CARIBOU, Maine — Last week, Caribou High School teachers presented RSU 39 board members their current efforts toward proficiency-based education.
Math teacher, Kim Perreault, schooled board members on what goes on behind the scenes as the high school progresses into a fully functional proficiency-based education environment.
“I loved it,” board member John Sjostedt said. “We’ve got some terrific teachers here that are working very hard to move us quickly to proficiency-based learning. We support them a thousand percent.”
According to Sjostedt, proficiency-based learning is being taken seriously, “We’re not just going to pass [students] through the school system and graduating them whether or not they have achieved these standards. They will not graduate until they have achieved these standards. This is the big change,” Sjostedt said.
Board members made their way through the English department and were given a glance at student projects and how they’re being graded in Denise Levesque’s, Alana Margeson’s, and Shannon Sleeper’s classrooms prior to their March 18 RSU 39 board meeting.
“Every year we get the chance to show off our building and show off our teachers so when the board members come they want to get in the building and see what’s going on at the ground level,” Caribou High School Principal Mark Jones said.
“I think it’s important the school board hears about what we’re doing about proficiency-based learning,” Jones said. “It’s a big paradigm shift. There was a time in high school when we were trying to teach students to be responsible, if a student didn’t pass a test they just moved on, and we’ve come to find out those gaps and holes multiply when building on the absence of knowledge.”
Sjostedt said the shift toward proficiency-based learning holds more accountability on the students, “It’s going to mean something when they graduate because they will be proficient. This has not been the case up until now. A diploma will have some meaning to it now.”
