September 6, 2017
Summer came and went, and now it’s time to get busy for some fun learning again! As usual, Mother Nature was kind for our first day of school, as the community once again came together to converse and take advantage of the coffee provided by the PTA. This is my fifth year now as principal so I wanted to get everybody caught up to speed with how far we have come and the direction we are headed.
Please don’t forget to join the PTA and get active. They do many great things for our school community! As I stated previously, the PTA provides refreshments at various events. They provide lunches for our students on specific days throughout the year. They run the annual Holiday Luncheon. They are responsible for selecting the homeroom moms at the beginning of the year. The PTA holds various fundraisers, and they fund certain assemblies from time to time. They provide teachers with grant opportunities. Last year they were able to offset the cost of our after school club, Science Explorers. There are probably a number of additional items I forgot, but you can see how they are a valuable organization for our school community!
I would like to start off by informing you of some buildings and grounds items that have occurred over the past several weeks. First off, Mr. Weber and Mr. Chip did an awesome job getting the school ready for our annual start up! We received 100 yards of mulch for our two playground areas, and Mr. Tramutola’s company replaced a broken playground ladder with a new one. We are currently investigating the relocation of our “outside” classroom.
The next time you are in the building you may notice that it is much brighter. Mr. Weber started the ball rolling on a potential grant for this project, which ultimately was accepted! Our whole school property is now converted to energy efficient LED lighting that is projected to save the district a substantial amount of money each year.
As you are aware, technology changes on an ongoing basis. Schools need to adjust to maintain the pace. Over the past four years, we have managed to do just that and then some. The first step we took was to hire a gentleman part time in our IT department in order to provide support for our teachers and oversee our server, etc. As a result, we purchased a new server and upgraded our wireless capability.
We then purchased two new laptop carts with 15 laptops in each. These laptops were shared amongst our fourth through eighth grade students on a sign out basis. Two years ago, we began our 1:1 device initiative through the use of a major Chromebook purchase. All students in grades four through eight received Chromebooks. We have since extended that to our second and third grade students. This meant that we were able to move each cart into the kindergarten and first grade rooms! I should also mention that we purchased a touchscreen computer for our pre-school students.
As this transition occurred with Chromebooks, we transitioned from Microsoft applications to Google Applications. Teachers now actively use different Google Applications such as Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Having interactive whiteboards in every classroom certainly allows for an effective medium of communication to occur not only for the teacher but for all of our students as well. We are slowly budgeting for new interactive projectors as we replace our older Smart Boards.
Recently, our county held its third annual Educational Technology Festival in August. It was so well received the first year that it was extended to include a few of our surrounding counties. There were over 20 participating schools, many sponsors, and a plethora of presentations. I should mention that last year our very own Mr. Zimmerman presented on the positive impact 3D modeling can have across multiple curricula integrating STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math). He presented to other educators about a 3D modeling program called TynkerCad, which he has used with his middle school students to model three dimensional objects. He discussed how to use the program and promoted the importance of turning students from consumers to creators using TynkerCad as a springboard to do so.
At the conference this year, our second grade teacher, Mrs. DeMarco, and our third grade teacher, Mrs. Hoitsma, both presented information on our digital portfolios that we have integrated into the classroom utilizing the Seesaw Application. It was very well received by other educators in the county. This year, we are extending its use to our fourth and fifth grades. We will also be integrating digital portfolios at the middle school level with Ms. Heyduke taking the lead on this endeavor.
We will continue to strive for excellence in the area of technology for our students.
Students will soon be taking our benchmarks again. A letter will follow with more information but these benchmarks are used as formative assessments to guide instructional practices and as predictors on the PARCC test. Speaking of PARCC (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), I am extremely excited at how our students performed! Please keep in mind that PARCC scores are only ONE indicator of how your children are doing in school. There are many other indicators and practices that our teachers do on a daily basis to prepare your children, not only for their next grade level, but for life in general.
When the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted by New Jersey a few years ago, there was certainly some consternation among all constituents. There was an adjustment that needed to occur on the part of educators and students, as well as parents. They were certainly more challenging and rigorous. The changes in mathematics were even more of a challenge, especially in the middle grades. By the way, we refer to them now as the New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS), which are almost the same as the CCSS. New Jersey DOE simply made a few, minor changes and made them their own.
Here’s how we have been able to address this. As the new standards were in their infancy stage, a relationship with the Rutgers literacy team was established. As I arrived a year later, we maintained this relationship and front loaded the professional development (PD) in the beginning of that school year. Sustained and ongoing PD is far more effective than one time “isolated” workshops. We used the Rutgers literacy coaches for extended PD also. We budget funds each year to send multiple staff members to the annual Rutgers Literacy conference and to their workshop series. The Rutgers’ team was so impressed working with our staff that often times they would joke with us about how they loved coming here. In fact, they were so impressed with how we put their best practices into place with your children that they wrote a professional literacy book featuring many of the literary practices our teachers utilize on a daily basis! More info to follow on that.
To acclimate to the new math standards, we knew that we had to rethink what resources were being utilized and upgrade that aspect of instruction. Through an extensive committee driven search, we were able to lock in a math program with new resources for the following year that was aligned to the new standards. PD in the form of teacher observations of teachers already familiar with the program occurred. Professional collaboration happened both outside of the district and also in house. Last year, teachers also worked with a math coach on specific days. The combination of new resources, sustained professional development, and teacher collaboration has helped immensely.
Often times, many people confuse PARCC with the Common Core but they are two different topics. High stakes testing or PARCC does not always measure what’s intended, nor does it show the complete picture of what a student truly knows or has learned. CCSS are just that - standards, which I personally find to be a good thing. So, if our curricula is aligned to the standards and the PARCC measures those standards, there really isn’t a reason why we need to “teach to the test” as you sometimes hear. The only thing we stress is to be sure the students can actually negotiate the test itself on the computer. That is different than “teaching to the test.”
Mr. Kornegay and I allow independence on the part of the teachers’ instructional practices as long as the students are learning the standards through our curricula. There are so many great ways that your children’s teachers do this that every day never ceases to amaze me! This simple concept develops a trust and positive atmosphere in our school community that cannot be understated. It all starts with the climate of the school, and I can tell you we have a positive one here at Califon and we intend to keep it that way!
This leads me back to the PARCC scores. I feel that as a result of the aforementioned items our students did better than ever before. Students’ scores improved in areas where improvement was needed, and we’ll continue to monitor these specific areas to ensure this pattern continues. We also saw improvement in areas where students were already doing well, which is sometimes an even greater challenge. Bottomline is that your children are doing great things because of the support they have from you at home, and from the differentiated instruction they are receiving from their teachers every day!
I look forward to another exciting school year as we look to increase the possibilities for your children with additional after school, fun, learning activities, and additional community based nighttime activities. Thank you for your continued support, and if you have any questions please contact us at the school.
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