Springing Forward for Council Rock!
Happy Almost Spring! Thank goodness we’re seeing signs that this especially long and virus-filled winter is over!
The District’s Progress Continues….
School Superintendent Dr. Andrew Sanko remains focused on making Council Rock one of the best school districts in the state. Hiring Ms. Tamara Gary as Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction was a key step in that effort. Since coming on board about eighteen months ago, she has been working to ensure curriculum parity among our various schools and programs while keeping Council Rock aligned with the state’s evolving educational standards and at the forefront of research-based curriculum development.
Ms. Gary’s work is “behind the scenes,” but critical. At the last education committee meeting, she requested a centralized curriculum repository called Altas–a type of system that the district has lacked for over four years. By making the curriculum and lesson plans accessible across the entire district, Atlas would dramatically improve communication and resources shared among teachers and the public. I will be voting to approve this at Thursday’s board meeting.
On another front, the district recently hired Dr. Tom Barnes to conduct a deep data analysis of our schools’ scores in individual subjects and to compare those with other districts and schools throughout Pennsylvania. His work will allow teachers to drill deep into the district’s deficiencies, even pinpointing which weeks and which lessons were most effective at each school. It will also give teachers whose students performed well a chance to share what worked well and why their lessons connected better with students.
Our board is mindful about having an administration that is not top heavy. We want the vast majority of our staff to be working directly with our students. At times, however, we need to invest in our students, and I’m confident that these positions, working together, can put Council Rock on a path for significantly improved student successes at all levels.
Educational Excellence
Full-Day Kindergarten
Progress towards implementing FDK this fall continues. Given the strong evidence linking the length of kindergarten teaching experience with student success, I’m pleased to report that almost all of the seventeen additional hires needed for FDK are internal Council Rock teachers. Teachers are excited about full-day kindergarten and want to be a part of it!
In addition, work continues on a play-based Social Studies/Science curriculum that will be called “Playlab.” This hands-on learning period will give students daily interactive learning. The FDK stakeholder committee continues to meet regularly and give the administration important feedback.
Testing Subject Specialization in Sixth Grades
Some of our elementary schools are piloting a program that departmentalizes subjects in their sixth grades. Students rotate among teachers who specialize in a specific subject—a different experience than they had in grades K-5 where one teacher taught all subjects. This pilot program also serves as a bridge to middle school where all students rotate through different teachers and subjects. As we’re continuing to look into the benefits and challenges of moving the sixth grades to middle school, this pilot program will also help us assess one aspect of such a change: how having our sixth grade teachers specialize in subjects affects learning outcomes. We’d welcome your thoughts on this.
CREF - A Council Rock Gem!
In February, the Council Rock Education Foundation (CREF), a non-profit volunteer organization that supports innovative teaching projects, held another successful event, Monte Carlo Night Gala.
Pictured : Dr. Sanko, School Board Directors Yota Palli, Linda Stone, Ed Tate and myself at the CREF Monte Carlo Night
A few weeks ago, I was happy to have the opportunity to observe a CREF-assisted program in action. In this STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math) project, students joined single-use straws, turning them into building materials. Students can then program these “strawbies” to perform basic machinery tasks. Amazing!
Student Well-Being
Student Electronic Device Use
The Policy Committee has been working to update the Electronic Device Policy. Based on feedback from teachers, principals and students, we’ve learned that electronic devices in our elementary schools are largely prohibited and that they must be “off and away during the day” at the middle schools. The current policy says that high school students may not use their cellphones during the day. In practice, however, some teachers require phones to be put away during class, while others, particularly in science and social studies classes, want students to be able to use their cellphones to do things like zoom in on microscopic cells or produce subject matter videos. Ultimately, at the high schools the proposed policy will enable educational cellphone usage, entrusting our principals and teachers to prepare students to self-regulate their use of electronic devices beyond high school. Our updated Electronic Device Policy will be on the March board meeting agenda for a first-read. We'd welcome your feedback!
Special Education Update
I’m excited to announce that at our February meeting, the board unanimously approved hiring Dr. Alvin Oberman as our Director of Special Services. The students served by this position are those with learning differences and other special and/or emotional support needs. The importance of the work that the new Director will undertake to improve our Special Services programs cannot be overstated!
Facilities Master Planning
Our work on the Facilities Master Plan continues. Using data and projected population changes identified in our demographic study completed last year, we’re evaluating the current use of district buildings and identifying a number of major near- and long-term projects. Currently under discussion (among others):
Use of the Chancellor Center as the administrative center
Renovation or replacement of Council Rock North
Potential of adding sixth grade to our middle school grade band, either by addition of a third middle school, or additions to existing middle schools.
I’d love to have your feedback as we pursue this facility plan. Please attend the next Facilities Committee Meeting on April 3rd at 5:00 pm, or email me your thoughts.
Communication
Recently, a parent expressed concern to the Transportation Director that substitute drivers' use of paper bus routes might cause drivers to be distracted or delayed. When this was communicated to the administration and the board, we approved the purchase of a GPS system to help assure student safety and minimize delays when routes are handled by substitute drivers. What a great example of how strong communication between parents, the board, and the administration results in improving our district! It’s great to see us working as a team.
As always, I appreciate your taking the time to stay up to date on our school board and I welcome your feedback. Please reach out to me at tracey.osecki@crsd.org. I’d also love to have you come to any regular school board meetings—your presence and viewpoint are needed! Here’s the upcoming schedule:
Thursday, March 20 - Board of School Directors Meeting
Thursday, March 27 - Education Committee Meeting
Thursday, April 3 - Facilities Committee Meeting - 5:00 PM - Revised time
Thursday, April 10 - Finance Committee Meeting
Thursday, April 24 - Board of School Directors Meeting
Thursday, April 28 - Education Committee Meeting/Parent Group
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are held at 7 PM at The Chancellor Center, 30 N Chancellor St, Newtown, PA 18940.
With warm regards,
Tracey