Schools gear up for second half of year

Teachers and administrators returned to work Monday preparing for the resumption of classes with students today after the two-week winter break.

With the end of the second nine-week grading period (first semester) coming up Jan. 15, principals looked back at the first half of the school year and shared their thoughts on the remainder of the 2009-10 school year.

Avon Elementary Principal Pam Burnham said "we had a good beginning of the year with extra days for teachers to get prepared and get their rooms ready."

Teachers had seven workdays, instead of five, prior to the first day of the school.

"We've been trying to do the same things we've done last year," Burnham said. It felt like a successful year last year with the school earning an "A" accountability grade and also earning the federal "Adequate Yearly Progress" designation.

With an unforeseen extra 20 fourth-graders this school year, Burnham said she moved a resource teacher into a class with another teacher. By opening up an accordion-type separator, the classroom was enlarged to accommodate more students than the typical fourth-grade class.

This co-teaching arrangement was the least disruptive way to accommodate the additional students compared to adding a new classroom and shifting a number of students to that classroom, she noted.

Burnham said she told her staff it's a new year and a new beginning. After wrapping up all the holiday things and excitement it's time to get back to teaching the basics and preparing students for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).

"I think the kids will be ready to come back," she said. "Once they've had two weeks off they are ready to come back. They are usually very settled and ready to get back in their routines again."

Lake Placid Middle School Principal Derrel Bryan said academic improvement is always at the top of the priority list.

The Advanced Academics offerings expanded at his school this year so there is an advanced class at every grade level in every core subject, he noted.

"Our kids have exceeded our expectations in terms of honor roll," Bryan said, with more students earning all "A" grades and more students making the honor roll.

"After Christmas, we are really going to be full-bore in preparation for FCAT," he said.

Also, the teachers are doing a great job in adapting to the difficult situation with no planning period during the regular day, Bryan said.

"I'm real proud of our folks," he said. "We are trying real hard to make this thing work. They all understand the difficult financial situation that we are in."

Sebring High School Principal Toni Stivender said the death of a student from swine flu affected the whole school.

Marquis Hamilton, 14, died Sept. 11 from complications from the H1N1 virus, according to the 10th District Medical Examiner's Office.

"It brought it home, the severity of what could happen," Stivender said. "It really made everybody much more conscientious about themselves and their habits probably not only here at school, but also away."

A number of students carry Germ-X in their book packs and all the teachers have it in their classrooms, Stivender noted.

She also commented on the seven-period day with the common planning period before classes start.

Considering the different schedule for teachers this year, "I think we are having a really good year," Stivender said. "For the rest of the year we are just going to continue to prepare the kids to do the best they can on FCAT and start our planning for next year."

At Cracker Trail Elementary, between the retirees and those who left the school on their own accord, no one had to be cut from a job, Principal Rick Demeri said.

"We have a lot of new people this year who stepped up to the plate and did an excellent job," he said. Everyone has risen to the occasion on the new state reading testing, which is called the Florida Assessments in Reading (F.A.I.R.).

Students seem to be doing very well on the mid-year assessments, Demeri noted. "Our writing scores have come up; our science has come up; so we are excited about that."

After missing an "A" accountability grade by one point the past two years, "we are anticipating hopefully getting least one more point than we've gotten in the last two years so we will be back in an "A," he said.