8/14/2019 DANVILLE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS: BATE MIDDLE SCHOOL AND DANVILLE HIGH SCHOOL (183945217)

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 At Danville High School, innovation is about learning experiences that createreal challenges and a diploma that promises real possibilities.

 ANDREW  M C K INNEY  , SENIOR , D ANVILLE  H IGH  S CHOOL 

DANVILLE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS

BATE MIDDLE SCHOOL AND DANVILLE HIGH SCHOOL

The Vision:  Transforming existingschools presents big challenges. Oth-er innovative schools tend to be oneschool within a larger system, often aniche program. But Danville Indepen-dent Schools is reinventing an entire

existing school system that serves allstudents—in a small community. Thecommunity feels an urgency to ensurethat all Danville students are equippedwith a new range of abilities and knowl-edge—creativity, critical thinking, teammembership, leadership, time man-agement, and more—to seize theirplace in the Information Age as inven-tive learners.

Danville’s goal is that at least 90percent of students will graduate highschool, enroll in college, and complete

college. To accomplish that, all stu-dents at the only middle school andhigh school in the district are begin-ning to learn in a new way. Establish-ing new district goals in 2009 put thesmall, rural district south of Lexing-ton, Kentucky on this path. The plan-ning was boosted in 2013 when thestate designated Danville a District ofInnovation, providing greater exibil-ity from traditional school regulation.

The Academic Model: And now,the district is working toward person-

alized learning pathways that directlylink middle school, high school, and

college curriculum.The core curriculum in grades

6-10 has been redesigned so thatstudents can meet state-set collegeor career-ready achievement benchmarks by the end of grade 10. In other

words, course content and sequencehas been intentionally aligned withACT college readiness standards. Students control the pace at which theyprogress by demonstrating masteryusing standards-based assessmentsperformance tasks, or teacher recommendations. Performance taskscall for high-level class work and strongstudent presentations to measure21st  century skills not represented inmultiple-choice state tests. Studentsstart working toward high school lev

el competency in sixth grade, whichmeans that teachers with middleschool certication may lead classesfor high school credit and students cangain that high school credit whenevethey are ready—exibilities built intothe District of Innovation plan. Thesemeasures stretch traditional notions ofage and grade progressions to providegreater degrees of ownership and personalization to students.

Once students achieve the statereadiness benchmarks, they then

customize their own “Area of Focus”for advanced academics, challenging

PERSONALIZED LEARNING PATHWAYS BUILT ON A REDESIGNED CORE CURRICULUM 

AT A GLANCE:Start Date: Fall 2013

Grades Served: 6-12

Location: Danville, KY

Operator: Danville IndependentSchools

Operator Type: District

School Type: District

Setting: Rural

Students at Start: 900

Students at Capacity: 900

MODEL TOOLBOX:Learning Management System: Edmodo (limited use)

Student Information System: Innite Campus

Gradebook: Innite Campus

Assessment Tools andApproaches: e-portfolios,performance tasks, NWEA MAP, ACT

Implementation Partners: Council of Chief State School OcersInnovation Lab Network, KentuckyDepartment of Education, Universityof Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab

Digital Content Providers: ALEKSMath, Compass Learning, Khan Acad-emy, Dreambox, Lexia, Reading Plus

Hardware: PC desktops, PC & Maclaptops, iPads, Chromebooks

KEY FEATURES:Complete Redesign

Lab Rotation and À LaCarte Blended Models

Competency-BasedLearning

Project-Based Learning

Powerfullearning

experiences

Globalpreparedness

Growthfor all

Excellence incommunication

An informedand involvedcommunity

DISTRICT GOALS

8/14/2019 DANVILLE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS: BATE MIDDLE SCHOOL AND DANVILLE HIGH SCHOOL (183945217)

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

nextgenlearning.org

ADVANCED ACADEMICS,COLLEGE CREDIT

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS, DESIGN& ACTION EXPERIENCES

INTERNSHIPS, COMMUNITY-BASEDLEARNING EXPERIENCES,CAREER CERTIFICATION

   S   T   A   T   E  -   S   E   T   R   E   A   D   I   N   E   S   S

   B   E   N   C   H   M   A   R   K   S

        E     N     G        L         I     S    H

   /    L  A   N

  G   U A G

  E A R TS S  O C  I   A  L   S    T    U   

D   I       E     

S      

GRADES 6-10:REDESIGNED

CORE

GRADES 11-12:PERSONALIZED AREA OF FOCUS

M   A   T    H   

  S  C   I   E   N

   C    E

project-based research and analysisor design and action experiences,and internships and other commu-nity-based learning experiences.Students may also earn college-levelcredit for advanced work or gain cer-tication from practical experiences.Individual students collect class workand evidence of mastering key com-petencies and skills in an e-portfolio.Student research and analysis or de-

sign and action projects can be pub-lished on a public website to sharewith a wider audience.

The Organizational Model: Witha six year roll-out plan for elementsof the model, Danville is consciouslymanaging the change in order to builda new entrepreneurial school systemfor a general population. The rolloutbegan with project-based learning in2013-14 through new courses at Bateand Danville High and performance

tasks in all middle school grades.Grades 6-9 will be fully implementedin the third year. This approach en-ables a fully implemented model thatcan be fully sustained on public dol-lars within ve or six years, a featureother school designers may want towatch.

The rollout transformation of BateMiddle School and Danville High Schoolleverages attrition and redeployment

of existing sta while building teach-ers’ expertise in specic areas: person-alized learning pathways and rigorousin-school and out-of-school experi-ences. In addition to classroom-basedteachers, the instructional sta in-cludes three new positions: PathwaysCoach (postsecondary liaison, collegecounselor, and personal learning path-way advisor), Interdisciplinary Learn-ing Designer (a certied teacher whodesigns project-based and real-world

learning opportunities), and Technology Integration Specialist (tasked nowith troubleshooting everyday technology challenges but with buildingthe vision for blended learning and thecapacity of teachers to implement expanded blended learning options).

The district is supported in its eortsby the P20 Innovation Lab at the University of Kentucky through teachetraining, direct support for implement

ing initiatives with students, and ongoing feedback and guidance. The districtalso has the support of wider networksincluding other Districts of Innovationin the state and the Council of ChieState School Ocers’ Innovation LabNetwork. These two resources maybe instrumental in providing supportsthat the district couldn’t access as eciently on its own.

BLENDED SUBJECTS:

MATH, SCIENCE, FOREIGNLANGUAGE

Operator URL: http://www.danvilleschools.net | Contact: : Carmen Coleman, carmen.coleman@danville.kyschools.us

50%

Percentage ofStudent Time UsingDigital Content forCore Literacy and

Math

INTEGRATED AND PERSONALIZED CURRICULUM PATHWAYSStudents complete aperformance-based corecurriculum that crossestraditional middle and higschool grades, which theycan progress through moquickly by demonstratingmastery through standardbased assessments,performance tasks, orteacher recommendationAs a result, all students arexpected to meet state-secollege and career readinbenchmarks by the end o

grade 10. At that point, thset forth on a personalizepathway with a self-selectarea of focus for theirlearning.

26%

Black & HispanicStudents

66%

Free & ReducedLunch Students

BY THE NUMBERS:Year 1 public revenue per pupil:$6,998

Year 1 expenses per pupil: $6,797

Year 4 revenue per pupil: $7,009

Year 4 expenses per pupil: $6,629

Years to sustainability: 0