Notes on Math Class Placement
The following information applies to the students who stay in BVSD and do not go to Summit, which has its own pathway. I will discuss this more at Back-to-School night.
The Advanced 1 math class is geared towards students who learn math concepts quickly without a lot of repetition. Students in this class typically have very solid number sense, have mastered their math facts, have excellent executive function skills, are strong readers and generally enjoy solving math problems. They typically do not resist doing math homework and are not too busy after school to make math homework a priority. Students are expected to score 80% or higher on the Advanced 1 module assessments.
The students who complete this class will be put into Advanced 2 in middle school, so they will start Algebra (a 9th grade class) as seventh graders. This is the fourth year that this curriculum has been taught in BVSD, so we have now worked out a lot of the kinks! The BVSD math pathway says that students can "off ramp" to take seventh grade math in sixth grade, but in reality, the Southern Hills counselors place all of my students into Advanced 2 to start sixth grade regardless of my recommendations. This puts extra pressure on our team to put kids into the right class at the start of fifth grade! Prior to using this curriculum, I only had less than a dozen students each year who compacted two years of math prior to high school and now I have around thirty! Some students ended up accelerating too quickly and losing their passion for math.
Placement in the Advanced 1 math class is based on a body of evidence that includes CMAS math scores, math performance last year, iXL tests and former teacher recommendations. All students will be given a paper math test on August 13 as well as an iXL assessment, allowing students who are new to Bear Creek the opportunity to accelerate. I am also planning to experiment with the MAP test that is used in middle school but don't have any baseline data yet. The initial placement of all students is provisional for the first three modules in my class. Students may be moved to Mrs. Waldrip's class throughout this window and I use their module test scores, class participation, homework completion, self advocacy along with the initial body of evidence to inform this decision.
The majority of Mrs. Waldrip's students will take Advanced 1 in 6th grade (or advanced pre-algebra at Summit) and will compact one year of math by high school. These students will all have the option of taking Calculus in high school, if that is important to your family! On the fifth grade CMAS, Mrs. Waldrip's students often outperform the lower third of my Advanced 1 students and they gain a more solid grounding with number sense and basic math skills (add, subtract, multiply, divide fractions and decimals with unfriendly numbers). In middle school, the Advanced 1 class does not move at as fast of a pace since their class period is shorter by 20 minutes and the course is spread out through the end of May.
Please note that the students in Mrs. Waldrip's class will have the opportunity to do math enrichment activities on a regular basis, whereas my class is more of a grind. This year, we also have the ability to provide a smaller cohort and extra adult support in Ms. Gutierrez's class. These students will have access to enrichment materials along with additional support during work time to truly master the important fifth grade concepts. Please reach out if you feel that a fifth grade class would be a better fit for your student.