Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Competency Determination topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Malden committee approves districtassessment types to replace 10th-grade MCAS for graduation determination
Summary
The committee voted to pilot locally developed assessments to meet the statecompetency-determination requirement, approving ELA portfolios, math midterm/final components, science end-of-course exams and multiple-measure US history tasks; the vote passed 8-1.
The Malden School Committee voted May 4 to approve the types of locally developed assessments the district will pilot to satisfy the state competency-determination requirement that followed the 2023 ballot changes to the 10th-grade MCAS.
Assistant Superintendent Colleen Besnard told the committee that DESE required districts to identify new assessments after the 10th-grade MCAS was decoupled from the statewide definition of mastery. Besnard and a team of high-school educators proposed a mix of measures designed to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery and to accommodate multilingual learners and students with disabilities.
Key recommendations the committee approved for piloting: - English language arts: a student portfolio of year-long work plus a reflection essay (portfolio draws on work across the course year, allowing review of growth). - Math: components drawn from midterm and final exams across Math 1 and Math 2, giving students repeated "at-bats" to meet mastery across assessed content areas. - Science: an end-of-course exam (most students would take biology for this assessment), with other science-course options available per DESE rules. - US history: quarterly document-based questions (DBQs) to assess historical thinking, supplemented by selected midterm/final items measuring content knowledge.
The committee discussed accommodations and equity at length. Besnard emphasized that accommodations must follow each students individualized education program and that the district created an accommodation guide so students with disabilities and multilingual learners receive appropriate, individualized supports rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The team also built scoring rubrics and exemplars as part of the validation plan.
The board approved the assessment-type package on a roll-call vote, recorded as eight yes and one no (Mr. Piazza). The district will pilot the assessments with next years sophomores, review subgroup performance and revise the instruments before any high-stakes implementation.
Why it matters: The vote sets the path for how Malden will measure studentsmastery for graduation in the absence of a statewide 10th-grade MCAS benchmark. The district prioritized multiple measures and built-in accommodations to address equity concerns.
Next steps: The district will finalize rubrics and exemplars, share drafts with educators this spring, communicate plans to families, pilot next year and analyze subgroup performance before making the assessments high-stakes.
