A Plan for Educational Excellence
William Shuttleworth
For many months, I have spent hours and hours talking to parents, teachers, community members, national leaders in education and researching best practices that occur in the top schools in America. The commitment of the Transition Team to create the best school system in Maine is fundamental as we move towards regionalization. This summary, not intended to be all-inclusive, gives a blueprint for that plan. When the new regional model is deployed, it is my expectation that this document, as approved and modified by the Transition Team, will serve as a continuous reference as we build a world-class school system. It is important to underscore that this paper does not, in any way, infer that our current system is inadequate. It is a forward looking document that addresses the best interests of students in the next half century of education.
The mission statement of the Educational Task Force Subcommittee on Educational Quality reads as follows: A regional approach to education will enrich all students’ opportunities to fulfill their optimal learning potential. Regionalization will be the catalyst for providing excellent educational opportunities and achieving active community participation. It is the overriding vision that the creation of a new regional model will truly create a world class learning center that fully prepares each student for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
A PreK-12 overview
We will create a seamless PreK-12 curriculum for all children. Universal pre-school education will be phased in over a three-year period as provider capacity and funding support this vision. The region will take primary responsibility for children, ages 3-5, who have handicapping conditions and assume case management responsibilities and coordinate community based services for these children. Pre-school options will be created to accommodate community and children’s needs. We will continue to build on our unique model that aligns with current pre-school providers, but we also will develop in school, on-site programming for children in at least three schools in the region. It is our vision that the new school in Woolwich will be equipped to provide comprehensive regional evaluation and diagnostic center for preschool children with disabilities or delays that will include visiting doctors, nurses, and specialists. It is our intent that universal pre-school will be afforded to all four year old children in our region. There will be scheduled collaboration to assure that the early educational curriculum from Pre K to grade 2 is developmentally sound and aligned with best research practices.
Full-day kindergarten will be assured for all students. Before and after-school day care in all schools will be developed, either in conjunction with current agency providers or by a unique program that is delivered by each school or the region. We acknowledge that working parents are increasingly challenged to provide quality day care for their children, given the relatively short school day, and we believe that school based services are essential to meeting the needs of children and parents. The Japanese model for accommodating all children in quality, well-sequenced after-school programs may serve as guidance as we implement this program. All kindergarten children will have entered school with full developmental evaluations and written reports, more comprehensive and standardized than our current model. This report will serve as a basis for meeting individual student needs during the first year of formal public schooling and the developmental team will meet at the half year point to formally assess improvement and make program recommendations and changes as needed.
The elementary curriculum will insure that all students are provided:
Two foreign languages: It is the intent that by the end of 6th grade, each student will be reasonably fluent in conversational speech in two languages. Foreign language instruction in our schools will be augmented through Internet course work at school's expense and summer immersion programs in our summer school programs.
Physical education: each student will have at least 90 minutes a week of total physical education, a combination of formal classes and well structured recess and in-class movement activities. PE and health will be integrated units aligned with the Maine Learning Results.
Guidance: each school will have adequate guidance programming to meet the needs of children with social/emotional needs, as well as provide an enrichment program for all students that addresses bullying, social skills development and personal self- esteem development. Though this area will not be cited in the rest of this paper, all levels will have major emphasis on creating a culture that supports and embraces diversity, human differences and extremes in cognition, dress, and culture.
Unified arts: All children will be provided a quality art program, including music, drama, dance, art and introduction to musical instruments. Elementary schools will be able to create after school music programs, band, chorus, Odyssey of the Mind and similar programs on a regional basis. It is also vital that the arts place important emphasis on integration with content curriculum to support the classroom as much as possible. Students will enter middle school with their own art portfolio. Eighth graders will participate in a juried art exhibition of their best portfolio creations and again in high school. We will have regional art exhibitions, musical performances, plays and dance recitals.
