Program: Educational Challenges
Superintendent Jefferson County School District
There are three issues: keeping teachers; communication with the community; turbulence in recent past and the re-building.
There have been partisan politics which he hopes to address by bringing different perspectives together. He has prepared a plan:
1) Learning!—the most important focus. Content is important, but integrating learning with skills, problem solving, and creativity will give students a chance to practice what they will need as adults. Teachers will hand the process back to students so that they are involved in their own learning.
2) International bench-marking uses high-performing countries, states and cities that provide a model to determine what can be integrated into our system. Their focus is on the students’ learning, high quality and well respected educators.
3) Preparing the youngest to be ready for learning. Make sure kids are as healthy as possible and that their lives are as ordered and safe as possible in order to learn when in school.
Questions:
What will hinder achievement? 1) Historical inertia---schools are “factories”, learning is repetitive, learn/recall, rather than creating an atmosphere where kids can expand their perspectives. 2) The Distractions: “silver bullet reforms”—as in test-based evaluation.
How to hire the best staff? With compensation as it is? Make it a desirable field and get the best people. Determine how to make salaries competitive. Make Jeffco culture desirable so teachers won’t leave.
What would be the impact of a four-day school week? The costs to the district would be reduced. For children, it would reduce their experiences that are important.
Can the focus of education be expanded to include technical training/trades? Focus on college is no longer the best option for students; there need to be other pathways for kids wanting to follow a different career. European systems allow kids to follow distinct pathways, depending on their talents and interests. There may be an expansion of the Warren Tech experience, even including working with professionals in the community.
What about requiring pre-school and kindergarten? There are more programs being developed to provide different options, including in-home and private centers as well as growing programs within the school district.
Guests: Ron Mitchell, President of the Board of the Jeffco School District
Announcements/Business:
- Members, please plan to visit another Rotary Club
- Tomorrow evening, the RYLA kids will be doing a presentation about their RYLA experience. Dinner will be at 6pm at MRC. It is the evening Club’s regular meeting.
- The “Treasure” Sale was successful and cold on Saturday. We expect to clear $900.
- Gail Ridings will come next week to talk about the Soldiers’ Boxes event.
- There is a Foundation meeting to talk about the grant applications.
- Next summer we will do a FUNd-raiser August 11 or Sept 15. It will be a Country Western theme. The next planning will be October 25 at 6pm at Wes’s home.
- The Back Pack project will be expanding to include food pantries at the Middle and High Schools.