October 15, 2015

Delaware News

The Dover Post
Teachers are prepped and ready for award night
It’s the Emmy Award of teaching, according to Caesar Rodney School District Teacher of the Year Sandy Krugh. On Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. at Dover Downs Hotel and Casino, the 2015-16 Delaware Teacher of the Year will be announced. Having won at the school and district levels, candidates will join representatives from each of Delaware’s 19 districts. By the evening’s end, one teacher will leave knowing they were the final choice out of 9,000 public school teachers in the state.

Caesar Rodney District looks back – and to the future
From the joining of several one room schoolhouse districts in 1915 housed in aging frame structures and serving a mere handful of students, the Caesar Rodney School District has grown to one of the country’s premiere public school districts, serving nearly 8,000 students whose families are spread over more than 140 square miles.

Caesar Rodney High School graduates take time to look back
Schools are more than just mortar and bricks: they’re living, breathing places that not only help us learn, they also instill a sense of belonging and pride. As the Caesar Rodney School District celebrates its first 100 years, the Dover Post asked a few graduates about their time as Riders.

Delaware Public Media
Colonial teachers to see new evaluation system
Colonial School District is launching a new teacher evaluation system, making it the first major district to break away from the state’s framework. The new plan slims down the current 18 standards used to grade a teacher to five, focusing on professional knowledge, instructional delivery and how they foster a learning environment. More classroom visits are also included – five each year for experienced educators and eight annually for newer teachers according to Pete Leida, director of schools for the district.

WDEL
Parents want more input in Wilmington redistricting plans
Parents want more of their own voices heard as the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission (WEIC) continues hosting town halls for redistricting input. About a dozen parents of students at Stubbs Elementary school in Wilmington attended Wednesday night’s town hall to discuss the state’s plan to redistrict city schools from the Christina School District to Red Clay.

Claymont Elementary recognized by DelDOT for providing safe routes to school
Hundreds of students at Claymont Elementary School within the Brandywine School District are walking or biking about one mile to school each day. That feat brought the school recognition from the Delaware Department of Transportation as it celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Safe Routes to School program.

University of Delaware launches meteorology major
Aspiring Delaware meteorologists don’t always have clear skies to which they can look forward. “Delaware is not an easy state to forecast,” said state climatologist Dan Leathers. But enrollees in the University of Delaware’s new meteorology and climatology major will attempt to weather that storm.

Sussex County Post
Animal House! IRSD Teacher of the Year has passion for education, critters
Jennifer Cordrey is Indian River School District 2015-16 Teacher of the Year. Her agri-science instruction room at Indian River High School is literally an “animal house.” Critters with fur and a few with fins are pampered, spoiled and cared for by students and teacher as live-in classroom “guinea pigs” in animal science/pre-vet medicine components of agri-science instruction.

Newark Post
City partners with UD senior for new Box Tops initiative
In Jared Wasilefsky’s mind, one person’s trash has the ability to be a local school’s treasure — if you know where to cut. The 21-year-old University of Delaware senior from Alabama recently partnered with the city to create Newark’s Education Support Initiative (NESI), a new program he hopes will increase funding to Newark elementary and middle schools through the collection of Box Tops for Education.

Town Square Delaware
Arts organizations honor local artists, launch lively concert season
Wilmington dance and music educator Ken Brown will be honored for this first time with a 2015 Christi Award, which will recognize his many achievements: his work with fathers and daughters, his involvement with Kuumba Academy Charter School – he’s a founding member and dean of students and family engagement – and his 15 years’ previous experience at Christina Cultural Arts Center (where he was education director).

National News

WHYY
Education takes center stage in Philadelphia mayoral debate
More than 200 people packed a Center City auditorium Monday night for a tame, wide-ranging mayoral debate between Democrat Jim Kenney and Republican Melissa Murray Bailey. As it has throughout this election season, education dominated the hourlong event at WHYY.

WBUR
Baker and Walsh advocate for charter school expansion, but at different rates
Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh appeared separately before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education on Tuesday to offer testimony regarding proposals to raise the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in Massachusetts. Both are in favor of raising the cap, but they have differing views on how to do it.

News-Herald
AG: No right to opt-out of standardized tests
Parents of students in Arizona’s public schools have no legal right to withdraw their children opt from statewide standardized tests, Attorney General Mark Brnovich concluded.

Meet three schools that will use technology to personalize learning. What will they learn?
My story last week at The Hechinger Report (“A technology team from Facebook works to serve classroom teachers”) explained how the technology works and gave the names of the schools involved in the technology-sharing project. Here are snapshots from three distinctly different schools taking part in the program.

The Washington Post
More schools are working to integrate the arts into classroom learning
The new strategy comes as interest in arts integration is growing nationally, driven in part by increasing research that points to academic, social and personal benefits for students, said Sandra Ruppert, director of the Arts Education Partnership, a network of more than 100 arts, education and cultural organizations. She said studies show that employing the arts in academic classrooms is associated with improvement in test scores in math and English. In particular, students living in poverty benefit from the integrated approach, she said.