“Think, Learn and Care” was the basis of Rochester Memorial School’s presentation of its School Improvement Plan to the Rochester School Committee at its December 14 public meeting.
Old Rochester Regional Superintendent of Schools Mike Nelson reviewed the process, noting that all four districts were asked to bring forward a one-year, school-improvement plan with the intention that all ORR members will go back to two-year plans in the coming years.
Elementary-school principals collaborated to achieve commonalities in their school-improvement plans. Mission, vision and core values are already in ORR-school policy or core to the district’s historic mission.
Strategic objectives common to all six district schools are broken down into items related to Teaching and Learning, Support Systems, Climate and Culture and Safe Schools.
From there, initiatives for each year-one objective will be categorized according to who’s responsible to see it through, listed and detailed by level-based goals, action steps and anticipated outcomes/evidence. The strategic plan for the district sets the stage for school-improvement plans, said Nelson.
“A lot of hard work has gone into this, and the School Improvement Plan has some elements for local, meaning Rochester, but also as we work to align with the other two school districts as Mr. Nelson was saying,” said Dr. Shari Fedorowicz, ORR’s assistant superintendent of Teaching and Learning.
Nelson was careful to point out that not all strategic objectives start out in Year 1 of the plan; therefore, they are labeled differently if, for instance, they are introduced in the second year of the plan.
Rochester Memorial School Principal Heidi Letendre thanked the members of the School Council that meets twice per month and was instrumental in putting together the RMS School Improvement Plan.
ORR’s literacy program is core to the strategy, and all initiatives are tied into district-wide systems and data points, according to Letendre, who is continuing the work of the former Medeiros Minute (named after former principal Derek Medeiros) with a new Monday Minute.
Administration, faculty and staff are using the PowerSchool program to consistently track student incidents.
Regarding the Safe Schools initiative, district administrators and local principals are leading training on physical and cyber-safety training for best practices augmented by drills and training for faculty and staff with local fire and police.
Letendre joined Nelson, Facilities Director Gene Jones and the RMS head custodian for a walk-through of the campus to identify needs.
“Everyone’s working really hard, and we have a lot of things happening,” said Letendre.
In summarizing the School Improvement Plan, Nelson identified literacy as the priority.
“It has to be at this point,” he said. “The majority of our time and our resources and all our professional-development opportunities are all being dedicated to making sure that our literacy program in Year One is being launched to the best of our abilities and then making sure that our data-collection processes are obviously best practices.”
Nelson acknowledged that in order to establish this priority, other initiatives have been necessarily deprioritized. Also acknowledging that the needs of children have changed significantly over the past few years, Nelson said the evaluation of support systems including those for special education are critical.
Committee Chairperson Sharon Hartley thanked the administration for its effort.
“You can’t meet a goal unless you have a goal; if you know the goal and everybody’s doing it and talking about it all the time, making this important is really a big deal, and making it come alive is the biggest deal,” she said. “Literacy, from my perspective, it’s thrilling, actually, to be where we are. … And the piece that also popped out for me … having the students feel like they’re part of the school and contribute to the work of the school and the joy and the success of the school,” led Hartley to a question she had about student ambassadors.
Letendre explained that the ambassadors combine their efforts with social workers Jimmy Pacheco and Sharon Cruz, who meet bimonthly with the students to plan school events.
“The students are very excited,” said Letendre, who estimated 20 students in the program.
Nelson said ORR District has long been committed to social-emotional learning and the responsive classroom model. He indicated that he would like to see the responsive classroom continue into the high school.
“To me, this is a living, breathing document that we are working on … so everything in here we’re working on to a certain degree, some things more than others,” said Letendre, reminding the committee that this is a Year 1 School Improvement Plan only.
Committee member Kate Duggan was enthused about the weekly update feature in the school newsletter and thanked all involved in getting that letter out on a consistent day and time.
The committee voted unanimously to accept the plan.
In her Chairperson’s Report, Hartley was thrilled to pass along two experiences of happening upon conversations out in the community positively recognizing the work of the school district.
In the administration report, Nelson noted the student contributions to the Thanksgiving Seniors Dinner and also holiday shows in the schools.
The committee voted to approve the acceptance of Brockton and the Whitman-Hanson Regional school districts as new READS Collaborative member districts effective July 1.
The committee voted to accept the following book donations from RMS Parent Teacher Organization: “Fearless Feline: 30 True Tales of Courageous Cats” by Kimberlie Hamilton; “Witch & Wombat” by Ashley Belote, “Boop!” by Bea Birdsong; “Tumble” by Adriana Hernandez Bergstrom; “Our Day of the Dead Celebration” by Anan Aranda; “Duck on a Tractor” by David Shannon; “Hickory Dickory Dock (Pete the Cat)” by James & Kimberly Dean; “The Last Kids on Earth” and “The Forbidden Fortress (Last Kids on Earth, Book 8)” by Max Brallier; “The Cursed Moon” by Angela Cervantes; “Odder” by Katherine Applegate; “I Survived the Wellington Avalanche, 1910” by Lauren Tarshis; “The Official Harry Potter Baking Book” by Joanna Farrow; “Big Book of Who – Basketball” Sports Illustrated Kids; “The MLB Encyclopedia” by Brendan Flynn; “World’s Most Extreme Animals” by Karen McGhee; “The History Book (Our World in Pictures)” by DK Publishing Smithsonian; “All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team” by Christina Soontornvat; “The Bad Guys Series Books 6-10: Alien vs Bad Guys (Book 6), Do-You-Think-He-Saurus?! (Book 7), Superbad (Book 8), The Big Bad Wolf (Book 9), and The Baddest Day Ever (Book 10)” by Aaron Blabey; “What Do We Know About Crop Circles?” by Ben Hubbard; “What Do We Know About Loch Ness Monster?” by Steve Kotre; “What Do We Know About Bigfoot?” By Steve Kotre; “What Do We Know About Atlantis? By Emma Carlson Berne, Branches: Press Start! Book series by Thomas Flintham (Game Over Super Rabbit Boy! Book 1, Super Rabbit Boy Powers Up! Book 2, Super Rabbit Racers! Book 3, Super Rabbit Boy vs Super Rabbit Boss! Book 4 and Super Rabbit Boy Blasts Off! Book 5),” “I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871” by Lauren Tarshis; “I Survived the American Revolution, 1776” by Lauren Tarshis; “Simon and the Better Bone” by Corey R. Tabor; “The Umbrella” by Beth Ferry; and “Dog Man – Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea” by Dav Pilkey.
In personnel news, Kaitlyn Laprise began her maternity leave, and Pedro Silva has joined RMS as a long-term substitute in her spot.
The next meeting of the Rochester School Committee is scheduled for Thursday, January 25, at 6:30 pm at Rochester Memorial School, and the next meeting of the Joint School Committee is scheduled for Thursday, January 18, at 6:30 pm at ORR Junior High School media room.
Rochester School Committee
By Mick Colageo