Technology: Stand-alone computer labs will be phased out as each school integrates technology as a research/reference tool in the classrooms with computer kiosks in the library and in each classroom, available for immediate access much like a classroom dictionary is instantly available for all students. In addition to classroom technology, the region will provide online programs, tutorials, mini units of high interest and foreign languages on the web. These programs, readily available from a variety of vendors, will give students continuous access to quality computer linked educational program access in their own home. We are aware that current technology delivers computer information to some areas in a very delayed manner, but we are confident that within three to five years, most all homes will be linked by satellite. Bath is exploring funding a tower that will be able to provide microwave, wireless internet connections to the peninsula towns that currently have very slow dial-up services. As other towns are included, we will insure that this communication service is provided to all towns.
Teacher training will be an important part of this process. There will be increased emphasis on use of ‘smart boards,’ the use of ‘blackboard’ technology (online) that will enable students to instant message in meaningful ways sites such as Google Earth and GIS technology in the sciences and a concomitant expectation that teachers at all grade spans will embrace technology and stretch themselves in the process. A web linked relationship with other schools around the world will enhance foreign languages, social studies, international economics and cultural sharing using a variety of tools such as 'smart boards’ and interactive tools.
Gifted and Talented: All children come with varying needs. The bell curve serves to remind us that there are statistically as many children to the far right of the bell curve than to the far left. Yet, our schools have not appropriately served the needs of the brightest of the brightest. We will build on the early efforts currently in place to insure that all highly gifted children are provided with a plan that embraces their unique needs and carry this plan and process throughout their education.
At some near point, we will embrace learning plans for all children, based on what we will better know of them as learners through our observations, surveys and assessments. While this will not look like a special education Individual Educational Plan, it will be a much simpler document that provides the basis for their portfolio of learning that will accrue from year to year. The teachers will create teaching plans that address the differentiated needs of every learner.
The elementary curriculum will focus heavily to insure that all students are on grade level in reading and math by the end of the third grade. This benchmark will serve as insurance that all students will have essential skills to address the accelerated curricular demands in later grades that require early mastery of these skills. Specialists will be provided to insure remediation and program modification for all students that are struggling to reach this level of mastery. Students will have access to after school mentoring and tutorial during the after school programs in each school. Summer school programs and vacation tutorials will be provided on a regional basis to boost student learning on a volunteer basis. Students who are struggling to meet reasonable goals in literacy and numeracy may be provided with year around education as a means of insuring that no child will fail these important content areas. Though, on first blush, there may be an upfront expense to this level of intervention, our society will reap the benefits from having students who leave school with mastery of essential skills.
During the elementary years, all children will have comprehensive assessments of learning growth using appropriate and current tools and practices, such as the NWEA, the DRA and the Writing Prompt. Assessments such as these will serve to guide instruction and program modification. Teachers will have ample time to meet in regional grade level meeting to analyze data and make instructional changes to improve student performance. The region will deploy a common curriculum for all content areas. Everyday Math will continue to be the flagship program for all students in math, and we will augment this curriculum so all students will enter middle school with the early essentials of algebra that is the basis of most math mastery according to TIMMS and other national math institutes.
Traditional grade configurations may not exist within our region. We will encourage children to go from class to class that best meets their individual educational needs instead of the current, very traditional model of herding children from grade to grade to grade. It will not be uncommon for a group of children to share a homeroom but then stream out during the day to different classroom locations that match their mastery level in individual content areas. A first grader might be seen in a fourth grade math class, a fifth grader might still need the reading support in a third grade class and in some cases, we can envision transporting a child to another school for part of the day to meet highly specialized needs. Students will be supported to mentor other students in the classroom as part of the regular instructional day.
Special education is currently regarded as a very well developed and delivered program by the Department of Special Education in Augusta. As a region, we have fewer than state average identified children in special education. As other communities are added to our region, we will work to consolidate and align services that will provide the most efficient and most effective education for all students. We expect to continue to develop quality regional programs that meet the needs of low incidence/high needs to maximize the education of these children. It is our intent that children, regardless of severity of limitations, should be given every opportunity to succeed in public school. We may have a program for children with autism spectrum disorders in one school, a program for severely behaviorally challenged students in another school as a means of best meeting the education and psychosocial needs of this population. Teachers will have face to face conferences for all special needs students as they transition from one grade to the next to insure best program communication. If a society is truly judged by one and only one factor, the willingness to advocate and care for those that have the least voice, we must be the champions for the severely handicapped, the disabled, the brain injured and the mentally retarded.
