The Big Picture Model design is a dynamic approach to learning, doing, and thinking that has been changing the lives of students, educators, and entire communities since 1995. The design components are based on three foundational principles:

• first, learning must be based on the interests and goals of each student
• second, a student’s curriculum must be relevant to the people and places that exist in the real world
• finally, a student’s abilities must be authentically measured by the quality of her or his work

The school is highly personalized due to the unique teacher-as-advisor relationship. Each student has an advisor who meets daily with a group of students for multiple years, monitors the student’s personal and academic development, and serves as the point of contact for the family. BBPS is one of over 100 Big Picture schools worldwide, including 15 in Washington State. For more information on the Big Picture model, see www.bigpicture.org.

Standards-based Assessment and Grading: At BBPS, grades are based on Washington State’s learning standards, which are aligned to national standards in multiple content areas. Grades are designed to communicate progress on standards for each course. At least 80% of each student’s grade per course is based on summative assessments of content-specific standards. Up to 20% is based upon demonstration of proficiency within 21^st century skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving.  All assessments are rubric-based on a 1-4 scale with a 3 denoting proficiency. The overall weighted average of the content standards and 21^st century skill-based scores is used to calculate the letter grade for each course.

Honors: All students take honors level Composition and Literature their freshman and sophomore years.

AP: BBPS offers rigorous college-preparatory coursework, including four Advanced Placement courses:

• AP Statistics / AP Calculus (rotating years)
• AP Environmental Science
• AP Human Geography

College in the High School: BBPS students may earn college credit through College in the High School for:

• Physics of the Universe
• Senior English
• Pre-calculus
• Spanish 3/4
• Digital Media
• AP Calculus

Dual Enrollment: Running Start, Washington State’s dual-enrollment program, allows eligible juniors and seniors to enroll at local colleges tuition free. A 5-credit college course is equal to 1.0 high school credit. 100% of the Class of 2024 is enrolled in at least one college credit-granting course their senior year.

Internships: Students meet 30 minutes four days per week in an internship advisory course and spend one full day per week in a pre-professional position at an internship site of their choice. Students may have multiple ten-week internships each year or one extended yearlong internship. By the end of their senior year, each student has completed over 500 pre-professional hours in one or more occupational roles. Internship experiences culminate in the completion of a project co-designed by the site-based mentor and the student, which students present at semester exhibitions. Internship sites have included: City of Bellevue, University of Washington, Pacific Science Center, Overlake Hospital, Aurora Veterinary Hospital, Talking Rain, KPFF Engineering, Microsoft, Google, etc.

Freedom Project: Our passions are what drive us all. In the last two months of every school year, students design, create, and implement a Freedom Project centering on a topic of their choice. The Freedom Project gives students the time and space to explore interests that are not attached to classes or an internship. At the end of the year, students present their projects to their teachers and school community and exhibit them to the public.

Senior Defense: Many of the skills students will need to use after high school cannot be assessed by a standardized test. The Senior Defense is an opportunity for students to tell the story of their high school experience. Presenting evidence of their four years of personal learning, and highlighting internships, projects, and extracurriculars, students provide insightful reflections that demonstrate their growth as a learner and the impact of the choices (the highs and lows) that have made them who they are today. The Defense includes a presentation, questions from a panel of adults, and assessment and feedback (including self-assessment).

Test Scores

BP=Bellevue Big Picture School; S=State; N=National

90% of Bellevue Big Picture School Graduates Enrolled in College

Grading:

Due to the closure of schools during the Covid19 pandemic, the Bellevue School District pivoted to remote learning in March 2020. High School students received an “A” for second semester of the 2019-2020 school year if they regularly engaged in the assigned activities and met the minimum curriculum standards. Students who did not engage and/or did not meet curriculum standards received an “I” (Incomplete). For the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year, the Bellevue School District fully engaged in a virtual learning model, providing synchronous live instruction with standard grading practices in place. In April 2021, we returned to in-person hybrid instruction while continuing to offer the option of fully virtual access to classes. All “F” grades were replaced with “NC” (no credit) and students could opt for a P” designation to replace any passing grade (A-D).

Internship Program:

When the district shifted to virtual learning in March 2020, Bellevue Big Picture School halted all in-person internships and refocused the high school advisory class on supporting the social, emotional, and academic needs of the students during this crisis. In the fall of 2020, BBPS launched two options for all high school students at the school for the internship program since instruction was still virtual:

• Pursuing a virtual internship during asynchronous time for up to four hours per week or
• Engaging in an entrepreneurship project led by their teacher-advisor

Roughly one-third of high school students pursued virtual internships while the rest engaged in the entrepreneurship project, learning about disruptive innovation, marketing, and business. Virtual internship participants completed exhibitions of their internship projects while those who participated in the entrepreneurship project created and presented a business plan for a start-up business of their choosing to a panel of experts.

With the return to in-person learning in September 2021, our high school students were fully engaged in the internship program, though were able to have virtual or in-person internships for one full-day per week.