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GRADUATE PORTRAIT
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What Is the Graduate Portrait?
The PPS Graduate Portrait is a clear and ambitious description of what the community wants its students to know, be, and be able to do, in order to prepare them to thrive in their lives and careers. Our graduate portrait includes attributes needed to prepare students to understand, confront, and change a global social environment that includes racial injustice and systems that perpetuate oppression.
The Graduate Portrait inspires and emboldens educators and district staff to adopt innovations that are stimulated by signals about the future and to achieve results by meeting the needs of every student.
It enables leaders to align leadership, management, teaching and learning, and resources so that the learning system produces results that deliver on the promise of the Vision. The nine Graduate Portrait elements in the image above are based on community inputs.
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What Is the Developmental Continuum?
The PPS Developmental Continuum is the roadmap that provides developmentally appropriate skills that every student should build in their journey through PPS towards achieving the Graduate Portrait. The continuum includes a series of “I” statements across levels that capture a student’s progress towards a specific Graduate Portrait element and is designed to be student and family-facing, as well as a tool for educators.
In Spring 2023, we developed the first three elements of the continuum and in Spring 2024 we added the next three elements. The language of the continuum was created by a diverse and cross-role team that included teachers, instructional coaches, building leaders, central office leaders, and community leaders. Students were also consulted throughout the process. To develop the language of the continuum, the team referenced the detailed descriptions of each Graduate Portrait element on pages 20-22 of the PPS Vision document, and drew upon similar research-based developmental resources to create the language of the continuum.
Below are the elements that are complete thus far:
Inclusive and Collaborative Problem Solvers
Inquisitive Critical Thinkers With Deep Core Knowledge
Transformative Racial Equity Leaders
Resilient and Adaptable Lifelong Learners