Embedded in this planning is the assumption that each school will have children from other communities, adding diversity to each school. The regional model will have a continuous transportation model that can connect children to specialized classes as they may be created. The regional model is expected to have a transportation looping system that will afford access to all schools.
Middle School Education
There will be three middle schools in the region. Bath Middle School has created a quality, well recognized Expeditionary Learning Model that has greatly increased the learning outcomes and achievement for many students. The BMS 8th grade MEAs have increased in the last three years. There are far fewer discipline referrals and suspensions.
Wiscasset Middle School also embraces Expeditionary Learning, but has fewer years of experience with it. This school’s student performance took a dramatic jump in 2006/07.
Woolwich will have a newly built school and the size of the middle school is proportionate to the numbers of schools that may wish to contract with Woolwich during the building phase of the school. Having three middle schools for students to choose from is considered a real plus. Woolwich provides a quality K-8 system, and this model, which has received renewed national endorsement from leading educators, has proved to be very successful for many students. The support for the success in Woolwich lies in high achievement scores, few disciplinary issues and sustained success in high school. It provides a setting that encourages a strong sense of student community and it clearly keeps kid ‘younger longer.’ Some children will benefit from the more nurturing, highly student centered program that a small middle school can provide.
All students will be given pre and post testing, using the NWEA or another similar high quality standardized assessment in writing, reading and math. This is already in place at Wiscasset Middle School.
Adolescent literacy will be the responsibility and focus of every content area teacher. Our research underscores that the reading skills of middle school students continues to benefit from direct instruction. Gender differences and interests are vital to effective instructional planning. There may be times we will consider same sexed instruction for the purpose of flooding latency aged males with material relevant to their interests and lives. In the seminal book, Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys, Smith and Wilhelm make a compelling argument that intensifying high interest material to boys at this age bridges the gap that grows at this age in reading.
Though all three schools currently produce reasonably good educational outcomes, the regional model will encourage and expect that Woolwich more fully implement the core attributes of a middle school concept. Much discussion and planning has started in this area. The schools will collaborate in curriculum and developmental issues and have scheduled times for staff development. It is in the middle school setting that we too often see some students experience educational or social challenges that serve as warning signs of being at risk to drop out. In actuality, we are fully aware that the earliest seeds of dropping out sprout for some children as they encounter seemingly insurmountable challenges in reading, basic math and the writing process. Though few children actually drop out of school in middle school, we will create better systems to insure that we identify at risk students and make program accommodations to insure a greater chance for success.
Middle School students begin to manifest the first steps toward leaving school through excessive absences and truancy. They are no longer meaningfully engaged in the learning process and begin to ingest the belief that school has no value to their lives. Each school will implement an advisor-advisee program that connects kids to a meaningful, sequenced, adult based program for twenty minutes each day. Advisor-advisee programs are very effective with proper training, teacher support and continued training for all teachers. Each student will be expected to participate in at least one after school activity per semester, which will require our schools to develop a greater menu of intramural and non-athletic co-curricular after school programs that meet a much wider interest spectrum for kids. After school programming, community based, will also have to be a vital part of our vision. Links with the YMCA, Bath Recreational Department, Wiscasset Community Center, and the Skate Park are just few of the connections we need to strengthen to support middle school students.
The middle school academic program will begin with well-planned transitions from the elementary school with increased opportunities to visit prior to the first day of school. The receiving ‘house’ will have meet on each incoming student and have welcoming meetings for students and families during August to build a sense of community. By October of each fall, every middle school grade will have at least a two-day off campus experience that fosters better relationships for all students. Each 8th grade class will have a culminating trip, such as the Washington experience the Woolwich students have benefited from for the last l0 years. Our research shows that this experience aligns all students, staff and parents toward a common meaningful goal that clearly supports and sustains students during this pivotal 8th grade year of school. Middle school students will be encouraged to take high school level courses, either offered in the middle school or at the high school, for those students that demonstrate the academic and social aptitude to meet this challenge.
During the middle school years, each student will have opted to continue with one foreign language with the goal that by the end of 8th grade, the students will be able to travel to a country where that language is dominant and have the skill to communicate. Also, during the 8th grade, we will implement service learning/community service projects as 8th grade capstone projects. Each student will be expected to complete a project that gives back to the community in small groups, well supervised and supported by the student advisor. This unit will be an integrated program with all content areas, including the performing and unified arts as applicable.
