By Naomi Tsuang
Staff Writer
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees approved a district policy that will implement new math requirements in the 2016-17 school year under the California Mathematics Placement Act of 2015 at its May 4 meeting.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Mathematics Placement Act of 2015 on October 5, 2015, and it took effect on January 1, 2016. The California Mathematics Placement Act requires MBUSD, along with all other California public school districts, to have a protocol for math placement between middle and high school, an annual evaluation report given to the Superintendent of the placement data demonstrating that all students are placed in appropriate math courses, a parent or guardian process for challenging math placement and public reporting of the math placement policy all before the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.
“MBUSD is already practicing most of these requirements,” MBUSD Director of Data, Assessment, and Professional Development Dr. Chad Mabery said. “However, in the process of reviewing this new legislation, it has been helpful for us in taking a closer look at how effective our math current placement policies are and how well they are communicated.”
The district math committee composed of MBUSD math department heads and teachers is currently in the process of reviewing all of the district’s math placement policies in all of its schools, which includes course prerequisites at Costa. The committee is not only looking closer at math placement for ninth graders but for all middle and high school math courses.
“With the new math course pathways that were approved in January, the goal of the math committee is to create a placement process that is fair and the same for all students, clearly communicated, and puts students in a place to be successful in their math classes,” Mabery said.
The California State Legislature passed the act after declaring that placement in appropriate mathematics courses is critically important for students in their middle school and high school years, and that misplacement in the sequence of mathematics courses creates barriers for educational success.
“One of the more impactful changes for students will be when they go to register for classes at this time next year, there will likely be changes to some of the math course prerequisites,” Mabery said. “[The California Mathematics Placement Act] should strengthen what we are already doing by putting in benchmarks for us to check and review each year for effectiveness.”
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