HUNTINGTON – At a meeting of the Gateway School Committee last night, members received budget presentations outlining upcoming initiatives at each of the seven-member district’s elementary and middle schools.
Megan Coburn, principal of the Gateway Middle School, as well as the Chester and Littleville Elementary schools illustrated the need to maintain class sizes, provide reading assistance, and continue to grant students important programs such as gym, art, and music.
“In the three schools, we have class sizes on average of 18 to 21 students,” Coburn said to the committee. “We want to continue to provide reading initiatives, as well as physical education, art, music, and health classes.”
She also mentioned a focus on elementary “mini-courses for enrichment”, as well as summer adventure camps for the middle schoolers and a computer-design program called “Sketchup“.
“Our projected enrollment for the year includes around 280 students at Littleville, 115 in Chester, and 160 at the middle school,” she said, adding that the schools will have 20, nine, and nine teachers, respectively, to go with five paras at Chester and the middle school, and 10 at Littleville. “We’ll also have about nine staff members who will be shared between the three schools.”
She also shared information on a summer tutoring program being offered at Littleville, to accomodate students who were unable to participate during the school year.
“The week before the start of the school year, students would come in to take a reading assessment,” Coburn said. “Teachers would have received data to start instructing groupings right away. This will increase time on learning, and target students in third to sixth grade.
Coburn said that there will be two facilitators apiece for Chester and the middle School, with three going to Littleville.
“We’re going to continue focusing on the GO Math! implementation, our new math program,” she said. “We’ll look over how this year went, look over our MCAS data, and look over full program. We’ll also continue to work with the Curriculum Director for the Common Core.”
Jason Finnie, principal of Gateway Junior and Senior High Schools, also spoke to the committee on what he intends to do with the budget for the 2015 fiscal year.
“Two seventh grade math classes have been asked to participate in the pilot PARCC assessment this year,” he said, referencing the ‘Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers’ test. “It’s not going to replace the MCAS testing. These are students getting an opportunity to get a little bit of insight into how it works and give PARCC feedback.”
“You may have an ELA question, that would be a reading comprehension question, that would ask you to put a work of literature next to a science journal next to something from a social studies or historical perspective.” he said.
Finnie included in his PowerPoint slideshow presentation a plan for targeting “21st century skills” as his schools prepare for the next round of New England Schools and College accreditation in 2017, which will include the development of “school-wide structures, measures, and tiered supports.”
“It’ll be a ramp-up next year of how can we create internal structures, measures we’re already using in the classroom or develop some that we think we need, to support students in developing skills,” he said.
He also mentioned to the committee that he would be implementing a new educator evaluation system to promote growth and development.
“It’s a constant cycle of teachers self-assessing and getting together, evaluating and getting informative feedback,” he said. “Developing goals and tracking some of the evidence to see how they’ve achieved those goals – it’s something we can be doing for every two year evaluation for teachers.”
The system would coincide with the identification and development of DDMs, or District Determined Measures, of student progress.
“Our focus at the junior high and high school is that we have a little bit more individualized assessments,” he said. “We can focus on student needs while at the same time satisfying the state.”
Finnie said there would be additional schedule considerations to make it work, but that these would “free up teacher leaders” by “building time in during the day to support school and district goals.”
He concluded by saying he would be looking to utilize funds on textbook and supplemental resources, as well as instructional resources for differentiation.