The middle school program(s) will afford a single band, chorus, marching band, jazz band and drama club. The schools may choose to have individual programs or may forge a unified middle school arts/music program that will bring greater meaning and opportunity for our students. Our research has shown unequivocally that schools that have a high quality arts/music program with high participation brings greater school spirit and school achievement. There is high correlation between student achievement and involvement in the performing arts. Each school will have regular visiting artists and opportunity to connect and work with artisans/musicians in the community.
Every middle school student will be given a laptop computer with all necessary tools to carry them through to their senior year. These will be the state of art, wireless systems, complete with CD drives and reference materials. We will be working on a tower system that will be built in Bath that will provide wireless connection to all towns in the region.
Our middle schools will have a common end of school experience, such as the trip the students at Woolwich have made to Washington, D.C. over the last several years. The schools will also consider an 8th grade capstone project that will align with the EL model or a community service focus.
High School:
The high school program has to be unequaled in the state of Maine. We have much work to do to reach this goal, but this chapter addresses the formative steps to create and sustain the best high schools in Maine, ones that can complete nationally. We will create an International Baccalaureate Curriculum as the primary focus of at least one of the high schools. Having a second high school in the region will allow some specialization, which will be determined by evaluations of student aspirations in comparisons to the programs we currently provide.
Prior to the first arrival of incoming freshmen, there will be multiple opportunities for 8th graders and their families to be familiar with Morse High School or Wiscasset High School, whichever they choose. Guidance personnel will visit each 8th grade advisor-advisee homeroom. Students will visit the high schools for two half days and will be assigned a sophomore or junior mentor that will shadow them carefully for the first two years of school. The high school will have three cookouts or other ways to welcome new students to meet and greet students in small clusters. Kids will be encouraged and expected to attend one of these sessions held during August of the incoming school year. The first two weeks of school will be organized around building a sense of community/family among all students through adventure based learning and collaborative teaming much like we see in high functioning corporations and universities.
We expect that the high school experience will be completed in three years for some students and it might take as many as five for others. The time is irrelevant. We will provide post graduate opportunities through local college affiliates for those students who graduate in three years that may not wish to move to work or higher education at that time. We will also have many college level courses, with well-articulated agreements, for accelerated students to take campus based, or on line course work that will meet both a high school and college credit option.
We also will expect that global citizenship is an academic subject. We must make all students aware of international issues, world history, world economic conditions, geography and how these factors influence their future.
While it is our hope that no student will drop out of school, we will expect no less than a 95% graduation rate. For the 5% that may not graduate, we will extend to them every opportunity through adult education, community based programs and work experience programs in concert with the vocational center to insure that they have a plan that guarantees full employment and the invitation to return to complete high school graduation requirements. Our goal is that l00% of our students will apply to at least one college and that 85% will attend post secondary education, the other fifteen percent to enter the military or work force with high level skills to meet their career plan.
Flexible scheduling will provide students with the freedom to access education around other priorities. For instance, a student working at a local hospital as a CNA may have alternate hours for school. School will not be a 7am to 2pm operation. We fully expect a schedule where students come to school over a twelve-hour period during the day with teaching and administrative schedules aligned to meet this need. The high school will have an evening structure, from 6-10 p.m. Students who have children, jobs or other daytime commitments can access school in the evening with a flex schedule for teachers and students. We will support the evening school with student teachers, retired teachers and specialists in particular content areas.
Morse High School instituted a new model to support incoming 9th graders and that has been very successful. Though just completing the first year, we have data that indicates that the number of failures has been cut in half and the number of students receiving disciplinary notices has dropped by 33% for this grade level. We will conduct active research to investigate the best model for continued small group focus to support 10th, 11th and 12th graders.
A high school with a strong extra curricular program is usually a high performing high school and one that has high student and staff morale. We will invest in building quality athletic programs, music, arts and intramural programs that connect kids more effectively to the school program.
