Making sure that all Missouri students are high school, college, career, and workplace ready is the goal of a new statewide group that will include Affton School District. The Missouri Success-Ready Students Network (SRSN) is leading a statewide initiative to support a long-term transition to competency-based learning in public schools, including the design and implementation of new state assessment and accreditation systems.
Affton School District has already taken important steps to redefine student success, engage the community, and implement meaningful growth-based assessments that measure each student’s individual academic progress. As a result of this work over the past four years, the SRSN has selected Affton’s application to serve as a System Design Zone district moving forward.
This means that Affton will collaborate with 25 other leading districts across Missouri to engage in study and research to deepen their understanding of competency-based learning practices, and collaborate on state and federal waiver requests for assessments and accreditation. As a System Design Zone member, Affton School District may also serve as a site visit location to share best practices with other districts in Missouri, and continue to explore real-world learning opportunities for students in collaboration with identified partners.
“We are excited to be part of this long-term study for the future of Missouri public education, which we believe aligns directly with our work,” said Dr. Travis Bracht, superintendent. “In Affton, we recognize that each student learns in their own way, at their own pace, and is more than a single test score. Customized learning has been a core value of our district for many years, and the idea that we can have a voice at the table to help our state move in that direction is an incredible opportunity.”
About the Success-Ready Students Network
The Success-Ready Students Network, in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Education, will engage stakeholders in:
Supporting redesigning and building reimagined assessment and accreditation systems;
Convening Innovation Zones where public school educators, partners, and stakeholders can engage in high-quality professional learning
Engaging the business community to support business-to-education partnerships that create real-world learning opportunities for students; and
Establishing a Steering Committee to develop and recommend policy changes based on statewide study and research
More than anything else, this work is about empowering students to take control of their learning. Competency-based learning is designed to support personalized learning for all students, to ensure that all students are working toward high standards of education, and that every child has the knowledge and skills they need to be high school, college, career, and workplace ready.
Missouri Framework for Competency-Based Learning
The Missouri framework for competency-based learning (CBL) includes the seven elements that define a competency-based education system, plus an additional Real World Learning element, for a total of eight elements.
Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.
Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.
Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
Students progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.
Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.
Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of schools and education systems.
Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.
Students engage in Real World Learning experiences that support high school, college, career, and workplace readiness.