A new year is typically a time for reflection in our personal lives - the familiar process of examining the past and setting new goals for the future. For a school district responsible for educating almost 3000 students, however, purposeful change takes coordination, careful planning, and engagement of the staff in the process. Each and every decision must be carefully weighed and based on research and experience that identifies effective practice.

 

I understand that parents sometimes feel that change doesn’t come quickly or that the system is not moving along fast enough. As we begin 2010, I want to reassure you that our teachers and administrators are working diligently to improve learning and achievement opportunities for all students. Change does take time, but the Pelham Schools is in a continuous process of improvement. 

 

Consider our Standards-based report card at the elementary level.  This is a complex multi-year initiative that is improving our reporting process and ultimately the achievement level of all students. This effort entails the development of benchmark assessments to evaluate what all students should know and be able as well as the development of trimester rubrics or scoring guides to ensure a consistent, coherent curriculum that is fully aligned with our district expectations and the NYS standards. 

 

Our Standards-based report card process expanded last summer to include work by our teachers to integrate the teaching of science, social studies and English language arts whenever possible. This integration both enriches student learning and facilitates our use of trimester, rather than end-of-the-year, benchmarks for the report cards.

 

With insights from parent and teacher focus groups held last spring and this fall, we are planning new improvements for the remainder of this year and next year. Parents and teachers alike agree that our K-5 parent conferences are effective and informative in helping parents to understand what their child must do to move to the next level of achievement. Suggestions were made that students, particularly in grades 4 and 5, could benefit from participation in these conversations with their parents and teachers.

 

We also know parents want the report card to convey more information about their child as a learner and the effort that he or she brings to school work. We will work with our teachers to look at how we can further address these issues and how individual comments on the report card can “personalize” the information. Another concern expressed is the lack of parent/teacher conferences at the end of the year. We are considering the possibility of providing parents, particularly those of students not meeting the standards, with time to hear from teachers about the work their child could do during the summer months in preparation for the next school year.

 

Our membership in the Tri State Consortium is another example of our commitment to continuous improvement. The Consortium’s main objective is to assist member school districts in using student performance data to develop a rigorous framework for systemic improvement. Similar to the process used by school districts, the Tri State Consortium’s model has evolved and been perfected over the past decade. 

 

Last year, we asked the Consortium to review our K-12 math program, a process that required many months of preparation and analysis by our teachers.  A team of 18 Tri States trained professionals conducted the extensive evaluation that included 50 interviews with students, parents, teachers, administrators and Board of Education members; a review of 500 pieces of student work, curriculum and lesson plans; a review of survey responses from parents, students in grades 3 to 12, and teachers; as well as the shadowing of students in class over a three day period.

 

The report from the Tri State Consortium team evaluating our math program includes commendations of what we are doing effectively and recommendations for improvement. The Tri State report was the subject of a Board of Education meeting and Focus, our community newsletter. The report is posted on our web site (CLICK)  and I encourage you to look at this document. It reflects the level of thought and care that high performing school districts engage in today.