What is Transitions?

• A school improvement model based upon the credentialing of individual students.

• A model to ensure that every student is prepared to be successful in the next school or life transition

What is Unique about Transitions?

• Requires specific improvements in student performance

• Credentials students by validating each student's present performance in academics, employability skills, and career awareness/exploration

• Requires an articulation plan that describes how sending and receiving schools will communicate and collaborate to improve the performance of individual students

Key Components of Transitions

• A written School Improvement Plan
• Credentialing
• Individual Student Intervention Plans
• Articulation between Sending and Receiving Schools
• An Advising, Guiding and Counseling Model
• Aligning and Restructuring the System to Support Transitions
• Aligning and Selecting Processes to Support Transitions

What are Some Important Requirements of Transitions Schools?

1. Implement the CASI Protocol

• Host a Peer Review Team for support and validation

• Implement a five-year improvement cycle

2. Provide the support for Credentialing

• Develop a Student Information System

• Develop a process for making individual credentialing decisions

• Build individual student intervention plans for "non-credentialed" students

3. Align and structure the system to support Transitions

• Collaborate with the larger educational community to provide opportunities allowing students to apply their learning in the real world and to explore careers

• Address organizational and systems' issues know to affect student performance (leadership, resources, communicating, decision making and support)

• Advise, guide and counsel students with setting goals making decisions and planning for the future

4. Make the Transitions Declaration

• Communicate with parents and students

Credentialing Areas

Transitions schools must make a decision about every student n every credentialing area at one or more locally designated grade levels. This means that a school must decide for each student whether the student is performing well enough in the following credentialing areas to be successful at the next school level or the next life transition. The credentialing areas are as follows:

Elementary Schools

• Reading Comprehension
• Writing
• Math Computation
• Math Problem Solving
• Employability Skills
• Career Awareness

Middle and High Schools

• Reading Comprehension
• Writing
• Mathematics
• Reasoning, Thinking, or Information Processing Skills
• Employability Skills
• Career Awareness