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September 20
2010
New
Enrichment Program Starts Today
Team Information Explorers includes more students,
costs less and is a path to high school IB
The
Schenectady City School District is kicking off a new enrichment
program called Team Information Explorers (TIE). The new
program, replacing Young Scholars, is costing the district less
money and will include more students in grades 4-7. It starts
today.
The Young
Scholars program, offered and operated by BOCES last year, was
cut from the 2010-2011 Budget. District administrators said
that the district could develop a solid program that would reach
more students and for a lot less money. The Young Scholars
program cost approximately $1,900 per student along with
administrative, testing and implementation costs for a total of
$215,000 per year. The first year of the TIE program runs about
$50,000. This includes training, summer curriculum work,
stipends, supplies and equipment.
The school
librarians, who also developed the curriculum over the summer,
will devote a 10% and 20% of their time to the TIE program in
middle and elementary school respectively.
The
librarians will run the program on Monday afternoons and Tuesday
mornings. 180 students are enrolled in the new program, 80 more
than 2009-10 in the Young Scholars program. Many of the
students who meet the criteria for the TIE program did not meet
that of the Young Scholars.
The
difference is that the criteria
for the new program takes math and English scores into
consideration separately. Therefore, students are not
disqualified from the program if they don’t score well in both
areas.
The most
dramatic enrollment changes are in fifth and seventh grades.
With the new testing criteria, 21 more fifth graders and 52 more
seventh graders have qualified for the enrichment program.
Karen
Swain, assessment, research and design supervisor, and Jim
Schneider, library media specialist and teacher on special
assignment for TIE spoke to the board of education last
Wednesday about the new program.
Schneider
who works with International Baccalaureate (IB) teachers at
Schenectady High School said that the inquiry-based nature of
the program is aligned and that it is a continuum to the IB
program at the high school.
TIE will
focus on using project-based learning to create, research and
present topics that relate to real-world issues.
The first
quarter project, “If the World Were a Village,” calls for the
students to read the David Smith book. The students will then
use the Google Suite of products and participate in discussion
on digital citizenship and 21st century learning.
Other
projects outlined for the year include a Sustainability
Project in which students will be researching
environmentally-friendly alternatives to school lunch program
foods and materials.
During the
third quarter, students will work on Street Project in
which they will study traffic patterns and environmental issues
regarding traffic around schools. They will then study the data
and make recommendation for traffic issues.
“I am
delighted,” said Ann Reilly, Schenectady City School District
Board of Education Member. “It sounds like you have a good plan
for our students.”
“These
children and their parents are in four one fantastic
opportunity,” said board member Ron Lindsay. “We are moving.”
Contact
Information
Teacher Leader:
Jim Schneider
518-370-8218
-------------------------------------------------
Daily Gazette - Saturday, September 19 2010
It turns out the Schenectady city school district has many more
gifted students than it realized.
Late last year, administrators decided to test every child who
had scored at or above grade level on the state math or English
exam.
.............. Read
the Daily Gazette Story
Here
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