WINTER REVIEW

February 19, 2009
Hope everyone is having a restful winter break. This has been a turbulent year with weather and the economy. But of course we are New Englanders and we can “weather” the hard times. We are making so much progress in all our committee work. The RTI (SRBI) committee has completed the first half of our RTI booklet. We have agreed on a clear process and expectations for each Tier and consistent forms. The sub committee of the RTI group is meeting to complete the intervention and progress monitoring sections of this booklet. The social studies curriculum committee met the beginning of February. We have had some outstanding discussions on the changes that we will have to put into place in our teaching of social studies based upon the new social studies framework from the SDE. Each school has a representative on this committee and they will be talking with you about what we are doing and what we will need to put into place. The new frameworks will probably be tweaked a couple of times before it will be voted on by our State BOE. But the basics are in place. Dave Gruendel, Peter Bouley, Sharon Shirley and I presented the frameworks to the Teaching and Learning committee of our BOE. You will notice that it is a spiraling curriculum and everyone will have an important role in the teaching of social studies. On the elementary level we will certainly need to integrate this within our literacy block.
The math and language arts curriculum committees have also met. Each of these committees are working hard to map out what we are presently doing in our classes and correlating this to the new frameworks. The representatives on this committee have asked for input within their buildings so that we can determine the overlaps and the gaps. Then hopefully over the summer or early fall we can work to remedy these areas.
The one big concern in all of our curricula areas is resources. Will we have the resources to ensure that our students will have what they need to meet the grade level expectations that the state has established? In all our discussions with the three curricula areas, we have shared that there are many resources on the internet as well as books, and textbooks. So we will be creative and search what we feel will stretch our students to optimum learning experiences.
BEST has definitely changed and the final changes have not been agreed upon as of this date. But next year our year 2 teachers will have a hiatus. There may be pilot modules that they can participate in but this is not definite. I will send out to all of you emails on BEST that will keep you up to date on changes or revisions in this program. I do know that the districts will have more responsibility and that all mentors will need new training in the future. I will update you regularly to any changes.
CMT AND CAPT are here! There have been some changes. We now have the standard CMT and CAPT; the standards with accommodations; the CMT MAS AND CAPT MAS which means the modified version of the CMT and CAPT. These tests are an answer to the old off level tests we used for students who needed to be tested on a different grade level. These tests are determined at a PPT. Then of course we have the MIST (on line tests for students with disabilities) and the checklist tests. If you need more information the PowerPoint is on line at the State Dept of Education’s website.
Some great books to consider: WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION;BRIGHT BEGINNINGS FOR BOYS - ENGAGING YOUNG BOYS IN ACTIVE LITERACY;DISRUPTING CLASS- HOW DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION WILL CHANGE THE WAY THE WORLD LEARNS.