It is my pleasure to present to you this edition of the LMTSD Superintendent’s October newsletter. It has been a wonderful start to the 2019-2020 school year. I am grateful for our staff who have supported our 2,400 students to ensure a great start, and particularly to our facilities and office personnel who have worked diligently to keep our buildings and grounds organized and safe.

If you recall, LMTSD conducted extensive district-wide facility feasibility and enrollment studies last school year. At the outset of this effort, the District and its Board of School Directors, identified a number of primary factors that drove the pursuits of these studies. These included:

• Continued increases in student enrollment and the District’s ability to accommodate continued growth related to its buildings’ capacities

• Existing buildings’ aging infrastructures and long-term planning toward repairs and/or upgrades

• Safety of students and families in and around our three campuses

• Visioning for updated educational spaces

Having partnered with KCBA Architects to conduct both studies, results from each have been shared with the Board of School Directors and the public since last spring. These documents can be found here. Additionally, the District will be hosting an Open Public Forum on Thursday, October 10 at 7 pm in the High School Auditorium to share further information related to the findings and possible solutions. This event will also allow community members to address any concerns and/or ask any questions related to the information presented.

What happens when a School District sees spiders or wasps? Well, it is not as simple as taking out a fly swatter or spraying a can of Raid. School Districts are bound to follow an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) system that provides protection for students and staff from exposure to chemicals without proper notification.

The Lower Moreland Township School District utilizes an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system for managing insects, rodents, and weeds. Our goal is to protect every student and staff member from pesticide exposure by using an IPM approach to pest management. Our IPM system focuses on making the school buildings and grounds an unfavorable habitat for these pests by removing food and water sources and eliminating their hiding and breeding places. We accomplish this through routine cleaning and maintenance. We routinely monitor the school buildings and grounds to detect any pests that may be present. The pest management team consists of our school maintenance, office, and teaching staff and includes our students. Pest sightings are reported to our IPM coordinator who will evaluate “pest problems” and determines the appropriate pest management techniques to address the problem. The techniques can include increased sanitation, modifying storage practices, sealing entry points, physically removing the pest, etc.

From time to time, it may be necessary to use pesticides registered by the Environmental Protection Agency to manage a pest problem. A pesticide will only be used when necessary, and will not be routinely applied. When a pesticide is necessary, the school district will attempt to use the least toxic product that is effective. Applications will only be performed when unauthorized personnel does not have access to the areas being treated. Notices will be posted in these areas seventy-two (72) hours prior to application and for two days following the application.

Parents or guardians of students and School District staff may request prior notification of specific applications made at the School District. To receive notification, you must be placed on the school district’s notification registry. If you would like to be placed on this registry, please notify the district in writing. Please include your e-mail address if you would like to be notified electronically.

If a pesticide application must be made to control an emergency pest problem, notice will be provided by email or telephone to any person who has previously requested to be notified. Exemptions to this notification include disinfectants and antimicrobial products; self-containerized baits placed in areas not accessible to students and staff and gel-type baits placed in cracks, crevices or voids; and swimming pool maintenance chemicals.

Each year the district will prepare a new notification registry. If you have any questions, please contact Mark Sufleta, Maintenance Manager and IPM Coordinator for Lower Moreland Township School District. Mr. Sufleta’s email address is: msufleta@lmtsd.org.

As the District strives to keep every learner, every day, at the forefront of curricular programming and delivery, some specific shifts are occurring in lesson planning and instruction. Traditionally, teachers would share the daily objectives with students. This would include a list of the tasks that would be accomplished during the class period and/or the content that would be covered. The objectives served as a checklist of sorts and the teacher and student would be able to identify what was accomplished that day. This year, teachers are shifting to the use of learning targets, rather than objectives, as they present lessons. Learning targets are written from the viewpoint of the student and are descriptions of what the student will be able to do as a result of the instruction for the day. Typically learning targets begin with "I can" or "I will" and describe what the teacher will look for in order to determine whether the content has been mastered or not. This allows students to understand the relevance of what they are doing in class, presents a clear picture of the expectations and empowers them to gauge their own progress towards the instructional goal. By establishing and communicating learning targets, teachers create a greater sense of relevancy and are better able to judge student progress and understanding, providing an increased opportunity for feedback to students and the differentiation of instruction.

The Technology Department supports information technology systems and instructional technology programs and practices in the district. This month, we are highlighting how our students have been engaged in 21st Century learning activities focused on the 4Cs: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, and Communication.

Critical Thinking

• Students in Mr. Solomon’s class applied critical thinking skills by participating in NASA’s Name the Mars Rover writing contest. This is part of NASA’s efforts to engage students in the STEM enterprise behind Mars exploration.

• Murray Avenue students used critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creative thinking to solve mysteries and open the Breakout Boxes during their Opening of School Celebration.

Creativity

• Students in Ms. Dorfman’s Spanish class created comic strips to improve their conversational skills.

• 5th grade students created memes to show their thinking about media balance in Mrs. Krupa’s class.

Collaboration

• Students in Mrs. Maxwell's 9th grade health classes collaborated for their fitness unit health review by completing a QR Code Scavenger Hunt. Mrs. Maxwell prepared QR codes with review questions around the school. Students used kinesthetic movement to review for the upcoming assessment, used the QR code reader to encode the questions and clues for the next location, and collaborated among teammates as they raced to return to the classroom in the shortest amount of time. Student feedback indicated they really enjoyed getting outside of the classroom to review. Mrs. Maxwell intentionally paired students to foster new communication outside of existing friend groups in preparation for their next unit on relationships.

• Kindergarten students in Mrs. Kasner’s class collaborated to practice reading with a peer. Then they brought their books home to share with a family member.

Communication

• In Mrs. Ashenbrenner’s Critical Writing class, students discussed the prevalence of online blogs and created a personal blog using blogger.com. After blogging, students read and responded to classmates. Students learned how to convey their ideas and how to respond appropriately to peers.

• Students in Mr. Horrell’s class communicated and collaborated by engaging in lively discussions about early societies both in Google Classroom online and in a large group setting in class.

• Students in Mrs. Elias’ class communicated important information about themselves to new classmates this fall with their tech tool of choice. The challenge was to use only images to communicate in their All About Me project.

In October school districts across the state of Pennsylvania will be participating in the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS). As part of Lower Moreland Township School District’s ongoing cooperation with the state in this initiative, students in grades 8, 10, and 12 will be asked to complete this survey. The PAYS is conducted every two years, is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), and seeks to learn about students’ behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge concerning alcohol, tobacco, other drugs and violence (pccd.org, September 2019). The District last conducted the survey in 2017, the results of which were included in the Montgomery County Profile Report viewable on the PCCD website. As noted by the PCCD, the results of this survey are helpful in informing school administrators, state agency directors, and legislators about patterns behavior and use and abuse of substances. Risk factors are also assessed as well as protective factors helpful in guarding against such behaviors. Taken as a whole this information allows prevention resources to be directed to areas of greatest impact.

For more information please visit the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency website at pccd.org.