Weekly Update
Superintendent's Newsletter September 29, 2017
The AC Way...
I was reminded on several occasions this week that we are so lucky to have community partners in this public school system. These reminders come at a time when we are making preparations to recognize and thank our community partners on October 16th, beginning at 6:00 at our auditorium. This annual celebration is in its second year and the purpose is to recognize and thank the partners from the business, faith, and civic communities for supporting our students and staff in all of our schools. Oftentimes, the onus for providing a well-rounded educational experience for every student falls directly on the shoulders of the school administrators, teachers, faculty, and staff. However, this limited perspective overlooks the fact that much of a child’s life and education occurs outside the classroom. What happens before the school day starts and after it ends can be just as important and impactful in the lives of our students as what happens during the traditional school day. This is why community engagement and involvement in schools is such an important facet of the educational process. We appreciate our community partners and look forward to celebrating them on October 16th!
Thank you, Alexander Trucking Company!
The Alexander County School System greatly appreciates Steve and Carl Icenhour of Alexander Trucking Company for donating multiple pallets of paper products to our school system this week. Each of the pallets contained copier paper, photo paper, envelopes, and large sheets of paper. The paper products were made available to all schools on Thursday September 27, 2017. Representatives from the schools arrived at the bus garage to load their trucks with these donated supplies. The paper products will be extremely useful to the students throughout the school system. A special thank you is also extended to Russell Greene, Dale Robertson, John McCurdy, all the members of our maintenance and transportation departments, school custodians, and principals that assisted loading and delivering the products. Thank you, everyone!
Upcoming Events
October 2nd - Central Office Leadership Team will meet at 8:30
October 2nd - Dr. Hefner and Dr. Curry to meet with the Parent Advisory Council at WAMS at 5:15
October 2nd - The Alexander County Board of Commissioners will meet at the CVCC Alexander Center at 6:00
October 3rd - The Taylorsville Town Council will meet at 5:30 at Town Hall
October 5th - The Budget Committee will meet at 4:30 in the Superintendent's Conference Room
October 6th - Instructional Leaders will meet at ACHS at 8:30
October 9th - Community Service Provider group will meet at 12:00 at the BOE
October 9th - A joint work session between the Board of Education, Board of Commissioners, and CVCC will be held at 6:00 at the BOE
October 10th - The Board of Education will hold its monthly meeting at 6:00 at the BOE
Learning Focused Schools
Principals, instructional coaches and other school system leaders met at East Alexander Middle School on Friday, September 29th, to begin their in-depth study of Learning Focused Schools model. The Learning Focused Schools model provides strategies and solutions based on practices found in schools with 90 percent of their students achieving proficient or higher on standardized tests with 90 percent poverty or racial diversity. These practices and strategies focus on five areas critical to academic success: Planning, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and School Organization.
The Learning-Focused Schools Model is a comprehensive school improvement model that provides schools with a consistent language for learning that is organized into a framework designed explicitly for raising student achievement.
This framework organizes the U.S. Department of Education’s exemplary schools evaluations and the research-based strategies that impact achievement the most:
- Planning through team-based or learning communities
- Prioritizing and mapping curriculum
- Effective use of graphic and advance organizers
- Instructing vocabulary in context
- Using summarizing strategies
- Extending thinking strategies
Moving beyond those effective strategies, the Learning-Focused Schools initiative also specializes in connecting reading comprehension, writing across the curriculum, accelerating and scaffolding learning, balanced literacy, differentiated assignments, and more focus primarily on learning and raising achievement.
Crisis Team Training
Dr. Tina Brookes, licensed clinical social worker, trained a group of ten local ministers, school counselors, school social workers, and other district leaders on Tuesday, September 26th, at the First United Methodist Church. The training was entitled "Crisis Response Training for Schools" and incorporated elements of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) training. CISM is a method of helping first responders and others who have been involved with events that leave them emotionally and/or physically affected by those incidents. CISM is a process that enables peers to help their peers understand problems that might occur after an event. This process also helps people prepare to continue to perform their services or in some cases return to a normal lifestyle. This training was offered to individuals interested in becoming a part of a crisis management team for our schools to help our students and staff recover from incidents that may negatively impact them such as the death of a fellow student or staff member, a violent situation that occurs at the school site, or trauma that results from a natural disaster or other crisis-type situation. This training proved to be a great step in becoming better prepared to deal with crisis situations at our schools.
New Executive Director at CVCC
The new executive director of the Catawba Valley Community College Alexander Center, Mr. Brett Fansler, was given a warm welcome by the CVCC Advisory Board during their quarterly meeting held on Tuesday, September 26th. The mission of CVCC in Alexander County is to work in partnership with a diverse community by identifying and responding to its changing educational needs. Staff are committed to providing quality educational opportunities for our citizens, empowering them to live and work successfully in the 21st Century. CVCC in Alexander County began in 1980 with one instructor having a CVCC phone line in her house and her office in the trunk of her car. Classes were held wherever space could be found, such as the library and local classrooms.
In 1990 CVCC moved, with the help and support of the Alexander County Commissioners, into their first permanent location. Though it was just the basement of the Duke Power Building, the site had room for three classes at the same time.
Of course, once given the room to grow, the site did expand and was soon bursting at the seams! In 1994, again with the help of the commissioners, staff were able to move into the old Lewittes Office Building, a much larger facility, but in great need of a good cleaning and paint job. Luckily, many people joined in and helped to get the job done.
