Starting this school year, the state of Connecticut and all of its districts, as well as 45 other states, will begin teaching according to a new curriculum known as the Common Core State Standards. These standards were adopted with the intent to create more consistency and unity in mathematics and language arts among grade levels in schools across the country. In addition to learning new material, students will also be taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment Corsortium (SBAC) trial test in the Spring, in place of the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT).

 

These new standards and assessments are more rigorous and will be a change for both the staff and students in third grade. You will find that some material covered previously in other grades will be taught this year instead, and vice versa.

 

I have provided green links at the top of this page for both the Common Core State Standards and the Smarter Balanced Assessment. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the new standards so that you will be informed as to what the learning expectations are for your child this year. The SBAC link also provides sample questions and a practice test so you can see what this COMPUTER-BASED test will look like.

 

This is a learning process for all of us. I ask that you be patient as we go through the school year and ask questions. With you and I working together, we will do everything we can to ensure that our students have a very successful third grade year.