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courtesy gerardprep.com
courtesy gerardprep.com

September is Open House Month, and the welcoming speech from a teacher could sound like this:

“Welcome, Parents! Let me show you how to access my website on the SMARTboard where you can see how the CCSS are aligned with our curriculum. You can monitor your child’s AYP by accessing our SIS system, Powerschool. In addition, all of our assignments are on the class wiki that you can access 24/7.  As we are a BYOD school, your child will need a digital device with a 7″ screen to use in class.”

How parents may feel during Open House listening to education acronyms

The result of such a speech is that parents may feel like students all over again. The same people who sat in desks, perhaps only a few years ago, now are on another side of the classroom experience, and the rapid changes caused by the use of technology in education necessitate a need for education primer, a list of important terms to know. While attending the Open House, parents can observe that there are still bulletin boards showcasing student work. They can note how small the desks appear now, if there are desks. Perhaps the lunch lady is the same individual who doled out applesauce and tater tots onto their school lunch trays.  Yet, listening to how instruction is delivered, monitored, and accessed may make parents feel that they are in some alien experience with instructors and administrators spouting a foreign language. Just what is a wiki? they may wonder, and what does BYOD stand for?

So, let’s begin with some of the acronyms.  At Open House, educators may casually throw around some of the following terms to explain what they teach or how they measure what they teach:

  • PBL (Project Based Learning) a hands-on lesson;
  • SIS (Student Information System);
  • Bloom’s Taxonomy: a sequence of learning based on complication of task and level of critical thinking which is being replaced by the DOK;
  • DOK (Depths of Knowledge) complication of task and level of critical thinking required
  • ESL (English as a Second Language);
  • AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress);
  • WIKI: a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a collaboration with others; and
  • SMARTboard: interactive white board

Subject area names may also seem unfamiliar since they now reflect a different focus on areas in education. English is now ELA (English/Language Arts) while science and math have merged like the Transformers into the mighty STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). The old PE class may now bear the moniker Physical Activity and Health (PAH), but  History has already dealt with the shift to the more inclusive term Social Studies coined in the 1970s.

Assessment (testing) brings about another page in the list of education acronyms that parents may hear on Open House, including these few examples:

DRP (Degrees of Reading Power) reading engagement, oral reading fluency, and comprehension younger elementary students;
DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) reading engagement, oral reading fluency, and comprehension in elementary and middle grade students;
STAR: new skills-based test items, and new in-depth reports for screening, instructional planning, progress monitoring;
PSAT/SAT/ACT:designed to assess student academic readiness for college

Parents, however, should be aware that they are not alone in their confusion. Educators often deal with acronym duplication, and  state by state the abbreviations may change. In Connecticut, some students have IEPs (Individual Education Plans), but all students have SSP (Student Success Profiles) which shares the same acronym with the SSP (Strategic School Profile). Connecticut introduced the teacher evaluation program SEED known as the System for Educator Evaluation and Development, which is an acronym not to be confused with SEED, a partnership with urban communities to provide educational opportunities that prepare underserved students for success in college and career.

Federal programs only add to the list of abbreviations. Since 1975, students have been taught while IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) has been implemented. NCLB (No Child Left Behind) has been the dominating force in education for the length of the Class of 14′s time in school, along with its partner SSA (Student Success Act) which is similar, but not exactly, like the SSP mentioned earlier. The latest initiative to enter the list of reform movements that parents should know  is known as the CCSS the Common Core State Standards.

The CCSS are academic standards developed in 2009 and adopted by 45 states in order to provide “a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.” Many of the concepts in the CCSS will be familiar to parents, however, the grade level at which they are introduced may be a surprise. Just as their parents may have been surprised to find the periodic tables in their 5th grade science textbooks, there are many concepts in math (algebra) and English (schema) that are being introduced as early as Kindergarten.

So when a student leaves in the morning with a digital device for school, BYOD or BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) and sends a “text” that they will be staying late for extra help or extra-curricular activities, parents should embrace the enhanced communication that this Brave New World of technology in education is using. If at Open House a parent needs a quick explanation of the terms being used by a teacher, he should raise his hand;  in spite of all these newfangled terms and devices, that action still signals a question.

Above all, parents should get to know the most important people in the building: the school secretary (sorry, the Office Coordinator) and the school custodian (sorry, FMP: Facility Maintenance Personnel). They know where your child left her backpack.

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Colette Marie Bennett is the Curriculum Coordinator for English Language Arts, Social Studies, Library...

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