Anita Weston, Reporter
Rich Civic Times
RANDOLPH, Utah. May
21, 2014. School curriculum decisions
have been made for the coming school year.
The middle school Principal Kip Motta organized a committee to work on
the math program for the North Rich elementary and middle schools. Last year the middle school went with the
Digits program. This year K through 5
will adopt the Go Math program. These
programs will be used for the next six years.
The cost of the elementary program for this time period will be
$29,200. The student text is consumable,
and there are many on line materials that will be available to the
students. There are many teacher
resources and intervention materials to assist those having problems. The teachers are excited about the program
because students will be taught multiple ways to solve problems.
The High School math program presents a dilemma. It has been a three-year wait to be able to
get a program that is close to the State core choice of an international
model. The text selected fits the core
the best. It is from Pearson
Publishing. There are some really good
materials. There are hard copy textbooks
as well as on-line texts and software. A
combination of both hard copy and software will be used. There is also a math excel program that will
be used as supplementary material.
Again, the choice was made for the next six-year time period at a cost
of $19,999. Six years of the Digits
program will be $9,800 because it does such a good job in working with the SAGE
test problems. Also, the opportunity to
analyze problems at different levels is available. The total amount comes to $49,050 which is
approximately $8,000 per year.
The teachers and administrators are excited about the
program. They had to wait three years to
get materials that will work well. The
longer the students have to move through the program, the better and easier it
will be. It is going to be a good thing.
Principal Larsen worked with the adoption of a language arts
program. The high school will be
adopting the Journey Program. It goes
from K through 8 which is mainly reading.
There needs to be a writing and grammar program. The Zaner-Blouser program will cover the
writing portion in scope and sequence.
Also, the school will purchase the Collections Program put out by Houton
Mufflin.
So far a writing grammar program has not been found for the
high school. The high school students do
well with writing and have strong results on the SAGE tests. Their reading scores are strong. The Explore and ACT programs have been most
helpful in both of these areas. However,
the challenge is grammar and sentence structure. The students struggle with this part of the
exams. Thus, a grammar component still
needs to be found.
It was decided to buy ten hardback copies of the books and
digital copies for everyone of the Houton Mifflin materials from K through
12. This is the latest and best
resources that are available. Currently,
the 6th grade class is large.
The school will buy what is needed by the other classes and get extra
copies as this class moves up through the school.
The Principles thanked the School Board for the money spent
for good curriculum materials. They have
allowed the schools to stay current and up-to-date. The Zaner-Blouzer programs should help where
students are weak in writing. The
Journeys language arts program is especially good, and the staff really likes
this program. The same company produces
both Journeys and Go Math.
The motion was made and passed by the Board to accept the
recommended Curriculum programs.
No comments:
Post a Comment