By Steve Mayer
The start of a new school year comes with the excitement of a new beginning.
In preparation, the Robbinsville Board of Education spent a summer retreat session discussing the goals for the coming year. Building on five key goal areas, our schools will continue to gain forward momentum. The goals are setting a strong academic culture, improve facilities and security, sound fiscal practices, community engagement and character and culture. What follows is a bit about each goal.
Our key core value is to provide rigorous academic experiences for all learners by creating a setting in which each student is supported and can ultimately meet with success. In our community we strive to embrace the critical thinking and analysis demanded by the Common Core State Standards. We are leveraging teacher evaluation to align our academic programs and as a means to develop continuity and consistency for kids as they advance through our system.
This year, we will focus on the alignment and rigor of our math program, developing more robust instruction in world languages, and leveraging technology in the classroom.
Recently, the district participated in a study with the University of Pennsylvania that provided feedback about the Every Day Math program and how it best meets student needs. We intend to use the information garnered from this study to make modifications to the program that will support students throughout their years of math studies.
In technology, we are conducting a pilot program with Google Chromebooks. We have targeted classrooms throughout the district in which the Chromebooks will be utilized as an instructional tool. Although this year we are starting on a small scale (200 books in the hands of students), as we evaluate the instructional impact of technology in our classrooms, we plan to expand the program.
In world languages, we will assess our professional development needs and make program adjustments in an effort to offer a competitive and robust program for our students.
Each year, we strive to improve our facilities and create safe and appropriate school conditions. Our construction projects are yielding improved facilities with cleaner and brighter spaces. At Pond Road, we are enjoying a much improved cafeteria and beautiful clean hallways. At Sharon, we are looking forward to adding much needed space for our students. We are very excited that we are on track to house students in grades Pre K through 4 at Sharon and grades 5 through 8 at Pond next year. This key change will provide ample elbow room to learn and grow.
At the same time, we commit to prudent financial management and to making fiscal decisions that keep as much money as possible in our classrooms. As we strive to live within a 2-percent annual cap, we will continue to realize efficiencies and generate revenue so that academic programs and extra-curricular offerings remain available for our students. This December, as we take the Windsor school offline, we will evaluate the possibility of offering a tuition based Kindergarten program for neighboring communities as a revenue generating alternative to selling the building. Our hope is to leverage opportunities, such as our winning R.E.D. program, to build revenue that is derived from sources other than from property tax. We commit to full engagement with our community as we go through our budget process. We take this responsibility seriously.
One of our core goal areas and core values is to respond to the demands of our community in a collaborative and respectful fashion. It is vitally important to our health as a community that we communicate with and listen to our constituents. Community members may have already noticed we now use a tool called School Messenger to send alerts in real time. We now have the capacity to send text messages about a late bus or budget meeting in order to boost parent awareness. We invite community questions and input through email at info@robbinsville.k12.nj.us.
Ours is a school community where students have voice, school spirit, and respect for their classmates. Our efforts hinge on developing an environment in which each learner is valued in his or her own unique way as a contributor. To accomplish this objective we provide peer leadership programs where excellent role models provide examples of sound character and healthy decision making for others, and where each student feels safe, supported, inspired and engaged in school.
We look forward to a successful year working with your children and are eager to deliver on the promise of a school district that is a source of pride for our community.
Steve Mayer is superintendent of Robbinsville Schools.
