|
Developing the academic talents of our students is paramount to their academic success. It is incumbent upon our administrators, teachers, staff, parents, and the community to work together as a team to provide our students with a quality education and develop their academic talents to their fullest. As we reflect on this year, we are proud of the academic talent and success of our students; we are boastful about the efforts of our teachers, school support staff and district office staff efforts to develop our students’ academic talent; and, we are thankful for the partnership and continued support of our parents and the community. This school year, our parents and the community acted boldly to let the world know that they support the academic talent of our students by passing a 15% maintenance and operations budget override election on March 9th.
Even though we passed the override, this has been an economically challenging school year for our students, their families, teachers, support staff, and our community. We experienced significant cuts to our budget. In spite of these challenges and cuts, teachers and staff - working together with parents and the community - focused on providing our students with the opportunity to develop their academic aptitude and provided quality instruction. This school year, working together, we implemented an improved professional development plan. The improved plan included an extended school day for 10 additional minutes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. In turn, our school dismissed students 90 minutes early on Thursdays so that staff could devote these 90 minutes to professional development. During our professional development time, we created and are sustaining a collaborative culture for improved performance through PLC’s (Professional Learning Communities). There is an articled featured on page 2 of the newsletter about building a collaborative culture to improve student learning. We are learning to do more with less in order to promote the academic abilities of our students. Also, our teachers will be attending professional development academies during the summer to improve their instruction in: language development and acquisition, language arts, vocabulary, math, academic assessment, and classroom technology.
In addition to budget cuts across the board, the State notified our District that the State discontinued funding for all-day kindergarten. Some districts may continue all-day kindergarten programs, but many will be forced to increase class sizes in the first through eighth grades. At the Isaac District, we are committed to ensuring that our kindergarten and first through eighth grades students are provided with every opportunity to develop their academic gifts. Our plan is to continue working harder and smarter with diminishing financial resources. The kindergarten program will be supported for half-day with our continued focus on improving instruction. Our first through eighth grade classrooms will be smaller (teacher-to-student ratio) compared to many neighboring districts, allowing our staff to do a better job of meeting the academic needs of our students. Research indicates that smaller class size (teacher-to-student ratio) for our demographic population is crucial to increase student achievement. Differentiating instruction and giving students individual attention is the key component to their educational success.
Another important item to mention is that parents are contacting our schools to express concerns about the passing of a new law called SB1070. It is important to remember that our District will provide our students with a quality education regardless of citizenship or immigrant status. Please be assured our students are safe while riding school buses to and from school and they are also safe attending our schools. The United State Supreme Court has decided that schools are prohibited from enforcing immigration laws. Our Districts cannot ask if children are documented and there will not be any disruption in our schools by outside officials. Currently, several lawsuits against SB 1070 have been filed in Federal court, which asks the court to declare SB1070 unconstitutional and prevent the State from enforcing the law. Several legal experts believe the Federal courts will declare the law unconstitutional.
As we continue to face many challenges next year, always know that our teachers and staff, in partnership with our parents and the community, will work together as a team to provide our students with a quality education and develop their academic talents to their fullest. Have a great summer and we look forward to serving the educational needs of our students’ next school year.
|
Home
