SCHOOLS: Common Core, funding rules usher in change for 2014

Inland schools are grappling with major changes in 2014 both in the classroom and the way they create budgets.

They are moving to Common Core State Standards and setting up Local Control Accountability Plans to guide new spending priorities.

Before the end of 2014, all schools must fully implement Common Core standards, which replace the 1997 California State Standards. Both sets of standards set grade-by-grade expectations for what students should learn and know in subject areas.

California adopted Common Core in 2010 and all but a handful of states also have signed on. The standards are intended to promote deeper learning and more critical thinking and are intended to better prepare students for college and careers.

Schools will require students to read more complex texts – and reread for specific reasons. Students also will be assigned to write more nonfiction.

“One reason for Common Core was that students leaving high school and going to college or the workforce had gaps in one or more areas,” Riverside Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Judi Paredes said.

This spring, most California students will try out the new online standardized tests that replace old paper-and-pencil tests. Students’ scores are to be reported on the new tests in 2014-15.

The new expectations also require training for teachers. Professional development sessions for teachers are already underway by districts and the Riverside County Office of Education.

And teachers must learn to incorporate student computers almost daily in their classrooms, Paredes said.

“If they don’t know how to change teaching in their classrooms, then kids are going to bomb” on the online tests, she told the Riverside school board in December.

Students also must become comfortable with whatever computer device they will use to take the new tests. The tests will require students not only to answer multiple choice questions, but to also type in short answers, explain their answers, copy or cut and paste answers, and drag and drop answers, Riverside Assistant Superintendent David Haglund said.

To meet the technology requirements of the new online tests, districts are weighing options to purchase new computer tablets, laptops or other devices, and assessing schools’ Internet capacity.

Districts also are creating Local Control Accountability Plans, which require more parental involvement and community input.

The plans require districts to set annual goals on how they will use the new state money to help students in foster care, children from low-income homes and those learning English as a second language.

Districts are seeking comments from across their communities, including various parent groups, their business communities and chambers of commerce, and school staff.

Some Inland school districts, such as Moreno Valley, already started community meetings to explain the state’s new so-called Local Control Funding Formula, which gives more money for disadvantaged students. Other Inland districts, such as Jurupa, plan community meetings starting this month.

Parents, students and community members in districts that already started community meetings said they want digital textbooks, a longer school day and year, smaller classes and more preschool.