October 6, 2025

Greetings, BHS students, families and community. We're now in the second half of the first quarter, with our first schoolwide testing coming up on Wednesday, 10/15. This involves both an unusual early start, and an early release, so please check out the detailed schedule below and mark your calendars. Some reminders will also go out from BHS later this week, and the eve of testing.

In the last newsletter, I provided an overview of the changes we've made to how we calculate classroom grades -- specifically, the names of weighted categories and the weight each has been given. For some students, this has been a substantial change, forcing a reexamination in how they prioritize classroom assignments and prepare for assessments like quizzes and tests. I'm excited that we have aligned across our school, and I am confident that students will adjust to a system that more accurately tells them, teachers, and student supports what learners know and can do (rather than how well they can play a game of averages). This week, the BHS Implementation Task Force will convene for the second full day of the year (of four) to focus on the school's reassessment procedures. Again, the goal is to refine our approach to reassessment so that it is not only aligned to our purpose of grading and our values, but also more consistent and predictable across the school (rather than varying by teacher or department). I will continue to provide routine updates on this ongoing work, and I am optimistic about how increased clarity and consistency will support our learners, our staff, and families.

A couple weeks ago, BSD had an early release day for professional development. At BHS, all professional development time will be utilized to develop a guaranteed, written curriculum across all content areas. This year, we are focusing on 9th and 10th grade course scope and sequence, but we will move on through 11th and 12th grade next year. Each department did an amazing job last week hammering out priority standards for 9th grade. In the process, they surfaced important philosophical differences and pedagogical implications that they will continue to work through together. It was an energizing, collaborative afternoon!

The end goal of all this work is to establish absolute clarity around our content area proficiency-based graduation standards, rigorous priority standards aligned to grade-level national standards in each discipline, and common summative tasks at each grade level. Once those elements are clear, we can develop common proficiency scales so that we are calibrated in how we assess and ultimately assign grades to student work. Just as with the work on grading and reporting discussed above, this alignment will provide transparency around what students are expected to know, do and understand at each grade level, and allow students to understand exactly how they will be assessed and graded. Clarity is empowering for students, and will allow learners to take greater ownership of their learning. While this will be a multi-year process, I believe that the benefits of this work will be felt by students this year.

As always, thank you for your support of BHS. I have valued the questions you've asked about the curriculum work we're doing, and I am thankful to serve a community that is so involved and committed to high-quality education.

With appreciation,

Sabrina Westdijk