August 18, 2014 at 5:00 p.m.
District principals preparing for first day of school
District principals preparing for first day of school
Students will return to class Sept. 2 for another year of learning.
In anticipation of the first day of school, the Northwoods River News asked each principal to preview the 2014-'15 school year.
Rhinelander High School
RHS principal David Ditzler said he's excited about the unveiling of 400 Chromebooks to be used by freshmen and sophomores as part of the district's one-to-one technology initiative. The program strives to put a device in the hands of every student.
"The roll out of the Chromebooks for all ninth and 10th graders is going to be challenging and exciting. We will be unwrapping 400 Chromebooks on the first day of school," he said.
"That's going to take a lot of planning to make sure it all goes well, but the bigger part of that is making sure that how they're used in the classroom is not just functional but very productive in terms of student learning."
"It's our hope that these tools will allow kids greater access to what's being learned and increases their ability to demonstrate what they know. That's why we're doing it. It's exciting," he added.
Ditzler said he knows not every student has access to the Internet at home, however he said the school would be working with students to make sure they are able to utilize the devices to their fullest extent.
"We recognize that not every home in our district has Internet access. That's why the building is open at seven in the morning and why we're here way past normal operating hours most days," he said.
"Kids can come here to do the work if their schedules allow. They can run into the public library, they can go to some of the restaurants in town that have wireless access. Wherever they can get access, they can sit and do that portion of their homework."
Northwoods Community Secondary School and Northwoods Community Elementary School
Charter school principal Wil Losch said he has a similar goal for both of his schools this year - to get all of his students interacting with one another to achieve greater academic success.
"At NCES, we're going toward a muti-age classroom configuration, particularly with our third-through-fifth grade students. Instead of having a separate class for each grade, we're going to have three third-through-fifth grade classrooms," he said.
"Kids will still be working on material at their level, but there's a lot of research out there that shows there's some learning benefits and social benefits that come from that multi-age component. The staff has driven that and taken ownership of that, so we're excited to see that put into practice."
A similar situation will be taking place at NCSS.
"We're going to blend our middle school and high school a little bit more. Right now, we have two middle school advisories and three high school advisories," Losch said.
"Using the same thinking behind the multi-age classrooms at NCES, we want to blend those a bit more, giving kids a bit more freedom to move between advisors and not just staying rooted with one teacher all day."
James Williams Middle School
Middle school principal Paul Johnson said he's excited to meet the new group of preteens set to begin the journey that is middle school.
"What I'm excited about is seeing lots of students returning and excited about school, seeing their friends, their teachers and gearing up for another school year," he said. "At the same time, I also enjoy being able to help the new sixth graders in their transition, to help them become comfortable in the building and seeing their excitement and their wide-eyed faces as they come in."
Aside from getting his young charges ready for another school year, Johnson said he's looking forward to helping them prepare for the new Smarter Balance Assessment.
"Our teachers are eager to begin to develop their own summative assessments in their classrooms that match the rigor and the structure of the Smarter Balance Assessment," he said. "It's going to be a learning process for our staff and our students, and it's going to consume a lot of our time and energy, but it's for the betterment of the kids."
Central Intermediate School
Central principal Tim Howell said he's looking forward to implementing the Educator Effectiveness initiative to help grow his teachers as educators and mentors.
"All administrators went through a real intensive training this summer and we'll have a new way to evaluate our teachers - Educator Effectiveness - and we'll be using Teachscape to better evaluate our teaching staff now," he said. "It's a much more in-depth way of evaluating staff that provides much more feedback to the teachers so they are able to go back and reflect on their teaching and become better teachers through the process."
"We really didn't have a good tool to provide in-depth feedback to the teachers and this tool will certainly be providing us a way to do that," he added.
Crescent Elementary School
Crescent principal Kelly Huseby said her school will be continuing to implement its behavior rainbow and calming room.
"We will continue our behavior rainbow and calming room implementation. Last May, we implemented a schoolwide behavior system in which kids can move their clip up and down a rainbow chart within the classroom that offers lots of opportunities for kids to be successful and to demonstrate outstanding behavior," she said.
"It also offers, along with the calming room, opportunities to support students that are struggling in the classroom and need a sensory break or to talk about issues with our paraprofessional that mans the calming room. Sometimes students just need a quiet place to regroup and get themselves ready to learn."
Huseby also said the school will also be striving to be recognized as a Response to Intervention (RtI) Academic School of Distinction in the areas of reading and math.
Pelican Elementary School
Pelican principal Martha Knudtson said her goal is to continue to build on the school's successful PBIS campaign. Last year, Pelican was recognized as a School of Merit for its program.
"Pelican School will be proudly displaying a banner for having achieved the title of 'A School of Merit' based on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports," she said. "The staff at Pelican School has worked hard to build a more positive school environment for students and staff by establishing clear expectations for their students and taking action steps in teaching, modeling and reinforcing appropriate behaviors schoolwide."
Knudtson said the PBIS initiative has been a great endeavor for the school.
"PBIS is just wonderful. It changes out whole school culture. It's more respectful of students, parents, staff, everyone," she said. "It helps us to be mindful of working as a team and it produces positive behavior. We love it."
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