Opening Day in Canton

by Lynn K. McMullin

School opened with many excited students and only a few glitches. The three days of teacher inservice before school began were used to break out a new student information system, called Power School. This change was made necessary when Pearson dropped the SASI system that Canton had been using for years. Their new product, Power School, is internet based and will have features parents will appreciate.
Teachers also began working with a new Evaluation and Continuous Professional Growth Plan. In addition, we met to transition Special Education students from one grade to the next, to discuss bullying prevention and Title IX legalities, and at the high school, to study John Collins writing improvement strategies. We also began working with data teams and analyzing the summer's released test scores. (See CMT Scores and CAPT Scores articles in the scrolling gray box.)
We welcomed new staff (see our scrapbook of new faces under 'Featured Articles' below) and we celebrated with tremendous pride our preschool teacher Anne Lippincott as our 'Teacher of the Year.' During this celebration we learned the preschool was one of a few in the nation to receive a National Certification with scores of 100+ in seven of the 10 categories.
In short, it was a very strong and positive beginning to the 2009-2010 school year.