Small Town News

Change on agenda at first ML board meet

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School hoard discusses class time changes, new scoreboards, policy updates

Last Tuesday, Sept. 22, Medical Lake's school board heard how teachers in the district's elementary schools are utilizing extra time created by a later start classroom day.

Hallett's day now runs from 8:50 a.m. to 2:50 p.m., Michael Anderson is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Medical Lake Elementary has class from 8:40 a.m. to 2:40 p.m., a start time difference at each school of about 20 minutes.

"It's up to individual groups (how to use the time) but the whole idea is to have a chance to plan strategies or work with individual kids who might need extra attention," Medical Lake Superintendent Pam Veltri said.

Michael Anderson principal Mandi Poindexter said teachers at her school are given from a half hour to 75 minutes before or after class, depending on grade level, which they can use to give students a little extra help.

Dan Mueller, principal of Hallett Elementary, told the board that teachers have between 70 and 100 minutes to help other teachers or work with students on reading fluency, writing and math skills.

Medical Lake Elementary Principal Cindy McSmith said she was giving teachers in her building 120 minutes of preparation time before school. "I've encouraged people to work with grade level colleagues," she said, adding that discussions center on strategies, specific students or sharing what teachers have learned from various classrooms.

"The beauty of the whole structure is that it's what's best for teachers and their practices and it's best for kids because of the improvement teachers are making," said McSmith.

In'a later conversation Veltri said she's heard mixed feedback from teachers on the changes. "Some like this new system and some want back the way it was before. It's something new and the verdict is still out."

Veltri said one thing is for certain, however - the new system will cost the district less due to changes in transportation. "This probably saved one job and maybe even two," she said.

Morning bus routes were reconfigured this year so that middle school students are transported to school and dropped off before K-6th grade students.

Transportation supervisor Dan Cools said this requires one more bus than last year, leading to an extra transportation allocation of roughly $25,000 from the state.

In other board news, the district's student teachers will spend most of their time co-teaching this year instead of instructing classes alone as in the past. Many universities previously required student teachers to chalk up hours teaching on their own but this is changing, Assistant Superintendent Ralph Headlee said.

Headlee said the classroom's teacher will still be responsible for the class's learning and cited studies showing student test score improvement and increased professional development of "teacher candidates" with the new co-teaching method:

Athletics director Chris Spring told the board about new high school scoreboards, one which will be ready by the start of the basketball season and the other by next football season's launch.

The district gets the scoreboards at no cost following an agreement that allows manufacturing company Daktronics to sell advertising space for three years. The company will give priority to local advertisers first and the district retains the right to object to marketing it finds offensive. Cheney's school district recently entered into a similar agreement with Daktronics.

The school board also mirrored a recent action by the Cheney School District, updating their sports concussion policy to reflect a new state law that prohibits athletes with a head injury from returning to play without a licensed health care provider first examining them and giving the go-ahead.

"Even before passing this policy we've been doing this in practice," said Veltri.

Ryan Lancaster can be reached at Ryan@cheneyfreepress.com.



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© 2009 Cheney Free Press Cheney, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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