Thomas Hierck, a consultant with the Leadership and Learning Center, spent two days with us on April 22-23. On the first day (pictured here), Dr. Hierck facilitated a “Critical Friends” session at which teams from five of our school districts (Granville, Franklin, Person, Durham, and Nash-Rocky Mount) shared the progress that they have made with developing curriculum documents that incorporate the Common Core State Standards. It was exciting and affirming to see how far districts have come over the past year, yet each district’s team left with ideas as to how to enhance its work. The second day focused on formative assessments and how to use information from these assessments to further students’ learning. A more in-depth session on formative and other classroom assessments, oriented more toward teachers, principals, and curriculum specialists, will be held on June 12-13 with Jan Chappuis.