Board Members:
Thank you all for your hard work on Wednesday night! We were able to accomplish a great deal on behalf of the district, and the discussion that you had is a testament to the seriousness with which you govern! I am incredibly blessed to work with you!
The theme of the week, or at least these last two days has been: cold! I suppose you could say I caved on Friday, but I find things go much smoother for everyone when decisions are made early without leaving people wondering. It was certainly cold this morning.
This week I was able to submit a couple of grants that will help us in the implementation of a computer science program next year. A new state law requires school districts to begin offering a computer science course at grades 9-12 beginning next year, and following that year to begin offering it at lower grades. Unfortunately the state did not provide an appropriation so we are left to competitive grants for implementation. In other instruction news, I heard an initial proposal regarding a new guided reading curriculum that we are looking to implement next year. I provided some feedback and input, so it will probably be a bit before it comes to the board for final approval.
A lot of bills have been filed in the legislature, with today marking the final day that individual legislators can file their 'constituent' bills. If you look through these bills, many of them are nonsensical and, arguably, are filed merely to raise an eyebrow or grab a headline. Needless to say most won't see the light of day. If time and space permits, we may explore those simply as an opportunity to shake our heads, but I will instead focus on those which actually have some traction and are moving through the process. There are a number of those as well, but I'll just bring up a couple that, at least I find interesting:
SF 89 would require teaching cursive writing in lower elementary grades with a goal of proficiency by the end of third grade was scheduled for a subcommittee on Wednesday, but the meeting was canceled. Its status is still up in the air.
HSB 520 takes aim at Praxis. The bill strikes the ability of an institution to administer a pre-professional skills test to admission candidates and the corresponding reporting requirements related to that test. The bill also strikes an institution’s option of administering subject assessments designed by a nationally recognized testing service that measure pedagogy and knowledge prior to a student’s completion of the practitioner preparation program, therefore requiring the institution to instead administer a valid and reliable subject-area-specific, performance-based assessment for preservice teacher candidates. The bill had a subcommittee on Wednesday afternoon.
Have a wonderful weekend! Sounds like we have a little snow coming tomorrow, the good news being it won't interrupt our school day. I'll be at UNI on Saturday afternoon teaching a seminar class on collective bargaining!
Finally, I hope you are able to join us on Wednesday at 5:00 for our first high school task force meeting!
Dr. Tony Voss, Superintendent
Additional settings for Safari Browser.
