Sunday, July 13, 2014

Paddling as a Team Towards Educational Excellence!

Recently my husband took a group to West Virginia to go whitewater rafting.  For those of you who have been on the New River, you know that there are medium rapids, fast rapids and a couple areas of calm water.  As you proceed down the river you follow the lead of your guide: paddle on the right, paddle backwards, or lean a particular way.  When you make it through an especially difficult run of rapids, you feel a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie.  You and your rafting team-mates may even use your paddles to do a huge “high-five.”

lower-n-alldayIn a school district, much like a river raft, there must be guides.  The Columbia School District Board of Education guides the district by making policy decisions and budgetary assessments.  When looking forward to the district improvements, the Facility Improvement Team handed over draft plans for the bond issue and the School Board adopted the recommendations.  As the projects go forward the board continues to adjust the plans and maximize the benefits for the students. The guidance they provide influences all those in the Columbia School District family.

Working closely with the School Board, administrators, teachers and community is another guide; the superintendent.  Similar to the way the guides on the New River ask the participants to paddle left, right or backward, as superintendent I work with the principals and teachers on curriculum, technology and school improvements.  I also have the responsibility of putting the budget together and I work closely with the construction team, made up the School Board, Steering Committee, architect, construction manager and contractors. 
This year our high school teachers and students had a new guide in Mr. Hyliard.  As he worked throughout the year with the teachers and students they developed camaraderie, similar to the teams in the river rafting.  They also set their sights to build on previous years’ work by improving student test scores and they succeeded! Our students responded to the guidance of their teachers and principal to achieve to a level unequaled by other schools in the county.  On the MME and ACT, the students raised their scores in each category compared to last year.

Providing guidance for Columbia Middle School is Mrs. O’Neil.  In her second year as principal, she has worked with her teachers to create a positive learning environment for all students.  They work together to celebrate excellence with Student of the Month, the Science Fair, the Robotics Team and Geography Race.  They also have put in a lot of time paddling together in the same direction towards achievement of their school improvement goals.

Mrs. Powell provides the guidance to the Columbia Elementary School teachers and students.  One of their school improvement goals was to align their curriculum to the Common Core standards.  They have spent hours and hours working together to set their goals, objectives and activities to provide excellence in learning activities for their students.  They also have worked on improving support for their students in reading and writing. 

Options High School teachers and students follow the lead of principal Piepkow. One the growing programs at Options is the Online Academy.  The Columbia Online Academy has many students joining every day and taking advantage of the learning environment options.

The Columbia School District is looking forward to the 2014 – 2015 school year!  Beginning on September 2nd, we are set to have the best year ever!  CCHS has two new science courses and one new AP social studies course.  CMS is providing various new summer programs that will give students an advantage when they begin school in the fall. CES is offering Reading Recovery this summer and has additional supplemental materials for mathematics.  All of the schools will have carts of new Chromebooks for the students and the elementary will have a card of new iPads for students to use. 


If you would like to join us as we paddle our raft to excellence in educational learning environments and register your child for school, please call me at 5175926641 or email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org

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