We will continue our advisor-advisee programs that we believe will support all students. We will expect all students to continue their commitment to at least one after school activity so they feel connected. Teachers and administrators will continue to examine high risk factors for dropping out of school and pledge to meet the needs of all students. So, what has been missing? We will need the right leadership in all phases of the system to create the abiding commitment that all students are valued and that a 95% graduation rate is the minimum we will accept. We will need to create better alternative programs and classes for kids who do not learn best in a traditional classroom environment. We will forge better connections with the vocational center and view this as an under utilized high quality resource for integrating learning and hands on education. We are confident that a student that graduates with a vocational center focus will be as prepared for secondary education as all students. We will also create off campus educational opportunities for that small group of students that simply cannot deal with the rigor and structure of a large high school.
We will also have articulated agreements that will permit students to attend the vocational center in Brunswick. There are other ideas that are surfacing in other parts of the world. We could have a satellite auto repair service at the vocational center that is a division of a local automobile dealership. We could partner with multiple businesses, both trade and service, that will provide students with real opportunities for learning. Just think how some students would invest greatly in their learning if there were a Cingular
store or an Apple repair franchise right on location in one of our schools. We will provide intensive learning labs, mostly during the school day, to support students that are not meeting standards. Again, research shows that after school tutorial programs are relatively ineffective for students already failing during the school day. Aside from actual programs for at risk kids, the core of our effectiveness is the inculcation of a ‘whatever it takes,’ can-do attitude on the part of all staff to create an environment, a culture where all kids can succeed.
It is clear that the Bath School Department will initiate an application for new school construction by December 2007. A new Morse High School will be built by 2016. All communities will share in the creation of this new school. For the next several years, a capital bond is expected to pass with little difficulty to address structural, safety and cosmetic needs of Morse. Since January 2007, over $20,000 has been spent in local dollars in repairing bathrooms, fixing the roof, upgrading Montgomery Theater and painting some classroom. Another $40,000 of local money will be spent over the summer in addition to over a million dollars of capital improvements as a result of the bond package that will be taken to the voters in June 2007. The vision is real clear. Morse needs to be a beautiful and safe school and we acknowledge that the physical appearance and structure of the school strongly affects student achievement.
Depending on our regional needs, it’s possible that a replacement for Morse High School might also replace Wiscasset High School, creating a centrally-located high school that would be modest in size, but large enough to facilitate a comprehensive program in decades ahead.
The senior year has long been viewed as less rigorous than the first three. We believe this is a grave mistake and many colleges have cautioned high schools that lowered expectations during the senior year greatly impact the transition into college. We want all students to know that during the entire four years that they attend (of for whatever length they attend), there will be high expectations. During the senior year, students will be expected to complete a capstone project that serves to demonstrate high-level thinking, organization and service learning. A capstone project may be shadowing a state legislator and submitting and tracking a piece of legislation. A student could be a cadet with the Bath Police Department, work in the engineering department at Bath Iron Works or work at a local shelter or food bank. We expect this to be supported by a team that the student selects and a formal presentation be made to this committee during April of the senior year.
We will have very high expectations for all students. It should be pointed out that the one single antidote to high drop out rates is raising the standards for all students. Research points to one clear point, students drop out because they are bored and disenfranchised with a curriculum that is either irrelevant or poorly constructed. We will also expect all students to take four years of English and Math. This will require that some of this course work be core for all students, with student choice for two of the courses. The research again is clear. High schools that require and support four years of math and English produce higher student achievement.
We will increase Advanced Placement opportunities at the rate of one new program for the next l0 years and have as a goal that at least 25% of all students will take at least one AP class. This will be a huge increase over current subscription to these level of classes. The state has committed to the College Board’s AP incentive program, providing high schools with the data needed to grow the AP program. This is an important tool to enhance our AP offerings. We will cover the cost of the PSAT for all sophomores and juniors as a means of encouraging strong performance and investment on the SATs.
Each student will have matriculated in foreign languages to a point that they will leave high school with bi-lingual skills. We will also augment any student’s desire to learn a foreign language that we do not offer through on-line opportunities. The Asynchronous Transmit Mode (ATM) network (already in place in Morse) provides the opportunity to link Morse with dozens of other schools across the state and nation for distance learning. A student of Morse can take Arabic from a school in Washington, D.C.
