OXFORD – High academic achievement, quicker response to academic interventions and collaborative professional development will continue to be priorities as the Oxford Academy and Central School district looks ahead at the upcoming school year.
According to Superintendent Randall Squier, these goals do not represent a shift in focus for the district, but rather a continued emphasis on the guiding principles which have been driving decision making for the last few years.
“It’s the same work we’ve been doing, we just want to be better at it,” Squier explained.
The district has been using four questions to guide their actions. Those questions, according to Squier, are what does the district want students to learn, how does the district know they’ve learned, what does the district do if they haven’t learned and what does the district do if they have learned.
The first questions is answered, at least in part, by standards set by New York State, but also through essential outcomes set by teachers at each grade level.
The second, Oxford has been working to answer through the use of assessments and benchmarking, a process which Squier said he and his administrative team will continue to refine in the coming school year.
They will also work, he explained, to increase the speed and efficiency with which they provide assistance and intervention services to students who have been identified as not meeting those learning standards. And in answering the fourth question, they will strive to provide enrichment opportunities to keep students who have learned the core material engaged and challenged.
In an effort to “get better at answering” these questions, new programs will be initiated in each of the schools this year.
In the Primary School, according to building Principal Tim McDonald, that includes the addition of an extra after-school reading period for students who are struggling to meet their literacy goals. Transportation will be provided via the late bus run for those students to make it easier on parents.
“Within reason, we’ll provide whatever we need to help our students and their parents,” said McDonald, citing the success of interventions with students at the Kindergarten and first grade level last year.
Squier has also taken the initiative to meet one on one with parents of incoming Kindergarten students. These meetings, some of which have taken place in his office and others at the students’ homes, have given the parents a chance to ask questions and share their hopes and aspirations for their child, the superintendent explained. It is an also an opportunity to build relationships between residents and the district.
At the Middle School, the building’s administrators and faculty members are intent on creating a “no fail zone” with the Homework Assistance and Tutorial Classwork Help (HATCH) program, which has been modeled after a program already in place in the Walton Middle School.
Students who haven’t done their homework will be sent to complete the work in HATCH, which will be manned by a licensed teaching assistant during lunch, recess and study halls.
According to Middle School Principal Kathleen Hansen, because the consequences are immediate, students won’t be able to skate by or slack off. They’ll also be able to elect to make use of the program if they need help with classwork or school as well.
“We’re not going to allow these kids to fail,” reported Squier, who explained that the school plans to measure the impact the program has on student achievement and grades.
The Middle School will also be offering a new 10-week course to eighth graders focusing on research projects. The course is a collaboration between the building’s media center and eighth grade English Teacher Maggie Dorsey, who approached Hansen with the idea after realizing that her students were struggling with researching and writing a term paper.
Writing skills will also be a focus at the High School, according to Principal Christine Pierce, who reported that a freshman computer course has been revamped into more of a writing lab. The course will continue to teach computer literacy, explained Squier, but will now feature a stronger writing component as well.
There will also be an emphasis is engaging high school students and their parents in the school’s activities. Pierce explained that the district’s resource officer, New York State Trooper Richard Siefert, would be presenting a program about bullying shortly after the start of the school year. Using funding from the Dispute Resolution Center, the peer mediation program will also be revived, after being defunct for the last 6 or 7 years, she said.
According to Pierce, the school shared decision making team is exploring ways of “getting parents of high school students into the school and involved.” They are currently looking at different topics for a series of parent topics they wish to hold throughout the school year.
Another way in which the district hopes to engage the community this year is through two district-wide taskforces, Squier reported. The first, will look at the current booster club structure with an eye at making the process more efficient and more collaborative. The second will be focused on student participation in extracurricular, cocurricular and athletic activities.
Oxford is also looking to forge a collaborative relationship with Unadilla Valley.
“The collaboration model we hope to nurture with U-V and Oxford began as a conversation between myself and Bob Mackey last year,” Squier explained. “Our districts are similar in demographics and enrollment, so our challenges would be similar.”
According to the Oxford administrator, both he and the Unadilla Valley superintendent believe in the idea of the school as a professional learning communty, whereby high levels of student achievement are gained through collaborate learning, sharing of expertise and best practices, a common “language” and a data-driven process.
Over the summer, principals from both districts met several times, as did each school’s CDEP team. During those meetings, Squier said, they shared their strategic goals. They plan to continue the cooperation throughout the school year, and expanding them to bring the faculties of both districts together for a conference day on October 9. The two districts are also investigating ways of using video conferencing technology to meet “face to face” at other times during the year.
“The important message with all this is that teachers can and are effective working alone, but we can find even better answers and ways of doing things by working together,” he explained. “In the end this will benefit kids; which is our real purpose for being here.”