TYWLS of Astoria is annualized, meaning that official transcripts are created at the end of the school year with courses running as year-long. The exceptions are electives that may be run by semester and intensives - grades for these courses are entered at the end of the course.
Instead of receiving only one grade for an entire class, each student is given a rating for each skill in that class. These skills are called Outcomes. Outcomes are year or semester long and students have multiple opportunities to work towards mastery. TYWLS of Astoria operates as an annualized school for the majority of our courses.
Outcome is another word for skills that are worked on in each class. Within an outcome, students either Meet Standards (MS), Exceed Standards (ES) or are “Not Yet” Meeting Standards (NY)
MS means a student is performing this skill at grade level.
ES means this student’s work is consistently above grade level.
NY means students haven’t shown they can perform this task consistently, YET. They will have opportunities to work on these skills in the future.
Shared Outcomes: We use ten Shared Outcomes that integrate “21st century skills” across all courses grades 6-12. These outcomes are the larger competencies that all students need to be successful they are: create, collaborate, communicate, innovate, discern, plan, argue, be precise, investigate and conclude.
Outcome Targets: Each shared outcome is a larger competency that has discrete outcome targets specific to that course and/or subject.Targets are limited to fifteen per year long course to insure that students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery. Targets are connected to CCLS and content area state standards.
Reporting to the public: Jumprope grading platform has an algorithm that converts NY, MS and ES to a number grade. This feature can be turned on or off at different times of the year to encourage students, parents and teachers to speak in outcome terminology instead of the traditional number system.
Tracking Progress
Students have constant access to their progress via the jumprope online grading platform
Students are sent progress reports four times a year in our TYWLS Progress Snapshot
Student Progress Snapshot Dates 2018- 2019: *Subject to change, notification will come well in advance* Date evidence updated by teachers: Oct 31st 2018 Jan 12th 2019 March 9th 2019 May 30th 2019
Date Snapshot Mailed Home: November 4th 2018 Jan 18th 2019 March 15th 2019 June 5th 2019
*The snapshots are true to their name- they are not an “ending” rather they are a snapshot of current progress in the course. The deadlines are meant to serve as four concrete times a year that students will see their progress with valuable evidence input in all courses.