DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711140253

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 17   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Nancy Young 
                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

SCHOOL BOARD RETREAT

The administration provided the School Board with a plan on what they would be doing as a result of the Board's retreat on Oct. 24-25. Two weeks ago, the Clipper reported some of the items discussed in the 12-hour retreat, what follows are more issues discussed there. The Board made no formal decisions. Test scores

With future state accreditation resting on a school's test scores, Board members wanted to hear more about what the district was doing to improve in that area, particularly in schools that might be in danger of losing their accreditation.

The message from the administrators was that learning how to improve test scores without overemphasizing them is a tough balancing act.

``We went from a mind-set where testing was not important to an emphasis two years ago where it's extremely important,'' said Linda Duffy Palombo, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. ``When you start looking for other people to help you, you find this is a new area for everyone instruction.''

Toward that end, each school is required to submit a test improvement plan that analyzes previous test results to find areas of weakness and then offers ways to work on those weaknesses.

But it's too early to tell how effective the plans are both because they have only been in use a few years and even in that period of time, the district has had to administer new tests, such as the Stanford 9 achievement tests, which replaced the Iowa Tests last year. Those tests will be given in April this year. This year the district will also begin giving tests based on the state's Standards of Learning in grades 3, 5, 8 and 11. The tests were given on a trial basis last year, but this is the first year that the scores will count - although the testing dates haven't been announced yet.

The test that is perhaps most familiar is the state's Literacy Passport Test, which will be given in February to the district's sixth-graders in math, reading and writing. Students must pass all three parts by the time they graduate.

``The only thing that concerns me is are we leaving enough time for instruction? Are we testing them to death?'' asked School Board member Jeffrey A. Rowland.

``We worry about that too,'' said Palombo, stressing again that any good test should improve instruction. Arrival and dismissal times

In many school districts, the high school day starts before the elementary school day.

In Chesapeake, the order is reversed and Board members asked the administration to look into the possibility of changing the schedules so that they are more in line with other districts.

In particular, Board members were concerned with the amount of class time athletes were losing because they leave early from school for some athletic contests. Since the other districts' that Chesapeake competes against begin and end their school days earlier, they also tend to set earlier game times.

The combination of that and the image of bleary-eyed primary-aged students heading out to their buses as early as 6:55 a.m. seem like strong arguments in favor of making the switch.

But research shows tht teen-agers learn better later in the morning, while younger children do better earlier, said Alan L. Vaughan, principal at Greenbrier Intermediate and a member of the committee that studied the issue.

Also, making the switch would involve buying 55-60 buses at about $55,000 each, said Thomas Gillette, the district's director of transportation.

While they took no official action, Board members questioned whether the potential benefits of such a switch outweighed the costs. So much to do, so little time ...

The district has six hours and 35 minutes each day to fit in two 3-hour kindergarten sessions, along with two 20-minute snack-times.

If you do the math, you can see the tight squeeze the district is facing in fitting in the state-required minimums on instructional time.

The squeeze is not just being felt at the kindergarten level. The increased demands of implementing the state's new standards of learning has many teachers wondering when they're supposed to get it all in, said Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols.

``That's a complaint I've heard from teachers, that they don't have enough time,'' said School Board member Thomas L. Mercer.

For example, at the elementary level, many schools are having to do without recess in order to get enough instructional time.

At the kindergarten level, the possibility of offering full-day kindergarten - at the very least to at-risk students who could benefit the most by such a move - was raised. Chesapeake is the only South Hampton Roads district that doesn't offer full-day kindergarten programs for any of its students.

While a full-day program for all the district's kindergarteners might be the ideal, it would come at some cost, said Nichols. Essentially it would mean doubling the number of kindergarten teachers and kindergarten classrooms - something that schools that are already at or over capacity would be hard-pressed to do. The resurrection of some of the district's portables might be a solution to the space crunch

Nichol also proposed that the administration look into the possibility that the school day at all levels be lengthened by 30 minutes, with the high-school day most likely starting 30 minutes earlier and the elementary school day ending 30 minutes later. But there's also a cost attached to that: teachers would need to be paid more if they worked a longer day and more buses would be needed because elementary and high-school runs would be more likely to overlap.

``Once you take official action on this it's going to be a big deal,'' said Nichols.

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