Littleton Public Schools has a long-standing reputation as a premier school district – not only in the Denver metro area, but across the country.

This tradition of excellence continues. Now, Littleton Public Schools is embarking on a bold student achievement initiative that will benefit every student in the district, from kindergartners to seniors.

As part of this effort, LPS has established a District Achievement Goal that states: Ninety percent of all students will be on or above grade level in reading, math, writing, and science by the end of the 2011-2012 school year. The achievement gap in student performance will be cut in half by the end of the 2009-2010 school year.

What does it mean to “be on or above grade level?”
Littleton Public Schools believes that it takes a “body of evidence”– a number of different sources of data – to determine how a student is performing. Students are on or above grade level if they are meeting the expectations for their age peer group on the defined “essential learnings.” Essential learnings are higher-level understandings that students are expected to comprehend and apply. Essential learnings guarantee a common curriculum for all students and provide common assessments both within a school and across all schools in the district. On or above grade level is measured in three different ways"

• Performance on state tests (Colorado Student Assessment Program – CSAP);
• Performance on other large-scale assessment tests (MAP, CBLA, and second grade writing assessments);
• Classroom performance

This process of determining student performance levels is unique to LPS. Because it takes a three-pronged approach, it uses CSAP and other assessment data appropriately and proportionately along with other daily measures of performance.

How are we doing?
This year’s data gave us a “baseline,” or a beginning point from which to work. This baseline data indicates that currently, as a district, 78.5% of students are performing on or above grade level. This means that many students across the district are already performing on or above grade level, and some students across the district need additional help to achieve at higher levels. These results fall within the expected range and are a good indicator of where we need to go.

How does our 90% goal benefit all children?
Through the use of our newly constructed district “data warehouse”, we are able to look at individual student performance over time. When we know where each student currently is in relationship to the essential learning goals, we can plan instruction to take him/her to the next level. In order to close the gap ,we need to offer extended learning opportunities to many of our students.

How are we going to do this?
Professional Learning Communities is the framework we have chosen to begin this important work.

What are Professional Learning Communities?