School Committee Notes

ipswich Chronicle

wED JUN 11, 2008

WRITTEN BY BILL DONOVAN

IPSWICH -

Balancing choice, class size

The School Committee debated balancing the influx of Choice students with already-packed 2009 classrooms. In an attempt to safeguard class sizes, the committee voted to allow three new choice students in grades K-5 and 11 in grades 6-8 for the 2008-2009 school year.

Committee members were divided at first over the distribution of potential Choice students.

“Choice kids add tremendous vitality to our school system,” said Hugh O’Flynn.

Others saw restricting class levels as a necessity.

“We go through this every year on this one,” added Jeffrey Loeb. “We’re adding too many.” 

The committee sought to safeguard individual class sizes of 20 at the Winthrop and Doyon elementary schools.  Only three spots were approved for the third-grade. Members decided on allowing seven new choice students in the 6th grade and two each in the 7th and 8th grades. The Ipswich School District receives $5,000 per Choice student.

“We can’t raise class levels,” stated Joan Arsenault, newly re-elected School Committee chairman. 

Middle School schedule

Middle School teachers Peter Holtz and Kevin Murphy spoke of the recent shift from a six-hour school day to 7.5. Classes are now 13 minutes shorter than they were last year. During a Powerpoint presentation, Murphy and Holtz described the benefits of this new routine.

“This new schedule has given us more time to meet with students’ parents during the school day,” explained Murphy. “It’s an alphabetical waterfall schedule that’s easy to follow. On Monday, we start with A Block, on Tuesday B Block, and so on.”  

A 25-minute skills period known as LLM (Lunch, Literacy and Math) was added into the agenda.

“Kids like the flow and ability to get up and move around during specialist periods,” added Murphy. 

Holtz said more time is now available for fellow teachers to collaborate with one another. 

“We the teachers need more time to work together,” said Holtz. “We did not have the right conditions prior to this year. The reduced instructional time gives us a real payback.”

During previous years, grade level teams didn’t have common duty-free periods where they could meet and plan.

“There’s more of a sense of urgency to get down to business and address individual students’ needs,” said Middle School Principal 

http://www.wickedlocal.com/ipswich/news/education/x955875164/School-Committee-Notes Forster-Cahill.