Aligning with signature programs and alliances will provide that professional connection to insure constant growth. We will seek formal recognition from the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national model of high school reform that will bring common principles of excellence that will meet the needs of all students. This model aligns with the Professional Learning Community model that School Union #47 has found to be the signature system to excellence in education. In the PLC model, we focus on four fundamental questions that guide all that we do:
What is it that we want students to know? (curriculum)
How will we know when they know it? ((assessment)
What will we do when they don’t learn it? (intervention)
What will we do when they already know it? (differentiation).
On first blush, the PLC is built on very simplistic questions, yet SU #47 is the first to acknowledge that their continuous effort to address each of these questions has been the lighthouse of excellence in their system. At the very core of the PLC model is what happens inside the school among professionals. There needs to be a dramatic focus on building collegial relationships in each building across the district that supports every professional in their role. Currently the Bath Middle School has used Active Pedagogy (APG) monthly meetings that focus the whole school on a strategy (comprehension strategies, character development, adventure based learning, differentiation and assessment) and this model closely aligns with the PLC model.
We will also apply and receive a grant from Promising Futures, a funding source that has served to reform education in schools across the state of Maine. There is no clear explanation for the school for not seeking this in the past but the process will bring greater clarity to the mission of the school. At the same time, we will initiate conversations with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support our vision of creating the highest performing high school in Maine.
Morse High School will develop a comprehensive system to track all graduates for a period of five years. This will give both formative and summative feedback of the effectiveness in preparing our students for the global economy that they would have stepped into. The Mitchell Institute has expressed interest and capability to support this initiative.
We must be fully aware of the current and future world economy. It is clear that any work or product that is routine will leave the United States and move overseas. Look at the manufacturing industry and computer support systems, the latter now dominated by the work of highly trained, but low paid people in India. Most routine work will be outsourced. Even highly skilled work is now being delivered through technology. For instance, TurboTax has replaced the need for an accountant for income taxes in 15 million American homes. Divorces, wills, land purchases and other once highly expensive services will be routine and replaced by software applications. High School students in their junior year will be encouraged to experience an exchange program with another school in America or in another country. We will work out the details to permit credit for this experience that can be pivotal in shaping the important decision making processes students are engaged in for their future.
To compete, we are fully aware that our students will need to be more than strong test takers. Though left-brain competence is vital and we will still press for all students to do well on the SAT’s, it is more and more clear that we will have to enhance right brain competencies. We will need to have students that can shift from function to design, from argument to story, from focus to symphony, from facts/logic to empathy, from seriousness to play and from accumulation to meaning and most importantly, from knowledge/information to real learning. To dismiss this shift is to dismiss the seminal work of Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman, arguably the two most prominent thinkers about global shifts in our economy writing today. To teach or develop these important skills, we must bolster our focus on ethics, art, music, invention and service to the community. Bill Gates serves as a prime example that making money without embracing the responsibility of giving back to the community renders a society vulnerable.
As a culminating goal, Morse High School will strive to become eligible for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award of Educational Excellence. Few schools have ever received this distinguished recognition, but it would demonstrate that Morse has achieved a level of excellence not yet achieved by any Maine school. While this may be a goal that most educators are not aware of, we will introduce this goal within two years as a benchmark for our work.
The Community/Communities
From K-12, we will invest in a strategic plan that will better connect our schools to the resources within each community. We have implemented a volunteer coordinator position and will expand that to a full time position within the region. This is a valuable link that connects the dots, bringing parents, community members, programs to the school, and kids to the community.
We will create a non-profit organization, 501(c)3 educational foundation to support the arts, scholarships, and visiting programs that are so important to our schools.
We will partner with area artists, the Chocolate Church, and other organizations and groups that provide great opportunities for our students.
Adult education will grow to provide more enrichment and academic classes, provide day programs for senior citizens, and assure that income eligible families can take all course work leading to a high school degree or GED without cost. We will provide free Internet services and a drop in center for adults during the day as well as the evening.
Advisory groups, much stronger than the traditional PTA model, will be developed in each school. This group will be the voice of the community to gauge the success of this region and provide strong advocacy for new programming.
