October 7, 2004

School board reviews plan for local education standards

By Diane Chiddister

In their Sept. 23 Committee of the Whole meeting, members of the Yellow Springs Board of Education praised the overall work of the Quality Education Committee, while raising some concerns about the group’s recommendations.

“In my mind, this is important, groundbreaking work, for a school district to go beyond the state report card,” said board member Mary Campbell-Zopf. “It’s a way to put out a vision of education that helps us to live our values and state our philosphies in an atmosphere that is very test oriented.”

The Quality Education Committee was created to identify community standards for Yellow Springs schools. The group was formed, Superintendent Tony Armocida said, because “we believed the state report card standards didn’t give a complete picture of the Yellow Springs schools. We wanted to have the schools have standards that are special to this community.”

The group consisted of 18 teachers, administrators, students, community members and one school board member, and was facilitated by Fred Bartenstein. Meeting monthly from January to June, the committee reviewed data and discussed community educational goals before identifying the following six local community standards:

• Community and parent support: The Yellow Springs schools will engage the community in the educational process and financial support of the district.

• Whole life learning: The schools will structure experiences facilitating transitions to each level of learning to meet post-graduation goals.

• Integration of knowledge: The schools will teach in ways that promote integration of knowledge, critical thinking and problem solving.

• Respect and responsibility: The schools will teach and demonstrate the importance of respect and responsibility for a healthy community.

• Individual instruction: The schools will provide environments in which the learning needs of individual students are met.

• Diversity and inclusion: The schools will provide a diverse and inclusive educational environment.

Concerns raised by the school board included several board members’ desire to include “creative thinking” into the standard on integration of knowledge, which Armocida said he would do.

Board member Bill Firestone also questioned the validity of the standard on individual instruction, saying that the “public schools tend to be oriented to the group, not the individual,” and that true individual instruction would include a child having some say in planning his own curriculum, which is not the case in the public schools.

“I’m highly skeptical that we will meet” that standard, he said.

Other board members stated that the standards were important as a statement of local values that could help the schools move closer to their goals, even if all the goals were not met.

Board member Angela Wright expressed concern that the standards, as currently stated, are too broad to have real meaning.

“It would be easier for me to grasp these if you had examples,” Wright said. “The statements are very lean. They don’t have much information.”

While other board members agreed that more specific information is needed as the next step of the process, most supported the general level of the current statements.

“Leanness is a virture because it doesn’t lock the standards in a particular group in a particular moment,” said board president Rich Bullock. “We’re talking about setting standards that get reinterpreted as time goes on and that transcends one group.”

The next step in the process is to identify those specific measurements or benchmarks for each standard, as well as strategies to meet them, Armocida said.

He said that process will begin after the board approves the standards, which could happen at its next meeting, on Oct. 14, and will continue this school year. The implementation of the strategies to meet the standards will begin in August 2005.

In other school board business:

• After meeting in executive session, the school board approved a recommendation to hire Robin Fast as a counselor at YSHS and the McKinney School for the remainder of the school year, pending verification of her certification, transcripts and background. She received a one-year contract.

Fast was hired for the position that generated controversy this month when Armocida withdrew a recommendation to the board to hire former local businessman Dave Kohstall.

• The board approved a recommedation to hire Tim Benning as night custodian for the remainder of this year. He received a one-year contract.