In the current facility at 345 Industrial Boulevard, staff and programs have continued to grow and offer many more opportunities for the residents of Alexander County. Mr. Fansler brings a great knowledge of the positive ways a community college impacts a county. Welcome, Brett Fansler!
In the News...
Home schooling was once a rising trend. New data shows something different.
By Valerie Strauss September 26, 2017
Washington Post
Home schooling was once a rising trend in the United States, with the percentage of students from kindergarten through high school learning at home going from 1.7 percent in 1999 to 3.4 percent in 2012. New data just released by the Department of Education shows that enrollment has stopped growing since then.
A report on parent and family involvement in education released Tuesday by the department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) says that for the year 2015-16, the latest data available, 3.3 percent of students ages 5 to 17 were home-schooled, meaning that there has been a slight decrease since 2012. Home schooling accounted for about 4 percent of these students in rural areas, compared to 3 percent in both cities and suburban areas, and around 4 percent in towns.
The vast majority of U.S. school children attend traditional public schools. The percentage of students in charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, depends upon whom you ask. The latest Education Department figures show that between fall 2004 and fall 2014, charter enrollment jumped from just a million to 2.7 million, increasing the percentage of students in the sector from 2 to 5 percent. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools said in a recent report that nearly 2.9 million, or more than 6 percent of students, now go to charter schools. NCES says that about 10 percent of students attend private schools.
A recent NCES report on home schooling in 2012 found that the most commonly selected reason among parents in that school year was school environment, including factors such as “safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure.” Other commonly reported reasons in 2012 included “a desire to provide moral instruction,” 77 percent; “a dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools,” 74 percent; and “a desire to provide religious instruction,” 64 percent.
The newly released report said:
When asked to select the reasons parents decided to home-school their child, the highest percentage of home-schooled students had parents who said that a concern about the environment of other schools, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure was one reason to home-school (80 percent). The highest percentage of students’ parents reported that among all reasons, a concern about the environment of other schools was the most important reason for home-schooling (34 percent). Seventeen percent of home-schooled
students had parents who reported dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools as the most important reason for home-schooling, while 16 percent reported a desire to provide religious instruction as the most important reason for home-schooling.
The data shows that in 1999, 850,000 students were home-schooled, with that number rising to 1.8 million in 2012.
The report disclosed other information too from parent surveys, including:
- The most common school-related activity that parents reported participating in during the school year was attending a general school or a parent teacher organization or association meeting (89 percent). Seventy-eight percent of students had parents who reported attending a regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference; 79 percent had parents who attended a school or class event; 43 percent had parents who volunteered or served on a school committee; 59 percent had parents who participated in school fundraising; and 33 percent had parents who met with a guidance counselor. Parents reported attending an average of 7.5 meetings or activities at their children’s school during the 2015-16 school year.
- Eighty-three percent of students in kindergarten through grade 2 had parents who felt that the amount of homework their child is assigned is “about right.” This percentage was significantly higher than the percentage for students in grades 3 through 5 (75 percent), students in grades 6 through 8 (73 percent), and students in grades 9 through 12 (70 percent).
One percent of students in grades 6 through 12 had parents who said that they did not expect their child to complete high school; 9 percent were not expected to pursue education after high school completion; 8 percent were expected to attend vocational or technical school after high school; 15 percent were expected to attend two or more years of college; 29 percent were expected to earn a bachelor’s degree; and 39 percent were
expected to earn a graduate or professional degree.
- According to parents, a higher percentage of students attended a community, religious, or ethnic event (54 percent) in the past month than visited a library (34 percent); visited a bookstore (34 percent); went to a play, concert, or other live show (34 percent); visited an art gallery, a museum, or a historical site (25 percent); visited a zoo or an aquarium (24 percent); or attended an athletic or sporting event (42 percent).
The C.A.R.E. Squad Promotes Character and Literacy in Our Elementary Schools
The Cougar Athletes for Reading Excellence (better known as the C.A.R.E. Squad) is an opportunity for our high school football players to spend time in two of our elementary schools each week promoting literacy skills and good character. It is also a great opportunity to "give back" by providing a positive example to our younger students. The athletes spend 30+ minutes each Friday working in small groups of 2-4 children and serve as reading and/or math partners. Often times the high school guys get to be celebrities and our elementary students see these role models sharing a passion for reading and strong academics and want to be just like them. We thank our high school athletes for setting a positive example for these elementary students. You do make an impression on our future "AC Cougars"!
Student Contests - Spread the Word
The North Carolina School Boards Association is asking high school and middle school students to express their thoughts and ideas about What's Super About Public Schools through school video contests. They have also asked elementary school students to express their thoughts and ideas about the same theme through a poster contest. All entries must be submitted on or before October 12th. Please share this great opportunity with your teachers and students and let's show the state "What's super about the Alexander County School System!" For more contest information, check out the following links.
http://www.ncsba.org/elementary-school-poster-contest/
About Us...
Email: noreply@alexander.k12.nc.us
Website: www.alexander.k12.nc.us
Location: 700 Liledoun Road, Taylorsville, NC 28681
Phone: (828) 632-7001
Facebook: www.facebook.com/alexandercoschools/
Twitter: @AC_Schools