Public Relations- This group would be responsible for keeping other teachers and constituents in the district abreast of what is happening, writing articles for the newspaper or creating radio spots about what is planned for the building, updating folks about progress being made and developing a sense of excitement about the building, developing a plan for selecting a name for the facility. This group could also be involved in maintaining a blog or website about the 5-6 center and the 7-8 building. There probably needs to be members from all four grade levels on this committee. It will be necessary and important for us to include interested parents and community leaders who can provide valuable insight into what those outside the walls of the public school are thinking about the changes going on in the district.
Sub-Committee of PR: Orientation- There will be much excitement regarding the new building, both the 5th and 6th graders entering will be “NEW” to the building and it will necessitate we plan tours for these kids and opportunities for them to see the building and have parents involved. Also, community members will want a chance to “get-inside” and take a look as well. This task won’t be in place until much later but I wanted to include it as careful planning and preparation could make this a wonderful PR opportunity for the district. I suggest this group be formed after the first of the year or in late February.
Instruction- Perhaps the largest task of all will be the development of a “plan” for instruction. We’ll need to include “specialist” such as reading, music, art, physical ed., etc… on this committee with the end product being a schedule that will allow us to provide the instruction we want for our kids and the content that we wish to provide at all four grade levels. This may include some curriculum writing time, visitations to other schools deemed to be progressive, working with levels both above the eighth grade and below the fifth to provide clear articulation of content. Assessment of testing data may lead much of our discussion and as we massage and integrate Limelight into our daily activities there may be even more information available that will help us with our “plan.”
Steering Committee- This committee will be made up of at least one member from all of the other committees and will include any interested School Board Members and of course Central office Members. It will be important to “keep the various groups together” and the steering committee will serve that function. This group will also create or suggest any “sub-groups” that may become necessary or helpful to have in place.
Equipment and Supplies- Ordering the various furniture for the building and making sure that we are meeting the needs of our teachers and supplying the best items for our kids is this groups task. We can allow for some degree of individualism while maintaining a certain standard at the same time. This group will have to gather lots of data from the teachers who will be in the 5-6 building, assess furniture that is or may be available from the current middle school and decide what will be done at both buildings. There will certainly be some room for the movement of technology that is in the existing MS building and there may be a need to purchase some items for the MS to replace other items that will transfer to the 5-6 building and vise versa. The one campus concept is important to keep in mind, we don’t want to become territorial about equipment but rather decide what is best and most efficient so we can be good stewards of our tax dollars while providing the best possible equipment for our kids. This task for the most part will need to be concluded by February or early March as we’ll need to have orders placed and equipment delivered in time for the August opening.
Curriculum- This group will work closely with Darin Kelberlau and members from the Instruction group, however, their task will be a bit different in that we need to examine our content offering to meet the needs of all of our learners. We’ve put much effort into differentiation at all grade levels and in each of our classrooms there should be interventions that allow for all kids to learn the content. There are times when students could benefit from attending classes in subject matter that is at a higher level of delivery. Simply said, there are 7th graders that can complete and do well in 8th grade curriculum or 5th graders that need the challenge of higher level content; we have the opportunity to rethink clear grade or age guidelines and start looking more at developmental readiness. There are many schools where seventh and eighth grade kids are earning high school credit. Our Board of Ed. Has approved, for instance, the granting of high school credit for Algebra-1 for 8th graders enrolled in “advance math” at the middle school; a class that mirrors Alg. 1 at the high school. Although we don’t have other curriculum areas approved at this time I can foresee a time when kids leave the 7-8 building with ten or even twenty high school credits. This may not be something that is in place in 2012-13 or perhaps not even by 2015-16 but I think it is time to begin the discussion and the possible movement toward this end as it would allow for more rigorous content offerings at the high school level and help our kids to start earning college credit in many of their high school classes in the future.