We are very aware that the parents are children’s first teachers. We will provide free GED preparation classes for all adults seeking to get their high school degree or equivalency. We will sponsor on-going programs focused on core parenting concerns (discipline, drugs, sexuality, homework) to support parents as partners.
Staff Development
Staff development is essential for continued growth. Our staff will be provided with the best resources, orchestrated in many different configurations to support professional growth. The regional model will allow better pooling of resources and more consistent training focus for our entire system. The PLC model will expand across the region. Administrators and teachers will meet regularly with their colleagues as we merge into one, unified system. We will provide onsite graduate course work and align with local colleges and universities to expand educational options. We will also encourage our staff to experience non-traditional courses/programs that will enhance the right brain emphasis for learning as described in previous paragraph. The Leadership Design Team will coordinate staff development with constant input from staff and administration. Research and data analysis will serve as the primary vehicle to inform staff development needs.
Administrative staff development has not been well thought out and meaningful. We will create a mentoring system that supports current administrators and recruits teachers to fulfill the large number of vacancies likely over the next l0 years. Principals will be encouraged to partner with other principal and build a detailed action plan for professional growth that relates to their role in improving student achievement.
Health and Wellness
Every research paper on this topic has declared that our children will be the first generation not to live as long as the previous generation. We also know that 40% of all females born in 2000 will have full-blown adult diabetes by age 13. From kindergarten to grade 12, we will institute health and wellness programs and activities, carefully monitored by a district wellness team. We will improve nutritional standards, ban all transfats from school lunches and begin to work on a plan to ensure that every child and adult has access to a fitness facility, the YMCA or some other means to promote lifetime wellness. Parent education is a key to creating healthy children and we will align with the YMCA community based initiative, Activate America, to support parent education.
Hiring the best, retaining the best
Our schools are only as good as our staff. We will work to create a system that attracts excellence, expand our Mentoring and Induction service to all teachers and educational technicians, Administrators will be held to exacting standards of excellence and will be given continuous opportunities to learn and grow professionally. We will develop agreements with local teacher preparation colleges and universities and affiliate as a teaching lab for these schools. In the best of systems, we would seek the elimination of tenure as job security and have teachers demonstrate continued professional growth and excellence in the classroom to preserve their positions in our schools.
The school day/the school year
The United States has the shortest school day and the shortest school year of almost any of the developed nations in the world. We cannot continue to operate on a 175-day student year schedule. The school year will be expanded to 190 days over a three-year period. We are well aware that this creates contractual issues but we believe that a well-structured use of these extra days will strongly improve the quality of education for our students.
Summary of Report
This document is only the beginning. It embraces a plan, strategies and goals that can produce the best educational system in the State of Maine, one that can meaningfully vie for the best program in the country. It all comes down to execution. Once we decide to move in this direction, it will take the passion, leadership, conviction and continuous training to reach these goals. This document does not overshoot a target. Nothing in this plan is unreachable. It will take some financial resources, but mostly, it will take human effort and drive to settle for nothing less than excellence. With ample school board and community support, this document can serve as the blueprint that will truly create a world-class school system.
Upon reflection on this paper, it has been offered that some citizens see no benefit from a regional program. There is a lot to be noted in the high performance of some of our small elementary schools. This model builds on their proven excellence in many ways:
It provides school choice, virtually assuring critical numbers in each school to allow them to stay open.
Through school choice, there is a greater chance of all schools having a diversity of student and parent representation that enhances the learning for all.
The creation of a K-12 region insures that high performing students will transition into high performing secondary schools.
A regional education system affords opportunity for teachers to transfer to another school without loss of seniority or job security. This will motivate and encourage teachers to tackle new challenges that will benefit their professional development.
The regional model will have a stronger funding source and provide better-distributed tax relief to towns that are currently very highly taxed. Some of the savings from the funding model will go back into programs, but the projections are that some of the smaller towns will not have to shoulder the huge per pupil costs that they current have.
There will be greater opportunity for students in small schools to be part of a drama, music or arts program on a regional basis.
A transportation network will be established to link students to quality after school options not offered in their home communities.
World class school simply attract parents seeking quality of education and this will serve as a boom to our economy, an essential part of maintaining a tax base for quality schools.