LUSD’S system is ‘ideal learning experience’
Has improved district’s attendance rates and student success
Steve Jobs created the ideal listening experience with itunes, Jeff Bezos the ideal reading experience with Amazon and Lindsay Unified School District is on a mission to create the ideal learning experience with its performance-based learning system.
“We need to prepare our learners for the future and to be competitive in the 21st century,” said Bobbie Velasquez, the administrative assistant to LUSD Superintendent Thomas Rooney, at Lindsay’s City Council meeting Tuesday.
Joe Vagt, a blended learning specialist with LUSD, said one of the things that helped immensely in developing LUSD’S performancebased learning system is realizing that students learn in different ways and in different time frames.
“One of the things that we have said here is that learning is the constant and time is the variable,” Vagt said. “In the traditional system that we’ve probably all went through, learning was the variable, which changed for each student, but time was the constant so each year you go through these grade levels and whether you get it or you don’t you continue to move forward.”
That formula, Vagt said, leaves many students with gaps in their education.
In Lindsay, Vagt said students learn all the content and don’t progress until they meet 100 percent proficiency.
“We have set up this rigorous, viable curriculum so every learner is expected to meet that proficiency level,” Vagt said.
Vagt said meeting that proficiency level helps students feel successful at school, which he believes motivates them to want to continue going.
“Our attendance rate is up to like a 98 percentile at this point, which is phenomenal when compared to other districts out there,” Vagt said, adding that a big reason for the district’s high attendance rate is, “Because our kids are feeling successful at school, they are feeling honored and powered so they themselves are wanting to come to school everyday because they feel that drive to continue their learning.”
Vagt said this school year the district has implemented personalized learning plans where every student can set a goal with their learning facilitator in the beginning of each year for English, language arts and math and track their progress towards their goal.
“With the customized learning, learners have the ability to move at a pace that is appropriate for their development,” Vagt said.
Velasquez agreed, adding that unlike with the traditional learning system where a whole class progresses to the next grade level at the same time, in the performance-based learning system, students progress at different times.
“In traditional education you are teaching a whole classx,y,zatt he same time,” Velasquez said. “In competencybased education you might be teaching six learners x, you might be teaching six learners y and six le ar ne rsz because they are all at different levels.”
To ensure students have the ability to continue learning when they are not in the classroom, Vagt said the district started a community Wi-fi project, which he said is very close to being 100 percent implemented.
“We want learners to have access to learning 24/7 and how do we do that if they don’t have Wi-fi at home,” he said.
Another way to allow students to learn away from the classroom is through Empower, LUSD’S learning management system, on which learning facilitators can create instructional plans called playlists and assign them to students so they can have access to classroom content when they are not in school.
Because some students may learn at a faster rate than others and thus get their year’s coursework finished before they would normally advance to the next grade level, Vagt said there is an opportunity for them to get ahead.
“We refer to those learners as fast runners and our fast runners, even though they are able to complete the content quicker, they still need to continue running so to speak and continue to move forward,” Vagt said.
Vagt said he highly recommends any student who has completed their grade level coursework before the school year is up to contact their principal so they can start taking classes at the next level.
“At the high school, we are implementing college-level coursework so kids who are finishing up their high school coursework early are able to take collegelevel coursework and get credit for that,” Vagt said.
Additionally, Vagt said LUSD has also established scholarship opportunities for students, one of which is called the Teacher School Leader Incentive Grant.
That grant, which will give LUSD $28.4 million over the course of the next three years, will pay the full educational cost of up to 20 students per year if they commit to getting a four-year degree, their teaching credential and returning to Lindsay to teach for a certain period of time.
Kelsie Avina, the secretary to director of advancement at LUSD, said, however, that students can’t go to just any school of their choice.
“When we wrote for the grant we had to be partnered up with a couple of colleges already and it would be through those specific colleges that they would have to go to,” Avina said.
What schools exactly is something Avina said she is working on.
Nevertheless, Vagt said he is excited to know that up to 60 LUSD students will be committing to going to college, getting their degree and coming back to Lindsay to give back through education.
“They will be promoting the next generation and those ongoing generations to continue to improve their lives and improve themselves and to reach their full potential,” Vagt said.