District Administration - September 2007 - (Page 41)

they will be ready for a changing society and world. Backpacks with Beneﬁts Willow Glen Primary School, St. Francis (Wis.) School District Sue Dohr, district library media specialist at Willow Glen School District, would use grant monies to purchase books so each student could leave school in June with a backpack ﬁlled with a ﬁction and nonﬁction book. The backpack would also have information about the public library summer reading program. Students could use their backpacks for the summer sharing library and school. The summer months can create a signiﬁcant achievement gap among children who read and those who don’t, according to Dohr. Improving Adolescent Literacy Boyertown (Penn.) Area School District Karen Beerer, assistant superintendent at Boyertown Area School District, would use funds to purchase books for students in grades seven, eight and nine for a summer reading initiative, making sure to include titles that are interesting to adolescents, rich in language and ﬁlled with experiences that will provide meaningful classroom discussions come fall. Beerer says that adolescent literacy is a problem across the nation. Books for Low-Income Students Riverbend Elementary School, Juneau (Alaska) School District Carmen Katasse, principal of Riverbend Elementary in the Juneau School District, hopes to purchase books to be distributed to children at each of the low-income housing complexes on a monthly basis. Juneau has two public libraries: One is downtown and one is in the valley. Many low-income students don’t have access to the public libraries because they are too far away, and most households don’t have books for their children. Reaching Coach Initiative Monroe (Wis.) School District Jennifer Thayer, curriculum director at the Monroe School District, would like to hire a reading coach for a newly implemented reading program to provide consistency and support across the district. Thayer says a grant would enable the district to hire a coach who could provide the support and training they need for regular and special education teachers. Test scores in the three elementary schools have varied signiﬁcantly from school to school and grade level to grade level. Curriculum Products Potrero Elementary School, Mountain Empire Uniﬁed School District, Potrero, Calif.; Cottonwood Community Day School, Mountain Empire Uniﬁed School District, Campo, Calif. Barbara Cowling, the principal of both Potrero Elementary and Cottonwood Community, wants to use grant funds to purchase math, reading and writing instruction products, and to hire parttime aids and train them along with other staﬀ to use direct instruction models for struggling students. About 90 percent of students at Potrero School are English Language Learners and some of them are placed at Cottonwood upon the recommendation of a probation oﬃcer or a school board member. Integrated Reading Project Pine Forest High School, Cumberland County Schools, Fayetteville, N.C. Cindy McCormic, principal of Pine Forest High School, would use grant monies to purchase a novel for each student in grades nine through 12. The novels would tie together a variety of academic subjects. Teachers would conduct seminars on the readings, and students would create a project, which would not only integrate numerous content areas but also enhance literacy and technology at the school. McCormic feels that while many high school teachers are content-driven, they rarely integrate other subjects into their lessons. Preparing for a Technical World Norwood High School, Norwood (Ohio) City Schools Wendy Godbey, the library specialist at Norwood High in the Norwood (Ohio) City Schools, wants to purchase additional laptops and a rechargeable cart for the high school’s more than 800 students. The school currently has only 20 laptops, which are more than four years old and have expired service contracts. Godbey says that many students “do not have the proper equipment available to them to meet the increased demands society is placing on them.” Reading and Math Program The School District of Janesville (Wis.) Donna Behn, director of curriculum and instruction at The School District of Janesville in Wisconsin, would use grant funds to expand implementation of Auto Skill Academy of Reading and Math to the district’s Edison Middle School. Administrators used the academy program in ﬁve elementary schools last year and were impressed with the improvements that students showed on district assessments in reading and math, Behn says. Edison also wants to start an afterschool program to give students more time to further develop their skills in such classes. —Z.M. DA September 2007 41 Differentiated Literacy Instruction Mount Vernon (Wash.) Schools Assistant Superintendent Cathey Frederick of Mount Vernon Schools in Washington wants an intervention strategy that can help improve student performance across all disciplines by improving their ability to read and comprehend nonﬁction text. Frederick wants to oﬀer a Web-based diﬀerentiated literacy instruction that is designed to increase reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing proﬁciency. www.DistrictAdministration.com http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2007

Cover Contents Editor’s Letter Letters News Update Curriculum Update Inside the Law District Profile Administrator Profile District Buying Power 2007 X-Factor Student Achievement Awards 2007 We've Got Mail Supporting New Teachers How Well Does This Web Site Work? New Products Problem Solution Computer Literature Research Corner Online Edge Supervisor’s Opinion Speaking Out Calendar of Events Understanding the Times

District Administration - September 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.