Going Green

by Lynn K. McMullin

This week, two separate events happened that together became the topic of this week’s blog. The first was working with Beth Kandrysawtz, the Board Chair, on a list of changes the district has made to save money. The second was a conversation with the HS Science Department Chair, John Duffy, who has found a solar-powered battery charger that the science and math departments could use to recharge the batteries for graphing calculators and science probes. Batteries cost each department hundreds of dollars a year, but just as important, is the fact that battery disposal is not eco-friendly. In combination, these two discussions led to blogging about the steps the district is taking to become “greener.”

Did you know the light switches in most classrooms and offices have motion sensors that turn the lights off if no one is moving in the room?  That’s why if you’re meeting at the circular table in Superintendent Case’s office, the lights will go out, and someone need to hop-up and wave at the light switch.  In a similar effort, the computers have software installed which “puts them to sleep” after 10 minutes of inactivity and “powers them down” at the end of the school day.

An audit of the district’s lighting energy use three years ago resulted in fixture reconfigurations and element replacement. The changes are projected to save $18,400 over three years, $60,346 over five years, and $309,000 over 15 years.  But there is a saving of energy, as well.  The hot water heaters have been replaced at the High School/Middle School, saving natural gas; but more can be done.  Our new Business Manager, Ed Hoyt, is planning to begin audits of other energy use, as well.  

Did you know the outdoor picnic furniture selected by the Board of Ed’s Student Reps is made of recycled plastics?  The same recycled consciousness will go into the purchase of the benches and storage shed in CBPS’s new “Science Inquiry Center” being planned in the school’s courtyard.  That whole project has a “green” theme from the solar lights and solar-powered vents on the greenhouse to the composting bin and the absence of trash cans, teaching students to take back out what they bring in.

Next year, the schools will begin school-based energy conservation plans, looking at the details of their building’s energy use, such as open windows and doors during the winter, or lights left burning in empty classrooms, or the use of refrigerators and appliances – in other words asking the same kinds of energy conservation questions at school that we’re all asking in our own homes.  The administrators at each building will begin a Green Committee with students as part of the membership.   A town-wide committee is also growing, and the schools will join in those community efforts as well.  

Currently, all of the schools have some level of recycling paper, cardboard, and plastics.  Those programs will become more formalized.  Also, on the radar screen for the future is the idea of adding solar heat panels to the High School/Middle School when that roof is replaced.

As Kermit said, “It’s not easy being green;” so if you have additional “greening” or energy-saving ideas, please share them with us.

What Our Kindergarten Data Tells Us

by Lynn K. McMullin

       Over the past few years, a planned focus on reading instruction at Cherry Brook Primary School has yielded exciting and rewarding confirmation that we are on the right path.   The 2009 CMT, our DRA2 data, and our in-house assessments have documented this success.  From the beginning, the instructional changes in reading included our youngest students, as Columbia Reader's Workshop, leveled-books, sight-word lists, DIBELS, and the DRA2 found their way into our Kindergarten classrooms.  The intention of this week's blog is to share with you an overview of that success story. There is additional information and resources for reading at the bottom of the CBPS website and in their monthly newsletters.

What is DIBELS?
       Several years ago, Canton began using DIBELS, a reading assessment focused on early intervention. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, and it is a research-based assessment program with years of strong data support.  Basically, there is a series of one-minute assessments that follow the same continuum as a child's reading development.  The assessments progress from recognizing beginning letter sounds, naming the letters of the alphabet, segmenting the different sounds in a word, rhyming, through reading nonsense words such as MIP or CACK.   As the child learns to read, the DIBELS assessments also include fluently reading texts aloud and retelling what you’ve read.  There are five main categories of assessment: phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency in reading text, vocabulary, and comprehension.
       Using DIBELS, Cherry Brook’s well-trained tutors can now spot gaps in students’ emergent reading skills and immediately target specific interventions to address those gaps.  Rather than waiting for Grade 3 CMT results, which might show general difficulties with comprehension and fluency, DIBELS provides information right when it is needed, in grades K, 1, 2,  and 3.

Turning the Pyramid of Support on its Head!
       Thus, the focus on immediate remediation changed our model of support.  Four years ago, our largest group of tutored remedial students was in the 3rd grade, and there was no reading assessment done in the kindergarten program.  Letter recognition and sounds, for example, were introduced beginning in January of the Kindergarten year.   As a result, no kindergarteners received tutor support and only about 20 students received tutoring in Grade 1. 
       Over the past four years, we have changed the pattern of both instruction and support.  Letter recognition and sounds are taught beginning in September; kindergarteners have a sight word list; and they, too, are reading "just right" books in the Columbia workshop model. We have also successfully tipped the pyramid of support over with our largest group of tutored students now in kindergarten and the smallest group in Grade 3. That is success!

