Dear Everyone Learning at ARPS:
A Reminder from PLANNING AMHERST TOGETHER
Dear Friends & Neighbors:
When was the last time that you or anyone ever had the chance to design your town's future? Probably never. That's why YOU and other members of your household have a unique opportunity to have a hand in Amherst's comprehensive Master Plan called PLANNING AMHERST TOGETHER! The foundation for the plan is FOUR MORE conveniently located & scheduled "IDEA GATHERING" meetings. (The first meeting was October 12). The meetings that last only 2 hours will serve to gather every citizen idea, however bland or extreme! (And every single idea will be anonymously recorded and available online and at local libraries for everyone to see and consider.) Choose from following:
Saturday Morning Oct 14th 10-12noon, Amherst Regional MIDDLE School WITH CHILDCARE
Wednesday Afternoon Oct 18th 1-3pm, Jones Library Downtown
Wednesday Evening Oct 18th 7-9pm, Immanuel Lutheran Church North Amherst
Friday Morning Oct 20th 9-11am, Hampshire College-Franklin Patterson Hall
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The Amherst School Committee meets Tuesday evening, October 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the High School library.
The agenda includes updates on a recent grant received to support our work with the Hitchcock Center and a grant to include Chinese language at Wildwood Elementary School. Several polices will be reviewed in the School Committee's ongoing effort to update district policies. Information about a few of these items are included below.
Hitchcock Center and Our Schools - Update by Dr. Wendy Kohler, executive director of curriculum and program development
The Amherst Public School District is the recipient of a Creative Schools Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, in collaboration with the Hitchcock Center for the Environment. This initiative builds on the strong educational alliance that the Amherst schools and the Hitchcock Center have sustained for over thirty years. The grant award is $24,000 for each of two years. A district-wide Science Curriculum Coordinating Committee and three teacher-led grade-level Science Working Groups (for grades four, five, and six) will develop a new vertical sequence of science curriculum that is interdisciplinary, hands-on, and relevant to the local community and environment. The goal of this project is to combine educational approaches to the sciences in ways that break down traditional boundaries between disciplines, provide more hands-on learning experiences (through problem-solving and project based activities), adapt to individual students and their unique skills and abilities, and develop greater knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for the local environment. The grant provides the unique opportunity for science educators within the schools and from the Hitchcock Center to collaborate on the development of new, rigorous, and engaging science curriculum for all students grades 4-6 in the Amherst and Pelham elementary schools.
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Foreign Language Acquisition Program Grant - Update by Dr. Wendy Kohler, executive director of curriculum and program development
The federal Foreign Language Acquisition Program (FLAP) grant recently awarded to the Amherst Schools is a three-year grant for approximately $150,000 each year. The Amherst Chinese Language and Culture Project (ACLCP) is a collaborative project with partners who span the K-16 continuum in order to provide students with an extensive, cohesive, and multi-dimensional approach to the study of Chinese language and culture. It builds on the existing programs in Chinese in the Amherst Pelham Regional public schools, the bi-lingual program in Chinese at the Wildwood Elementary School, as well as Wildwood's after-school Chinese program.
In the first year of ACLCP, children in all of the kindergarten and first grade classrooms at the Wildwood Elementary School will begin the study of Chinese language and culture. At the same time, additional resources and learning opportunities will be put in place for secondary students who elect Chinese as a foreign language. In the second year of ACLCP, Wildwood students in Kindergarten, first, second, third, and fourth grades will engage in Chinese study, and distance learning opportunities in Chinese will be offered through the Amherst Regional High School to students at Greenfield Community College as well as to other area high schools. The third year of ACLCP will see the continuation and expansion of the Chinese program through the fifth and sixth grades at Wildwood. In addition, there will be a mandatory course of study in all four of our elementary schools in the fifth and sixth grades on language awareness; that is, the students will gain a broader understanding of how language and culture and literacy define a society through a variety of short interdisciplinary units that connect a variety world languages with geography, literature, and the arts.
While the study of Chinese in the Wildwood Elementary School will be mandatory, embedded in the regular instruction through all seven grades, when students enter the middle school they will continue to have the opportunity to elect a foreign language to study. Currently, the Amherst Regional Middle School and High Schools offer six choices: Chinese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, and Latin. Those choices are available to students at every grade level, on through graduation. In order for each student to make a sound choice as to what language to pursue, he/she needs to have been introduced to the interrelatedness of language, culture, and communication. Short interdisciplinary units in the fifth and sixth grades, directly connected to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks in English/Language Arts and in History/Social Sciences in the fifth and sixth grades will help them make sound choices. If the Wildwood Elementary School students elect Chinese, they will be firmly grounded in Chinese language study when they enter the seventh grade. Their six-year secondary school path can lead them to success at the Advanced Placement level, or to the pursuit of Chinese language study at either the University of Massachusetts or at Amherst College. (Both institutions welcome our high school students.) If these Wildwood students elect a different language to study, they will do so with a firm grounding in the five core concepts of foreign language education as stated by ACTFL: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and community after up to seven years of rehearsal in Chinese.
