Curriculum Committee

September 3, 2002

 

Present:  Michael Roth, Janet Hoven, Rob Agree, Erica Taterka.  Russ Nordmark joined at the end of the meeting.

 

 

1. The Superintendent proposed that rather than review and update the Language Arts curriculum as scheduled previously, we review and update the Science curriculum.  While Language Arts is continually being updated and added to, the Science curriculum is out of date.  The committee agreed that this sounded like a good idea.

 

2. Discussion of Kindergarten.  At the start of the summer, the ¾ day Kindergarten was the same size as the full day classes.  However, over the summer, because of moves out of Chester and parents changing to full day Kindergarten, the class has become small.  Rather than eliminate it, to even out the classes, Mr. Roth and Mrs. DeBaene are going to limit all but one of the full day K’s to 21 children and have the last class larger but with a full time aide in the class with the teacher.

 

3. A presentation will be made at the next (?) meeting regarding the ESPA and GEPA scores.  The presentation will cover interpretation of the scores and plans for achieving greater student proficiency.

 

4. There will also be a presentation regarding the examination of assessment as a whole.  The CPT-3, which we have been using, has been mothballed and replaced with the CPT-4.  The district would have to purchase the CTP-4 and this may not be the best tool for us.  Mr. Roth is researching which assessment tools the district will next use.  He has consulted with other area districts to share information.    This year we will be initially using the Ed Vision program, which was previously tested at BRMS.  This is an interactive program which provides nearly instantaneous results to the teachers of the students’ strengths and weaknesses.  It will be used in September to evaluate grades 2-8.

 

5. The Committee reviewed the following policies:

 

1. Chester policy #101 “Philosophy of Education.”  This was incorporated into NJSBA’s critical policy 6010 “Goals and Objectives.”   We inserted out Mission Statement and made some other changes specific to our district. 
2. 6115 “Ceremonies and Observances.”  This is not in our policy manual but is recommended by NJSBA.  We adapted ours to combine Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays into Presidents day.
3. 6121 “Non discrimination/ Affirmative Action.”  Adopting NJSBA’s.  Ours is similar but needed updated language.
4. Chester # 203 “Adoption of Courses of study.” Replace with NJSBA’s 6140 “Curriculum Adoption.”  Our old policy is more general and 6140 is more in line with the Core Curriculum Content Standards.