        To illustrate what it 'looks' like, the first triangle below represents what we had -- a little support in the early grades and a great deal of support in Grade 3 when it was clear to teachers that some students were struggling with their reading.  The second triangle represents what we have achieved -- a great deal of support for reading in Kindergarten and with our emerging readers.  There is less support in Grade 3 because more students are meeting the expected reading goals.

       A more specific look at the actual support data is pictured below.  As you can see, we started the DIBELS in 2005-2006.   In addition, the teachers at every grade level have spent the past four years collaborating with Columbia Reader's Workshop.  They attended full-day Columbia workshops for three days in August for several years and regularly worked with Columbia trainers in their classroom.  They have met collaboratively in their grade-level teams to write mini-lessons and discuss student data.  They have worked together on the additional components of literacy, such as word work, guided reading, interactive read-alouds, and vocabulary and have fully developed their classroom libraries of "just-right" leveled books.  These are just a few of the many program and instructional changes that have suported reading. 

But, Are Kindergarteners Ready to Read?

       Absolutely! And we have the data to prove it!

       Two years ago the Connecticut State Department of Education changed the expectations for kindergarten reading. The new standard became DRA2 Level 4. In addition, the new DRA2 included a retelling and comprehension question. Prior to that, the expectation had been Level 3 with no comprehension question. Some people asked if the kindergarteners, particularly those in a half-day program such as Cherry Brook's, were prepared to meet a Level 4 expectation by May.

       A readiness assessment which the kindergarten teachers complete in October for each of their students gives us the information we needed. The results, which I'll summarize here, show our students are more than ready. To determine a district's kindergarten readiness, the students are rated in six categories at three performance levels -- from Level 1 (lowest) to Level 3 (highest). As you can see from the Level 3 scores below, Canton's kindergarteners are well above average for the State in terms of their kindergarten readiness. I've put the state results in parentheses.

• 
  
  Language Skills   -- 56% at Level 3  (37%)
• Literacy Skills  -- 66% at Level 3  (35%)
• Numercy Skills  -- 70% at Level 3 (38%)
• Physical/Motor Skills  -- 83% at Level 3 (47%)
• Creative/Aesthetic Skills  -- 81% at Level 3 (47%)
• Personal/Social Skills  -- 65% at Level 3  (41%)

For more information about the DRA, click here.

For more information about Kindergarten readiness, click here. 

2010-2011 Budget Enhancements

by Lynn K. McMullin

Some people call it “doing more with less;” but whether you accept that phrase or not, next year’s budget does have some enhancements to the educational program despite the bleak 0% increase. We are planning on doing a few things differently … and better!

We’re adding three new “Experientials” to the Middle School curriculum

What we’re doing and why!
First, there are two new technology-based mini-courses called “Experientials” in the works: one will be about the responsible use of electronic communication and the other about 21st century problem-solving and challenges. Principal Joe Scheideler and the Middle School Quality Council had been wrestling with the question of how best to help adolescents become responsible users of electronic communications and the Internet. Topics for these two 30-day Experientials might include the S.M.A.R.T. curriculum: 1. Safety and security on-line; 2. Manners, cyberbullying, and ethics; 3. Authentic learning and creativity; 4. Research and information fluency; and 5. Twenty-first century challenges.

A third Experiential at the Middle School is also under development: “The Science of Healthy Living,” taught by the Hybrid team's science teacher, but in the culinary arts room.  We had previously added the “Super-Size Me” curriculum to science.  This new mini-course would build on that program, adding the science of nutrition as well as hand-ons experience with healthy alternatives to unhealthy food choices.

How we’re doing it!
Mr. Scheideler creatively designed a schedule in which each of the teachers on Team Hybrid will be able to teach four courses in their content area and an additional Experiential 30-day course. Students currently take six Experientials each year. This idea means that two of the staff members currently teaching Experientials can be reallocated to the high school saving the district a little money in what we call FTE (full-time equivalency).  An additional amount of money will be saved when one of the Team Hybrid teachers takes on the existing Drama Experiential.
A lot of specific details and the actual curriculum still need to be worked out, of course, but you get the gist.

We’re expanding the ACT Program to Cherry Brook

What we’re doing and why!
Next year, we’re expanding the successful ACT Program down to Cherry Brook Primary School and putting it in the capable hands of the Library Media Specialist, the Technology Integration Specialist, and the Math Science Curriculum Coordinator.  Students will soon be able to complete content and skill enriching activities in a wide variety of interest areas.

How we’re doing it!
Again, the idea is still new to us, but next week we’ll begin our planning meetings and discuss specifically how this program will roll out to students. We do know that one of the tools will be an internet-based program called Odysseyware. With Odysseyware, students will have their own folders and the teacher can 'drag and drop' specially chosen activities into the folders. Then, anywhere there is access to a computer – in the classroom, the school library, or at home -- the student can open his or her personal folder and work on these enrichment activities.

