One of the goals that the St. Louis area Curriculum Development PLN has been working towards since we started meeting in 2018 is creating a database of standards aligned performance tasks with annotated anchor papers. 

MOREnet is applying to the not-for-profit foundation Ed-Fi, for a grant to develop a web based platform that would allow teachers to create and score performance tasks. Using the platform will create a database of standards aligned tasks, with annotated anchor papers for teachers to access.  

This project seeks to create a data integration pathway that would allow teachers to score student work with a scoring guide and then have both the scored work and the assessment results integrate back into your other platforms.  

Adopting the Ed-Fi Data Standard for this project will allow data integration that will import rosters from a school's SIS and export results into a gradebook, assessment data warehouse, or into a visualization platform. The goal is to make classroom assessment as easy as possible for teachers and still have data available at the team, building, and district level for all the other tools that they already have. 

SMCAA does important work creating equitable opportunities for the 100s of smaller school districts in Missouri. An important focus of this grant is to use technology to provide more equitable access to innovative educational practices. 

The grant application is due by February 15th, with a first draft submitted on February 1st.  MOREnet will continue to add partner districts after the February 15th deadline.

MOREnet is looking for partner school districts who might be interested in going on this journey with us for the next 3 to 5 years. The upper limit on the grant is $2 million and Ed-Fi is asking for a growth and adoption plan for the next five years. 

MOREnet is hoping to offer this service as a membership benefit to member districts. MOREnet is working to keep the technical demands on districts as low as possible so this project can be sustainable for very large and very small school districts. 

If your district is interested, the next steps would be to connect with your Superintendent and Director of Technology to ask for a letter of support for the grant application. 

Please submit letters of support on district letterhead to declan@connectedlearningstl.org

Below is a template of a letter of support that reflects the parameters of this project.

Letter of support MOREnet Grant Application