos said. The goal is “consistency across the Union” in curriculums for each grade, so that all students meet the same learning targets upon finishing one grade and starting the next. “Here, I get the sense that all teachers know their own targets,” Ramos said. “But vertically, there’s no coordination.” What are Common Core standards? The idea behind the standards “is that the entire nation is learning a set of skills, to develop a core of knowledge so they are ready to go to college, go out into the world,” Ramos explained. Each state must decide whether or not to adopt these standards as its own. The Maine legislature adopted the Common Core Standards Initiative on April 1, 2011, the 42nd state to have done so. (Visit www.maine.gov/education/lres/commoncore for detailed information on Common Core Standards.) What Common Core standards do not do is tell teachers how to teach. “The ‘Common Core’ identifies the big building blocks and lets teachers decide on the specifics,” Ramos said. “Teachers decide how to deliver them.” Ramos sees the “Common Core” as a way to “create a sense of community among teachers and a sense of continuity among the kids.” Creating a union-wide curriculum map In order to implement Common Core standards, Ramos plans to hold “vertical workshops” with teachers, ultimately leading to a union-wide curriculum map. A curriculum map would accomplish a few different things. For teachers, it would specify benchmarks for each grade, based on the Common Core standards, with common assessment guidelines. For students, it would create a common learning experience across the schools. For parents, specific expectations for their child in reading, writing, vocabulary and math—that is, the core academic subjects that are used in all classes, from social studies and science to “specials”—would be clearly spelled out. Standardized report cards, which Ramos called “the next conversation,” would then tell parents whether those expectations have been met. “There’s so many things than can be accomplished when a curriculum map is in place,” Ramos said. “Assessments, intervention techniques for kids falling through the cracks, grades, report cards.” “Everyone has their own style of teaching,” Ramos said. “Everyone needs the freedom to teach the way they want to.” A curriculum map based on the Common Core standards creates a guideline and format for “what the teacher should be responsible for delivering.” This is not a brand-new idea for the area. Two of the five goals adopted by the BHCS board for 2011-12 concern curriculum goals and implementation of standards for basically the same reasons Ramos has outlined. Principal Della Martin has already started work on a curriculum map based on Common Core standards. Other union school administrators and board members are also speaking on these same issues. “The Common Core standards create the opportunity to do something uniform, [to] become a little more like a union,” Ramos said. Ramos has visited all five Union 93 schools, and is now making the rounds again, spending the day in each school to speak and listen in depth to teachers and principals. Her background as a teacher and school administrator mirrors that of Union 93 principals, most of whom still spend part of their school day in the classroom. In addition to the above-mentioned vertical workshops, Ramos is planning teacher field trips to classrooms in different schools for a half-day of observation, while Ramos subs for them in the classroom. Then, she will distribute a teacher survey based on their experiences to “get a sense from everyone where they are.” And, she would like to “spark an interest” in after-school educational programs. Common Core standards, a curriculum map, report cards that assess student progress in a way parents can easily understand—all are aimed at helping schools improve the educational experience of their students, parents and staff. “The schools are receptive,” Ramos said. “The troops were rallied before I got here.” From Miami to Maine: more in common than at first sight Ramos calls herself a “teacher advocate,” who believes teachers do not receive their professional due. She came to Maine after 11 years in the Miami-Dade school district, the fourth largest in the country. During that time, she wore “about 12 hats,” she said, including that of a second-grade teacher. “It was very different there, very regimented,” she said. However, Ramos has small-town roots. She grew up in a community-driven town in Michigan, and spent the past nine summers in Southwest Harbor, running a summer story camp for children at its public library since 2007. Ramos created this free program, supported by grants and the library, for children who didn’t have the resources to attend summer programs that were not free. The contrast between Miami-Dade and coastal Maine appears stark at first. How her experiences in a much larger school district would translate to the Peninsula “was of importance to the hiring team,” Ramos said. But comparing her “small community within the Miami-Dade school area” with small Maine towns was easy. “Economically, their stories are similar,” Ramos said. “People pulling together, making things work, with similar family values.” Ramos, her husband and their two children, ages 8 and 3, are still settling in to their home in Bass Harbor where they moved in December 2011. “I feel I’m where I’m supposed to be,” she said. |
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