According to Superintendent Jeff Swensson, the Carmel Clay School District is effectively implementing the state’s new RISE Standards through the program dubbed “Carmel RISE.” As of the middle of October, he said over 80 percent of teachers have had two evaluations on the new RISE rubric.

According to Swensson, the new standards are “as much for the kindergarten class of 2013 as (they are for) seniors.” Still, Swensson said, the new standards are about maintaining excellence in and out of the classroom.

“Excellence is not a static concept,” he said. “The whole premise really of RISE is to reeducate educators in the same intentional growing process for excellence because the knowledge, the skills, the cognition that’s going to be required for the world that is emerging must have and must be guided by strategies, instruction, great work with students that is informed and practiced at a different level than in the past. And it does not mean that the past was wrong or bad or anything… like getting from algebra to calculus, we had to have the algebra meaning we had to have these ways of teaching and learning that have come before, but we have to get to calculus, because algebra isn’t going to cut it, in my example, any more (in the future).”

In addition to continuing Carmel RISE, Swensson said he is continuing his work on the new Performance Qualified School District designation legislation.

According to Swensson, the new legislation would provide “regulatory relief” for the district, leveling the playing field with charter schools in terms of academic outcome and potential for excellence.

Junior Spencer Satz, who considered attending a private high school, believes that relief from some of the state standards would benefit the district as it would allow the schools to “cater to the populations of that school.”

“Since Carmel generally has higher test scores than some… standards may need to be altered or accelerated to prove students with an optimal education experience that will best prepare them for college and life,” he said.

Swensson, who has met with state legislators including Representative Jerry Torr, Senator Mike Delph and Senator Isaac Kinley, hopes to introduce the bill when the state legislature meets in January and will likely hold a press conference in the near furture.