Curriculum Committee

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

 

Present:  Janet Hoven, Russ Nordmark, Michael Roth, and Erica Taterka

 

There will be a presentation re: ESPA, GEPA, QAAR, assessment tools, and math modifications at the November 12^th BOE meeting.  The Board has received a print out of the PowerPoint presentation.

 

The Summer Institute for the Gifted would like to use Chester facilities for 2 five-week sessions for 3^rd and 4^th graders this winter.  Mr. Roth is trying to make an arrangement for them to donate some slots for Chester children.

 

We have been approached about creating a sister school type relationship with a Middle school in Japan. 

Policy

          5136 Fundraising:  Discussion led to the idea that both the Board and the Superintendent should approve all fundraisers.  There are two kinds of fundraiser: 1) for funding trip etc. for our schools, and 2) Fundraisers for outside charities.  Mr. Roth will distribute new wording for this policy.  There will continue to be no door-to-door fundraising.

          6122 Articulation:  Our policy and NJSBA’s are basically the same.  We have therefore modified NJSBA’s to our district’s scope i.e. eliminate references to articulation within the high school (though not to the high school) and to college and nursery school.  There was discussion of ways for teachers to share information from grade to grade.  Chester is working with the Mendhams to assure that all students going into the high school are equally prepared.  We are also working together on the assessment of our children.

          6142 Subject Fields:  The Chester policy and NJSBA’s policy are identical except NJSBA’s includes reference to the Core Curriculum Content Standards.  We will add that to our policy.

          6154 Homework:  The discussion was about time spent on homework, the effectiveness of home projects, the goals of homework etc.. Mr. Roth will draft a new homework policy and discuss it with the other administrators.  The teachers feel the guidelines for time spent on homework in the current policy are reasonable.  This will continue to be discussed.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Erica Taterka