In summary, ACLCP goals are: 1) to establish a clearly articulated K-6 Chinese language program in the Wildwood Elementary School, with a primary objective of students achieving Novice 1 proficiency by the end of sixth grade; 2) to articulate a K-12 Chinese language program, with a primary objective of increasing the number of students achieving Advanced level proficiency by the end of twelfth grade; 3) to offer distant learning opportunities in Chinese at the high school and college levels, with a primary objective of engaging in partnerships with area high schools and Greenfield Community College to increase the number of areas students studying Chinese; and 4) to create a model for K-12 foreign language study that can be replicated throughout our district and in other districts.
The expected outcomes of ACLCP center on student achievement and the expansion/replication of the program. We believe that Wildwood students will be able to: demonstrate novice level proficiencies in the five "C" goal areas in Chinese by the end of elementary school (communications, cultures, connections, comparisons, community). Our intent is also by the end of the third year to have a plan in place for the expansion of this program into the other three Amherst elementary schools - each identifying its own foreign language and culture(s) to study over the K-6 grade span. We may elect language from the repertoire of languages already offered in the secondary schools (e.g., Russian, French, Spanish, or German). Or we may find, through the professional development afforded by this project, that another language/culture should be selected. The Amherst Pelham Regional School District (grades 7-12) and the Amherst Public School District (grades K-6) are committed to this project and its expansion to benefit all the students within our district.
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Chinese Programs in our schools and charter school proposal
Abstract: In recent weeks there have been several developments related to our efforts to provide access to families seeking instruction to children in Chinese. The Amherst Chinese School is operating on Sunday mornings at the Middle School. We have received a federal grant to support a Chinese dual language program in our elementary schools. We had designed a program last year but could not implement due to budget cuts. A Chinese Charter School in our area has been accepted as one of five to continue in the state application process.
This year, we are implementing our revised procedures in assessing fees and employing regulations for facility use. The Amherst Chinese School has been using the middle school facility for several years. At one time, it was "under the umbrella" of the school system. In recent years, it has been independent. As we calculated the fees using the new policy and guidelines, the charge to the school would have been significant. We have worked with the directors of the school and have worked out an agreement that seems to be workable for this year. We will monitor progress as the year proceeds. It is our intention and desire to make this work for these families and children in and around our community!
Three years ago, the Amherst School Committee was approached by citizens to review the feasibility of a dual language program in our elementary schools, specifically teaching lessons in Chinese and English. After a committee review, we took the 'next steps' to design a plan for Wildwood Elementary School. While we stood prepared to begin this in 2006-2007, budget cuts caused us to delay and simultaneously seek grant support or other funding. Since then there have been two developments of note.
First, we wrote and received a federal grant to begin a Chinese language immersion program. Details of that are attached and will be reviewed by Dr. Kohler at the Amherst School Committee meeting.
Second, a group of citizens from the area (Amherst and other towns) submitted a Charter School Proposal. Their proposal was one of five accepted to take the next steps in the process. School Committee members have received the introductory materials from their proposal. That process is noted below. For complete information on the process, the DOE website is http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/ Questions about funding, specifically, are confusing at best as there are numerous variables in the determination and calculation of funding. While a new charter school tuition's are phased in, it is safe to assume that after full implementation the costs to the sending district would exceed $10,000 in a range up to $13,000 or more. Various spreadsheets on the DOE sites illustrate this variance. Regardless, it should be noted that charter school tuitions are taken "off the top" of the Cherry Sheet (state funds) to our town(s) and Region and exceed the $5,000 calculation used for students attending a school of choice outside their town.
Charter School Process Notes:
o Charter School submits final application to the DOE & a copy to local superintendent by November 14th.
o DOE office of Charter Schools will send local superintendent a request for public comment once application is received (may submit in writing by mail or at public comment meeting).
o 3 public comment sessions are being scheduled in various parts of the state. The session for Western MA will be in Springfield (location still TBA). The tentative date is December 13 (not confirmed yet, but will be during the second or third week of December if not on the 13th).
o January 2 is the deadline for all public comments to be received by DOE.
o DOE final decision will be made in February.
o Once finalized, all date/location information will be posted at http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter .
Jere Hochman
Superintendent