The teacher has several options including selecting Odysseyware’s enrichment content based on a topic of interest or a higher skill level (as in math). Or, the teacher can create and upload in-house developed activities that align with CBPS’s curriculum and then drag and drop these activities to students.  Odysseyware also tracks progress.

Students, of course, will still need the individualized attention of the ACT teachers, and that is one of the key components of this idea that we need to talk about in depth and ultimately schedule.

We’re adding technology integration support to CHS/CMS

What we're doing and why!
We need to creatively assign technology integration support to the Middle School and High School. This is curriculum-based support, which is a much different role than our technology specialists who provide equipment, installations, repairs, infrastructure, network monitoring, back-up, and database services.

We know that teachers have a very difficult time integrating new technologies into their classrooms without some instructional support. The first few times a new strategy is attempted, it is essential that a technology integration specialist who knows the equipment well is available to assist both the students and the teacher. This is how we "grow" our teachers' capacity for change. Let’s say a high school teacher wants to try a new lesson with the white board, LCD, and student responders, but upon start-up of that lesson, four of the student responders simply don’t ‘respond’?  Does the teacher stop the lesson and try to troubleshoot the equipment?  Or… move on in the lesson without the participation of the four students? I think the potential for technology failure and the need to troubleshoot, without the time or expertise to troubleshoot, is the number one fear teachers have about using technology in front of their students. They know that technology integration done well looks seamless. 

In addition, teachers need ideas for how a particular technology tool could improve the content of their lesson and their method of instruction. They need ideas for technology-based assessments that challenge students’ problem-solving skills as well as display their content knowledge. And, they need training in how the technology tools work. That’s the role of a Tech Integration Specialist, and literally, we need one at every building. But that was a pipe-dream early on in the budget cycle for the past two years; it’s simply not a reality in today’s economy.

How we’re doing it?
We don’t know yet, but the Administrative team and I will resolve this question over the next month; and recognizing upfront that sharing a technology intergration specialist won’t be perfect, we’ll at least take an important step in the right direction. Technology instruction and assessment are a key component of the 21st century skills our graduates will need in college and the workplace.

BOE’s 2010-2011 Budget

by Lynn K. McMullin

The Board of Education met last evening at the Community Center to adopt its 2010-2011 Budget. This is the budget they will now present to the Board of Finance on paper March 8th and in a presentation on April 5th. The opportunity to address the Board of Finance comes at its April 7th Public Budget Hearing.

The meeting was attended by about 30 people; about a third of the attendees addressed the Board with comments. Each person who spoke acknowledged the difficult financial times, but also asked the Board to bring forward the Superintendent’s 1.94% budget without further reductions. Concern for the future of the Canton Schools was a common theme.

Mr. Case and the Board Chair Beth Kandrysawtz thanked all of the attendees for coming and expressed their appreciation for those who spoke. They both reiterated what everyone was, and is, thinking and saying: “This is an extremely difficult budget.”

Next, as Chair of the Board of Education’s Finance Committee, Carlene Rhea outlined additional cost savings and reductions in the budget. Prior to last night’s meeting, the Board’s Finance Sub-Committee had met seven times to examine every line item of Superintendent Case’s proposed budget. They had discussed options, made suggestions, and considered the educational impact of reductions in the various lines. There is always a great deal of give and take in the ongoing communications between the Superintendent and the Board.

At the end of last night's meeting, the proposed final budget number was fixed at a 0% increase or $22,283,809. The Board of Education had already asked the Superintendent for an additional $432,912 in reductions to his proposed budget to arrive at that 0% increase over last year’s spending. With teachers’ contractual salaries, employee benefits, Special Education costs, and utilities relatively fixed, there were not a lot of places to go for reductions.

Key reductions will now come in these areas:
Eliminate ½ library media specialist position at CIS
Eliminate ½ custodian position through attrition
Eliminate the Director of Physical Plant position
Eliminate 4 paraprofessional positions

Reduce workman’s compensation
Reduce transportation fuel
Reduce property liability insurance
Reduce utilities
Reduce by two the number of workdays for all paraprofessionals and tutors
Reduce purchases of new technology equipment
Reduce classroom teachers at CMS/CHS through reallocation of staff to teach “experientials” (I’ll provide more detailed information about this staff reallocation in next week’s blog)
Reduce professional development Reduce stipends for timekeepers and officials, Esteem, and athletics at CHS/CMS
Reduce secretarial support

A two-day furlough concession from custodians and non-union staff
Concessions from the secretarial union and administrative union are pending (or an additional reduction)

Please use the comments space below to ask any questions and I will do my best to provide answers.