Schools learning ways to better education

Harrisburg School District Unit #3 continues to look for ways to improve the way it does education.

Superintendent Mike Gauch is excited about things they have on the drawing board for the future of Harrisburg schools. As technology use continues to expand in education, Gauch, is trying to make every effort to use it for the betterment of our students.

"I am old school, I believe children and our community come first," Gauch said.

With funding for schools regularly in question, and greater demands placed on teachers, Gauch said he continues to work to keep the students from getting lost in the shuffle.

"We have a few ideas we are working on to help improve how we teach our students," Gauch said.

Gauch has been with the district now for nearly two years and set out to see why the school system was hemorrhaging money. He set his sights first on a summer lunch program the school district implemented a few years back. The lunch program was spending close to $12,000 in the course of two months. But once Gauch saw the impact it was having on the community, his heart just wasn't in it.

"When I saw the amount of kids that took advantage of the program, I knew we had to make it work," Gauch said.

The lunch program continues to feed children over the course of the summer months who don't have the resources to eat well at home.

The superintendent's aim is to make sure that students don't lose out simply because the system needs to make financial cuts.

The district is also toying with a few ideas to better improve classroom time, Gauch said. Some schools have switched from textbook learning to using laptops in the classroom. Though the financial resources aren't available just yet, the idea isn't going away time soon.

Also, talks going on about the "Flipped Classroom," an initiative that reverses typical lecture and homework elements of a course. Students view short video lectures at home before a class session, while in-class time is devoted to exercises, projects or discussions. This model allows parents, if interested, to review the material with the student at home, making them more equipped to guide the students with their school work.

"This will help parents better understand the 'Common Core' curriculum," Gauch said.

No definite plans to implement the flipped classroom are in the works. It is just an example of the number of considerations administrators and faculty are considering for their impact on schools and students.