Thinking about improvements

Now that we have a little time it would be good to think about improvements for the coming school year. First I want to outline some of the biggies. Most of these will need community financial support.

Continuing improvement of instruction. We have some of the finest teachers, support staff and administrators around, but that doesn't mean we can't improve. A building instructional coach would be extremely helpful. This person would work with our entire staff and students in areas of improved instruction. Sometimes it is more than a single class or an individual teacher. It could coordination of services or communication or more directed and targeted interventions.

The creation of a writing lab and a math lab. These could be in operation a specific numbers of days per week. They could be both before and after school depending on available funding. These would be modeled after the college writing and math labs. They would be staffed by a teacher and several "expert" students as assistants. A student seeking help or guidance or more information would stop in, the problem would be identified and the student would be guided through the problem. The assistants could be trained in a cognitive coaching model to support them as they worked with other students.

A new electronic sign for the front yard. Communication continues to be a major problem in a big active school. A LED sign could be changed frequently, seen at all hours and improve getting the message out to all. Not only will that take money it will require a permit with support from neighbors.

Continuing efforts to deal with textbooks. One way to meet the forever demand is to eliminate textbooks and go to digital devises that would replace textbooks. Think of the cost of graphing calculators, six periods of textbooks and a personal laptop. It seems that we should be able to do better and more efficiently. Textbooks are out of date at the time of printing. Lost and damaged textbooks are a repeating expense. Not exactly sure what the answers might be but I know it will take funding and support and training. We are developing a technology committee to start work identifying some of the issues. If you interested in working with this committee, let me know.

More personal classrooms remain an issue. Reducing the size of the number of students enrolled in a class continues to be a discussion. First it is expensive. Second there is a debate as to what is the best number. Until the district funding formula changes, the class size will remain a discussion point at SW. However, we know that if we could add one or two more sections in each of the core classes, it would allow for more personal attention. That will require community funding to enable SW to put in place more sections.

Financial support for student activities. There are music boosters and friends of the theater but there needs to a significant increase in the financial support for student activities. these are important to students and maintain their active involvement in the school and community. No activity, even sports, do not meet budget through ticket sales alone. It takes other financial means to support a large program. I wish we could dip into the television contracts and those big dollars but that is not going to happen soon.

This a good starting point. What are your ideas or reactions to these?