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Back to School: Students return to classes this week

Posted August 17, 2014 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

Summer vacation is over, as students return to classrooms across the county this week and administrators voiced their hopes for the 2014-15 school year.

"We're excited about the new school year," said Jennifer Hagel, principal at Steeleville High School and assistant superintendent for Steeleville District 138. "A lot of our time is being spent aligning our curriculum with Common Core."

New this year is the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, otherwise known as PARCC.

According to its website, PARCC testing is "a group of states working together to develop a set of assessments that measure whether students are on track to be successful in college and their careers."

PARCC replaces the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) and, together with Common Core, are part of a federal initiative for tougher academic standards.

"There are still a lot of questions at the high school level about PARCC," said Hagel, who is in her 20th year at the school. "We used to have the (Prairie State Achievement Examination), but the PARCC is our new method of evaluating our students."

Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island are the other states participating in PARCC.

A legal complaint has been filed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in an attempt to block PARCC, which Jindal accuses of being "an illegal federal intrusion into state control of education," and that could pave the way for other states to file similar lawsuits.

In Randolph County, Chester Grade School principal Tim Lochhead said the school has a lot of initiatives for the school year.

"We've got a number of new items we're dealing with," Lochhead said. "We've got student learner outcomes that deal with student growth, new way of mandated training with the Global Compliance Network, new phone system, we're doing PARCC testing for the first time and just for the heck of it, we're building a new gym in the parking lot."

The $5.85 million gymnasium/classroom project has an estimated completion date of July 15, 2015, but the 2014-15 school year will be a chess match of organizing student arrivals and departures around the construction schedule.

"It's going to be an exciting year and the kids will enjoy watching the 'celebrities' build the gym," Lochhead said, referring to construction workers and their heavy equipment. "I think it will be a novelty, but I don't think it will wear off until (the students) can't see it any more."

At St. John Lutheran School in Chester, Principal Brenda Owen expressed her expectations for the school year.

St. John will also host a "Back to School Block Party" on Tuesday and has reported more than a 10 percent increase in enrollment with 18 new students this fall.

"We'll be continuing the SJS behavior program that rewards positive behavior," Owen said. "We give kids rewards based on care coins."

Owens said "care coins" are what students receive when an adult in the school system recognizes the student doing positive behavior.

"Each month, we give a class reward where the whole class gets a reward," Owen said.

Owens said SJS is also aligning its curriculum to Common Core in the subjects of English, Math and Next-generation Science.

"This is one of those things where it's going to take a number of years before we've moved over (to Common Core)," Owen said.

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