Letter To The Editor
For
years now we’ve known that in order to improve our school, we
need to address the stagnant curriculum and provide extra
support/time to the younger kids. Nottingham has had great
success with their curriculum coordinator, and we’ve taken some
successful steps in that direction. Similarly, we see the
benefits of full-day kindergarten upon the millions who have
access to it in this country. Implementing these programs are
the top things that will improve education in this town.
This year, instead of asking the taxpayers to fund these
priorities, the school board has instead made significant cuts
to the elementary school budget and re-organized existing staff
positions to self-fund these improvements without asking for
additional taxpayer money or adding any new positions in the
school. In fact, they’re able to do this with a budget that is
less than last year’s budget and significantly less than the
default budget.
Were it not for an influx of over 16 high-school-aged students
this year (which at $15K+ a pop adds up to more than $250,000 in
additional tuition costs), the proposed budget would have shown
savings of more than a $300,000 over last year, due to an
expiring building bond payment. One can see on the proposed
2017-2018 budget (available on the SAU website) that a reduction
of over $313,000 from the elementary school budget is offset by
an increase of over $300,000 in high school tuition costs. I
suppose this is the blessing and the curse of having a top-notch
high school in town.
On
Monday, February 6th, at 6:30pm is the deliberative session to
set the budget numbers on the warrant. I hope that everyone
will be able to make it, and will support a budget number that
is a reasonable compromise and will improve our town’s
education.
Keith McGuigan,
Northwood School Board
Letter To The Editor
More
Than You Know
In
his letter of Dec. 21, Paul Johnston dismisses the need for
full-day kindergarten by listing what he thinks kindergarteners
need to learn:
“1)
learn to share, 2) learn to play nice, 3) socialize with peers,
4) learn “how” to be a student, and 5) learn to color inside the
lines.” And he asks, rhetorically, “Does it take all day for a
year … for kids to learn that?”
While learning these social and emotional skills are important,
they are hardly sufficient to prepare a child for the curriculum
he or she will encounter in the First Grade.
To
get a flavor of what is expected of kindergarteners across the
state, I went to the Department of Education’s website where the
College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) are presented. To keep
things simple and relatively jargon-free, I looked at the
Mathematics Standards for Kindergarten
(http://www.education.nh.gov/spotlight/
ccss/documents/math_kindergarten.pdf).
It
begins with the Section on Counting and Cardinality: 1: Count to
100 by ones and tens, and progresses to 3. Write numbers from 0
to 20 to 6. Identify whether the number of objects in one group
is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in
another group. The next four Sections deal with Operations and
Algebraic Thinking, Number and Operations in Base Ten,
Measurement and Data, and Geometry.
Now
think about a comparable curriculum for English/Language Arts,
Social Studies and Science. And allow time for “Specials:”
music, P.E., health, etc. And lunch and snack!
So
to answer the question, “does it take a full school day” to
prepare kids to enter First Grade, the answer is “yes.”
And
parents, it also helps to play card games, dominoes and checkers
with your kids, and not just video games.
Tom
Chase
Northwood, NH
