District 158’s Board of Education conducted a Committee of the Whole meeting on March 2. As typical the meeting was lead by board president Donald Drzal.
The board spotlighted two students from HHS’s youth residency program. Seniors Paul Singh and Zack Whitaker shared their thoughts and experiences from the program.
“I really like this program because it gave me an idea of what I wanted to do. I like how it showed all the different vocations within the medical field. It took what we learned in the textbooks and put them into the real world,” said Singh.
The two students shared their experiences for almost 30 minutes and in the end the board was thrilled by the students thoughts.
“Every time we get a chance to hear about this program we get more and more excited, ” said Drzal.
After which the board began to discuss policy. As is practice, during a committee of the whole meeting the board only votes to propose policies for future meetings and does not actually enact any new changes.
For next month’s Board of Education meeting the board will vote and choose from 5 different companies to secure 14 new passenger buses for the 2017-18 school year.
The board will also vote on a proposal to buy new choral risers for a price of $35,717.00.
Critical changes will also be voted in terms of the district’s literacy standards. The district is looking to create deeper standards which focus specifically on critical thinking, understanding text, and speaking and listening skills.
“In order to master these new standards, it calls for adjusted approaches to teaching. It’s not just the curriculum, but instead the actual instruction. It will focus on student centered approaches and will be more personalized,” said chief academic officer Dr. Erika Schlichter.
This from the fact that fewer students from District 158 are reaching the national benchmarks on reading tests. Specifically, HHS students are averaging a lower benchmark on the reading section of the ACT than on the English section.
These standards hope to increase the current reading levels of District 158 students.