SHERBURNE – With opening day upon us, the multi-year Sherburne-Earlville Central Schools building project is nearly complete. While the finishing touches are still in flux, Superintendent Gayle Hellert said students should find the middle/high school buildings fully functional by the end of September.
“There will be areas that will be useable and there will be areas that will need a plan B,” she said, “but they will be turned over to us through the month of September.”
The district’s pool was retiled over the summer and filled with water on Wednesday. Hellert thanked the Unadilla Valley Central School District for loaning its pool in August for the S-E Swim Team to begin practicing.
Last-minute touches are underway in the bandroom, and while students would most likely use the auditorium in the interim, Hellert said the bandroom, and a few other areas, may well be finished by opening day.
Teachers report today. Teacher training and strategic planning sessions continued through the summer with emphasis on the New York State Race To The Top initiatives. The faculty and administration developed a professional performance review plan as mandated by the state’s education department. The plan will appear on the school’s website (www.secsd.org) by Sept. 10.
The superintendent also directed parents to the NYS Department of Education website (www.nysed.gov) for updated information about the expanded Annual Profession Performance Review and common course standards.
Curriculum development will continue through the year with the goal to have the state’s common course standards “unpacked” and analyzed and new units of instruction created to correlate with them by September 2012, Hellert said.
Kindergarten and sixth grade orientations were held last week. The incoming freshman class attended orientation, too. Hellert anticipates 1,480 students for the school year, about the same as last year.