Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110040
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
How that will happen is still to be worked out. But committees of teachers, principals and central office staff are already looking into what will make up an appropriate middle-school program for the coming century.
``At some time, these two faculties and student bodies will come together in one building,'' Superintendent Bill Asbury told the Pulaski County School Board Wednesday night. It will be up to the School Board to decide when that will happen, but he said it would be in the near future.
Pam Simpson, coordinator of curriculum and instruction, said two committees have been formed with 24 people as the core group to focus on middle schools.
The county Middle School Restructuring Initiative has been set up to define middle school education for the 21st century, with emphasis on access to quality instructional and curricular programs.
Committee recommendations will be made to the faculty, administration and staff of Dublin and Pulaski middle schools on how they can cooperatively build a quality program to challenge students, help them grow, and prepare them for future education and productive lives.
Sub-groups of teachers, administrators and parents will eventually be formed to look at specific areas of middle school education.
One initiative already being planned is a professional development opportunity, titled ``Dissolving the Boundaries: Planning for Curriculum Integration,'' offered through the Appalachian Educational Laboratory.
The program is designed to stimulate reflection and conversion. It will allow interested faculty members from the two middle schools to explore what is called integrated curriculum as a holistic approach to teaching and learning.
Research suggests that the human brain looks for patterns and interconnections to build meaning, Asbury said. Learning happens most successfully in environments that stress connections and relationships, rather than where artificial boundaries are established between disciplines.
Pulaski County is already trying this sort of approach at the elementary level, in a demonstration school for math, science and technology within Dublin Elementary School.
Goals of offering the educational lab program will be to help teachers understand curriculum integration, discuss readiness for it, and develop a plan for using it in the county's middle school program.
In other business, the School Board adopted a plan for maintaining and expanding classroom technology in county schools during the 1994-95 year.
But the board members made it clear that they could not guarantee devoting 5 percent of next year's budget to technology, as recommended by the committee which drew up the plan. ``We do not know what the budget will be,'' Chairman Ron Chaffin said.
``I think everybody understands that,'' Asbury said. The approach will probably be a gradual increase for technology in school budgets with an eventual goal of 5 percent, he said.
He said the committee realized that goal could probably not be reached in a single year, especially with the financial constraints that will be on the county in the coming year.
The board learned that the county school system has been approved for a $15,000 grant, renewable for a second year at the same level, to serve high school students with cognitive, behavior and physical disabilities. Volunteers from Radford University and Virginia Tech will work with it during the first year, said Rebecca Phillips, director of services for exceptional students.
A $100,000 regional alternative education pilot project has also been approved for Pulaski and Montgomery counties, with Montgomery as the fiscal agent. This one-time grant will pay for a full-time counselor for the county's alternative school and a part-time lab technician to assist with alternate diploma programs. Money will also be available to support the computer lab at Riverlawn Elementary School, which will be used evenings by Montgomery County for staff work as part of the project.
``The reason we got it was the partnership with Montgomery County,'' Asbury said of the award. ``We already have an alternative educational program. We're simply going to share that program with Montgomery County.''
by CNB