Principals Speak Out About 'Leveling' Courses at Middle Schools

Middle school principals said that mixing in high-performing students with lower-performing ones wasn’t a big shift for them during an informational panel organized by the Anne Arundel County Board of Education.

Principals from Central, Crofton and Annapolis middle schools sat before the board at its meeting on Wednesday to discuss in detail what parents were calling heterogeneous grouping. The term didn’t mesh well with the principals, who instead called it “leveling.”

Central Middle School principal Millie Beall said the decision to change to leveled classrooms came from discussions with the math department chair, a review of student data and collaborative discussions with the leadership and school improvement teams, which included two parents.

The plan was to increase expectations for all students by raising the bar for all. As a result, the standard-level math and English language arts classes were eliminated, and all students, regardless of performance data, were moved into the advanced versions of the classes.

“I want to be very clear that this approach was not mandated to us by anyone. It was our decision,” Beall said.

After the change was implemented this fall, parents began coming to board meetings to complain about what their children were saying about the change in their classrooms.

Dozens of parents said that they believed their students’ learning was being handicapped as a result of the teachers having to spend time with students of varying skill levels.

Beall said she didn’t think what was occurring was a dramatic shift from last year. She said she thought of this merely as a schedule change.

“I didn’t see it as a huge thing. I saw it as dropping two courses that I felt were no longer needed from my schedule,” Beall said. “I’ve been making schedule changes every day for the last five years. This is the first year that anybody’s noticed a schedule change.”

Board member Kevin Jackson pointed out that some parents said Beall had called it heterogeneous grouping in a memo to parents. Beall admitted that she had used the term improperly.

“I’ll own that mistake,” she said. “Instead of calling it leveling, I used their term that they brought to me, which was my second mistake.”

Though Beall said she didn’t regard the change as being much different from last year, she did say that teachers are struggling with the move.

“Generally, my teachers are finding it a difficult way to teach,” Beall said. “It’s a challenging way to address student needs, but they are working collaboratively together … and we’re making great progress with that.”

Sharon Hansen, principal at Crofton Middle School, said to supplement the shift to advanced coursework, her school has expanded support classes called Eagle Extension where students can complete computer courses or get one-on-one instruction from a teacher, if they are having trouble with a concept.

Since implementing leveling, Hansen said she has heard few complaints from parents. Beall said she had received about six emails in response.

Board President Patricia Nalley asked how student behavior had been affected by the leveling. Beall said she was pleased to report that office referrals at Central Middle School had dropped from 162 at this time last year down to 65. She attributed the success to breaking up some disruptive groups of students and getting them engaged in the coursework.

At a board meeting in November, some parents banded together to announce their intent to boycott their students taking the Maryland State Assessment exams, in protest to the grouping of students.

Board member Andrew Pruski said on Wednesday that he thought the parents' decision could end up costing others.

“If they want to opt out of it, in my opinion they’re going to cost taxpayers money,” he said. “I think folks need to think twice.”

Although no parents were at the board meeting to respond to the principals, Karen Colburn, a parent of a Central Middle student, said she had heard excerpts from the meeting.

She said she was particularly incensed that Beall appeared to minimize the outcry from some parents.

“She (Beall) seems to have forgotten the parade of parents who have met with her personally to express their concerns and the meetings with parents over specific issues, like lack of rigor in language arts,” Colburn said. “The curriculum for every subject and every grade level is less rigorous for advanced students, and as parents have observed, there is very little differentiated instruction.”

The talk of heterogeneous grouping comes on the heels of a study being conducted at Annapolis High School. A study group assembled by the Annapolis Education Commission, comprised of teachers, parents and students, offered a mixed recommendation to the Board of Education in September. They said heterogeneous grouping had yet to be proven effective in classrooms and asked for additional time to study it.

But heterogeneous grouping at Annapolis High School could be under way soon, according to principal Don Lilley.

The plan is to offer honors-level science and social studies courses to all incoming ninth-graders, Lilley said. The principal is working on a letter that will be sent to parents soon providing all the details.