We have an amazing district with students and staff doing some very interesting things and I’m pleased that we’re finally getting some help with sharing our successes. The Gateway towns, acting through their compact group, have moved forward on a number of issues. One of them was hiring Jeanne LeClair as an economic developer for our towns. Jeanne has much experience in marketing and has worked with a small group of individuals to develop a ‘realtor’ sheet outlining the great things in both the district and our member towns. As she, and others, investigate, ask questions, and gain insight into district operations they note a number of very positive factors about our schools, our staff, our programs, and our students that are often overlooked by many people in our own communities. I’m pleased that between her group and the Communications Council (another volunteer group) we’re continuing to make progress in educating the general population about the merits of the Gateway School District.
To give just a few examples of such activities, let’s look at this past week starting with a tremendous performance sponsored by the Gateway Education Foundation and the Local Cultural Councils (at this writing) of Blandford, Huntington, and Russell. “The Last Five Years” was a very difficult musical performance/play that was wonderfully performed and self-directed by three of our current students. Of course, as with all productions, there were a wide range of other talented individuals supporting this performance from the faculty advisor, to the stage crew, to the technical crew, and to the many others who worked to make this succeed.
I was also pleased to be able to accept an invitation to a ‘Comic Con’ in the middle school where the students, as part of a literacy and writing process, drew comics related to a story, poem, or song and then presented these. The innovation, attention to detail, relation to the curriculum, and interactions of this endeavor is a testament to our staff and students and shows an intersection between many aspects of the educational process to make learning relevant, exciting, and interesting. Fortunately, on my way to this activity I was also able to view another class working on a video project in the hallway and again saw valuable interaction between students with an interest in the process. Whether or not the students in both activities realized that they were using 21st Century Skills (collaboration, communication, innovation to name just three), it was evident that these were being skillfully woven into the instructional process.
I was also happy to be briefly involved with one of the district’s ‘tech committees’ as they reviewed and learned about ‘virtual reality’ headsets. The questions, ideas, and potential uses of these devices were discussed in some detail, again showing the ability of our staff to see beyond today and begin exploring new ways to deliver instruction that is relevant to our students. I’m also impressed with the continued and expanding use of collaborating through Google Classroom and the Google Suite, the ongoing efforts of our tech department to expand the ability of parents to be partners in managing their students technology use—both at school and at home—and the increasing use of items such as the parent portal and the district app by parents to keep up with what’s happening in our schools.
I’m hopeful that this intersection of activities will allow more people to gain a better understanding of the schools, the interactions of students and staff, and the innovation that is occurring on a regular basis to improve the relevance of our instruction to both our students and the ‘real world’. It is amazing that this growth continues to happen despite a budget that has essentially stagnated over the past five years and in light of the rural location and size of the district. We truly have, as outlined in the realtor flyer, a great school and great communities – it’s too bad we’ve been hiding them, or at least not promoting them, for such a long time. Perhaps we’ll see some changes soon as we broadband moves into our towns and as we look at the potential for improving access to our area.
