Staff Writer
The Caribou School Board met on Dec. 19 at the Caribou Middle School to receive an update on happenings at the school as well as to receive information regarding recent Pre-K certification requirements.
Caribou Middle School Principal Susan White appeared before the board to inform them of goings on at the middle school. “It’s a busy place with over 440 students and 50 staff members,” said White.
She began by informing them that facilities were in good condition and detailed appreciated improvements within the last year.
“The new driveway is a huge success, I get calls all the time from parents about how much better it is,” said White.
White also discussed Adequate Yearly Progress, which the middle school has made great advancements toward making in the past year.
“The big thing that happens at the middle school is AYP. It drives just about everything that we do. It’s very time consuming, but it’s also very rewarding. We met with our representative from the department of education, Chris Tucker and he asked if I had gotten any phone calls from other schools, because he said he’d been talking about Caribou Middle School everywhere that he goes as a success story. He said, ‘I know you’re not off the list yet, but the growth that you’ve made has been excellent,” said White.
White also discussed working with Janet Allen with Plugged Into Reading, a program that helps students to make a great deal of improvement.
Another change within the last year, mentioned by White is the change in schedules for 8th graders. Students are now given schedules to follow throughout the day, rather than moving with a homeroom. This reflects how things are done at the high school and should aid students in the transition to high school.
White also mentioned the athletics program, within which over 100 students participate in each of the four seasons. The middle school also has a system of rewarding the athletic teams with the highest average grade point average among teammates, encouraging student athletes to continue to achieve academically.
For this reason Caribou Middle School was featured in a book, “Clear the Hurdles, Issues and Answers of Middle School Sports. Caribou Middle School was one of four schools in the nation mentioned in the book.
White also noted that the Caribou Middle School Show Choir would be defending their state title this year.
Teague Park School Principal, Lois Brewer came before the board to inform them of a recent change in certification requirements for Pre K teachers.
Brewer discussed the changes which have been required, by state law, which includes a new endorsement for teachers.
According to Brewer the new endorsement involved a large amount of course work for teachers to complete, and the law does not include a grandfather clause for current Pre-K teachers. Brewer gave Beth Alden as an example of a highly trained Pre-K teacher who would no longer be certified without taking further courses.
“The first step in this process was to send all of your transcripts to the state department to have them analyzed. Mrs. Alden sent hers in first. Now, Mrs. Alden has 22 years of experience teaching Pre-K. She was trained in Michigan in the Pre-K curriculum. She was instrumental in developing one of the first public Pre-K programs in the State of Maine, and she has a Masters Degree in Special Education. Her transcript came back analyzed by the State Department and it said that she would have to take four courses in early childhood work and that she would have to sit down to practice two test, to prove that would now be appropriate to teach Pre-K. Well then it got better, as we decided to start signing up for these courses, we found that they don’t currently exist anywhere,” said Brewer.
“Well we were pretty angry and disgusted,” said Brewer.
Brewer went on to detail the steps the school took to rectify the situation. These steps included speaking with Superintendent Frank McElwain, as well as contacting Commissioner of Schools, Susan Gendron, Rep. Peter Edgecomb, Rep. Jeremy Fischer. After a long process Brewer received word from Edgecomb that Gendron had expressed sentiments that it had never been her intent for veteran teachers to go through this process. She stated that it had been the State Board of Education that had proposed that all teachers be involved in the process, and she agreed to propose that the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee grandfather in the current teachers, much as has been done in the past,” said Brewer.
“Representative Edgecomb has indicated that we can be cautiously optimistic that the grandfathering clause changes will be made, and that he will not let this issue die,” said Brewer.
