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Curriculum Update
January Greetings from the Office of Curriculum & Instruction!
Most recently, I made a presentation to our Board of Education and provided them with an update about the teaching and learning process in Springfield Local Schools. Specifically, I shared information about the focus on building teacher collaboration this year and next. At each of our schools, K-12 teachers are meeting on a regular basis to work together and build meaningful discussions about student progress and how learning can be tailored to meet each child’s individual needs. The process is time-intensive…Educators need this time to review recent assessment results, analyze student needs, and then design learning that will specifically and most effectively meet those needs. We have been using our Delayed Starts each month to provide this extra professional learning time for all of our teachers. The beneficiaries will be our students! Students who have teachers that collaborate perform at higher levels of achievement versus students whose teachers do not work together.
Collaboration for educators (and for everyone!) taps into the concept of synergy. Synergy is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy paves the path for better and brighter ideas. Ideas that perhaps would have never been given thought if certain persons had not gotten together to think and brainstorm and share.
In Springfield Local Schools we want to take advantage of the great results synergy can bring to our classrooms, and ultimately our students and their learning success. Thank you for the continued support of your student(s) and our academic programming!
As a reminder, the new Ohio Learning Standards for all four core subjects, English Language Arts, Mathematics, Sciences, and Social Studies, will be tested with Next Generation Assessments which are replacing our traditional OAA’s this year. PARCC has created the online assessments that students will be taking in grades 3 – 8 in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Ohio will also provide Next Generation online assessments for Sciences and Social Studies. You can learn more about PARCC and Next Generation Assessments here at PARCC Online. You can even take practice tests with your child. The left hand banner lists “Practice Tests” (PARCC Test Nav) where you can find practice tests for each grade level tested in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Simply click on the blue grade level button to be taken to the practice test items. For Science and Social Studies Assessments, you can access practice test items here at Ohio Dept of Education.
Here to serve you, our students, and learning community,
Jolene D Reinhart
Springfield Local Schools Teacher Leaders’ Academy 2014 – 2016! Collaboration at its finest!
