OCTOBER UPDATE 2010

TEAM
The school year is in full swing. TEAM (the new BEST) began in August. We have 18 teachers this year going through the TEAM process k-12. It will be a learning experience for all of us, mentees, mentors and our District Team Committee (which consists of 6 teachers and 2 administrators). Every day we receive emails from the state with new information. Please do whatever you can to support our new teachers.
ESOL
Many of you have commented on how diverse our population has become. It has truly been enriched with students from many cultures. How wonderful this is for all of our students. This year we have about 140 ELL students receiving support in learning English. We are trying hard to meet the needs of this population. On October 12, 2010 at 6PM we will have our first Open House Information Night for our English Language Learners and their parents. The adult Ed program has becoming actively involved by providing classes for parents in learning English not only at night but during the school day at BHS.
LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM
The wiki is all set with the draft of our LA curriculum uploaded. It can also be found under Teaching and Learning on our website. In the next few weeks your district facilitator will provide you with a login and password so you may access the wiki and add new information to our draft. We need your input. Remember this is an interactive curriculum that we will all use to help us provide for the learning needs of all of our students. It will be exciting to be able to collaborate on this endeavor.
MATH CURRICULUM
The math curriculum committee met in September. They are working on editing and revising the draft of our math curriculum. Our goal is to present this to the District Curriculum Council by the end of November and then onto the Teaching and Learning Committee of the BOE. This document will also be a draft and we want teacher input which includes supplementary resources that will ensure student understanding and successful learning.
COMMON CORE STANDARDS
In the spring of 2009, governors and state commissioners of education met to develop a common cores of state standards (CCSS) for K-12 in English Language Arts and mathematics. The state of Connecticut has adopted these standards on July 7, 2010. “These standards are internationally benchmarked; prepare all students to succeed in a global economy; support the State BOE’s 5 year plan; and support Connecticut’s Secondary School Reform. All our curricula committees will be addressing these standards as we move forward. The state has worked to correlate matches to our GLE’s. Some of these matches are exact, some partial and in some instances there is not match. I will give you some information monthly to help you better understand how we will compare our current curriculum to the CCSS. You can access these standards at http://www.corestandards.org

DRAFT OF LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM COMPLETED

Hope all of you are enjoying the dog days of summer. The draft of our Language Arts Curriculum is on our web site. Much thanks to the curriculum committee who worked very hard to put this together. Please note that this is a DRAFT. We are looking to you for input to make this useful to anyone teaching LA in BPS. A wiki page has been developed so that during the school year you can go onto this wiki, click on your grade level, and add information for the LA Vertical Team to review. There is nothing new in the curriculum. You have been doing the work. Curriculum Committee representatives will review the structure with you in the fall. Our goal is to review all suggested revisions, make changes to this draft, and share with the BOE at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. Even when this is voted on, we will keep this an interactive document. Our goal is to make this useful to any teacher teaching language arts.

VERTICAL TEAMS

During the 2010-2011 school year, we will have vertical teams for Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. Membership will consist of representatives from K-12 in the district. Our goal is to review, revise and discuss curriculum issues in the content areas and promote articulation across the district. If you would like to be a member of one of these teams please let me know. Your participation is welcomed.

MATH AND SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULA

The first draft of the Math Curriculum has been completed K-9. Thank you to all the members of this committee. We will be working on the math high school curriculum and refining the K-9 curriculum in the fall so we can present to the District Curriculum Council and the Teaching and Learning Committee of the BOE. This curriculum will also be in draft form for the school year so we can get your input. ( It will be on our web site and on a wiki.)
A draft of Social Studies K-4 has been completed. An overview of what needs to be covered has been emailed to all K-4 teachers. Additional resources will be available to all K-4 teachers in September. Middle and high school teachers are working on their drafts. Units of study for 5-8 have been decided upon. We will meet in the fall to review the format and complete the drafts.
Hopefully we can get this to all teachers teaching social studies by November 2010.
Thanks again to all the teachers who have worked so hard to get our curricula completed.