Upgrading curriculum

in the news

Maryville R-II Superintendent Becky Albrecht told the school board Tuesday night, that the district is looking into the possibility of new some math curriculum resources.

She said one of the district’s CSIP goals is to promote learning leadership character and collaboration. An action item, the district has to meet that goal is to adopt and implement a research-based math program aligned to the Missouri learning standards.

“We felt our scores have more room to improve on that topic,” she said.

Last year a committee of teachers from different buildings worked together on this topic and this year the committee has done some research on how to pick resources, the resources themselves and how other experts rank them in rigor, usability and teacher support.

“Basically, we’ve narrowed a list of resources that was pretty vast down to three,” Albrecht said. From there, the committee assembled and invited the K-eighth grade math teachers to a meeting where they were shown what the committee has looked at and what it is trying to accomplish.

“There are a lot of different directions we could go,” Albrecht said. “Some schools are using text-based resource. Some are using an online resource. Some are using open resources, meaning there’s not one primary material, but they’re going out and finding their own things and teaching toward the standards.”

She said the committee did decide to use a primary resource, but allow the teachers to use online or text-based.

“We felt that it gains us consistency in the elementary school where we have several teachers in the same grade. If they have one primary resource the same we can kind of guarantee, a little bit, that the kids have a consistent approach in what they’re learning.” Albrecht said. “We also felt that it evened the playing field for some of our experienced teachers and some of inexperienced teachers they’d have some support with each other there working out of the same book.”

She said those three different resources will be presented to the teachers on three Wednesdays in a row around 3:15 to about 4 p.m. at the middle school.

“All those teachers, K through eight, are invited to come and share and listen, ask questions,” Albrecht said.

She said some samples are available now through about the end of November to look at materials, maybe use them in their classrooms to test them.

Then on a professional development day on Dec. 11, all those teachers will meet again to discuss, get input on how they rank the materials and decide as a group which one the district will select.

“Then we’ll have a consistent series K through eight, which is something we don’t have right now,” Albrecht said. “We use different things at different grade levels.”

She said the goal of this will be to meet the new Missouri learning standards and tests coming out that the district will have a consistent approach and build on the skills and the language from grade to grade.

“Hopefully it will all work together as one unit not two or three grades at one thing and two or three at another, so that’s our hope,” she said. “We know that one resource won’t get it done. We may still have to supplement that resource, but hopefully not to the extent that we’re supplementing now.

Albrecht said the committee hopes to come back to the board in December to get approval to order the resources so they can be here over the summer for teachers to work with and then use in the 2018-2019 school year.

In other business:

• Albrecht told the board Amazon refunded the full purchase price and shipping of the glasses the district bought for eclipse viewing that were not guaranteed safe.
• The preliminary Annual Performance Report will be released to the district Friday, Oct. 20, and to the public Nov. 15.

The board approved the following in the consent agenda:

• The financial statement including the September 2017 balance of all funds at $12,136,254.19. The activity accounts had a closing balance, as of Sept. 30, of $689,142.82.
• The board also approved the renewal agreement for the services between ACES and the following school districts: Worth Count R-III, Stanberry R-II, South Holt R-I, Avenue City R-IX and Tarkio R-I.
• The board accepted from Wal-Mart a donation of a computer tablet to the district as part of the “Tablets for Teachers,” program.
• Tom and Melissa Middleswart of Maryville, donated property on Country Club Drive for use as a site for a future building trades project.

With regard to personnel:

• The board approved additions to the substitute teacher list and reviewed resignations from Virginia Neff, middle school special education teacher effective at the end of the 2017-2018 school year; Jodie Kurtz, ACES educational diagnostician, effective at the end of the school year; and Lisa McNair, elementary school paraprofessional, effective Oct. 21, 2017.
• Adam Switzer will be the 2017/2018 assistant baseball coach at the high school.
• Hannah Erspamer, was terminated as the 2017-2018 middle school teacher of the visually impaired.