The Mattapoisett School Committee met for the last time in the 2014-2015 school year on June 9 to take care of several end-of-year tasks; primarily, the reorganization of the board, the approval of the School Improvement Plan, and the Teachers Memorandum of Agreement.
The reorganization of the committee is a yearly task that must be done before the 2015-2016 school year meetings begin. Satisfied with their positions on various subcommittees and with the leadership of Chairman James Higgins and Vice-Chairman Patrick Leclair, the committee voted unanimously to approve the same positions as the current year.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the School Improvement Plan presented by Center School Principal Rosemary Bowman. The plan was broken down into four primary strategic goals that Bowman and others hope to accomplish by June 2018.
The first goal surrounds the idea of, as Bowman put it, teaching the whole child. This includes creating a curriculum that not only considers academic growth, but also the social and emotional growth of the students in the Mattapoisett School District.
“There is a strong focus on how to create the best school culture, how to provide services for children to support their social, emotional needs,” Bowman said.
The second goal is focused on developing relationships with all relevant parties across the Tri-Town districts. This includes parties such as school resource officer Matthew McGraw and those who provide grants to the schools such the League of Women Voters.
This goal also encompasses caring for the safety of the students. New lockdown education initiatives will focus more on teaching the students about potential lockdown scenarios, including ‘what-ifs’ and giving students of different ages the opportunity to practice lockdowns.
“This enhanced lockdown will be stressed even more carefully next year, but Matthew McGraw has been an excellent resource to us,” Bowman said.
The third goal stressed the implementation of 21st Century technology further into the classrooms. The technology that has been and will continue to be implemented includes interactive teaching boards and personal Chromebook laptops.
The focus of the goal is not just to provide students with technology, but to help guide children in learning about being online citizens on the Internet, which includes responsible behavior teaching and media literacy.
“If we can start teaching them from an early age, I think it will be helpful,” Bowman said.
The fourth goal looks to examine the current organizational structure and system to make sure that it is the most efficient it can be.
Later in the meeting, the committee voted unanimously to ratify the Teachers Memorandum of Agreement. The memorandum has been developed in concert with the committee and the teachers and was approved at the Tuesday night meeting following little discussion.
Just prior to the end of the meeting, Superintendent Douglas White brought up an issue about the administration of medicine to students who are out on field trips. The plan would train teachers to administer certain medications to students should they need it. This would negate the need for a nurse to go on every field trip allowing her or him to stay at the school. According to White, this is already a practice at other schools in the district.
“Many times our students go on field trips and one of the things that needs to happen is we need to make sure that student medication and the ability to handle any emergencies around an Epi-pen administration takes place,” White said.
Each student would have a box dedicated with her or his name on it, which would contain any medications she or he needs. The committee approved the plan to train teachers with these skills unanimously.
The next Mattapoisett School Committee meeting is scheduled for September 14 at 7:00 pm at the Center School.
By Andrew Roiter
