As we prepare for the 2020-2021 school year, we understand that it is highly unlikely that we will be face-to-face with students for 180 days. While all standards are important, it is imperative that essential standards identified and prioritized during instruction. The Department of Learning and Innovation’s Instructional Team has worked through this process for ELA, Math, and Science for grades K-5 and ELA, Math Science, and Social Studies for grades 6-8. The documentation below details how those Essential Standards were identified and provides guidance for content areas where those essential standards have not yet been identified.

Essential (Priority) Standards Defined

Essential Standards are a carefully selected subset of the total list of the grade-specific and course-specific standards within each content area that students must know and be able to do by the end of each school year in order to be prepared to enter the next grade level or course (Ainsworth, Rigorous Curriculum Design, 2010).

The Essential Standards are standards that you are guaranteeing ALL students will know and be able to do at the end of the year. These are the standards you will write your common formative assessments around. You will provide “time and support” for students who haven’t mastered them and extension for those who already have.

• Essential Standards do not represent all that you are going to teach.

• They represent the minimum a student must learn to reach high levels of learning.

As standards are being reviewed and you are considering whether to select one similar standard over another, determine which one is the more comprehensive or rigorous one, not the one that is more foundational. (Ainsworth, Rigorous Curriculum Design, 2010)

Essential Standards Criteria

• Endurance | Knowledge and skills of value beyond a single test date.
  Example: Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described (grade 5 literature).

• Leverage | Knowledge and skills of value in multiple disciplines.
  Example: Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic (6-8 ELA for history/social studies).

• Readiness for the next level of learning | Knowledge and skills that are necessary for success in the next grade level of instruction.
  Example: Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-on-one letter-sounds correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant (K-ELA).
  

Essential Standards Are:

• What teachers will spend the majority of instructional time teaching.

• What teachers will assess.

• What teachers will have data-driven discussions about.

• What teachers will intervene on (enrichment or remediation)