When elementary and middle-school students return to school in Westminster, Colorado nest fall, there will be no grade levels or traditional grades. This and other changes are designed to change dismal test scores and an ever increasing dropout rate. This is part of the new “standards-base” educational approach that will adopted in this 10,000-student district in the metropolitan Denver area with hopes that it will achieve success as it has in some small districts in Alaska. This will be the largest test to date of the new system.
The district is doing away with traditional grade levels for children younger than eighth grade and it has plans to phase the new method through high school one year at a time. They will ultimately have 10 multi-age levels to replace than the 12 grades and students may be in different levels depending on the subject. They will move up only after they demonstrate mastery of the material. Students will even play a role in planning their own lessons and articulating their goals.
Lessening of fixed boundaries and fenced methods of operation comes is coming about to many systems now that the 336 year Physical Cycle has recently crossed into the Low Half.[1 Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090210/ts_csm/agradeless]