McCann Technical School Sets New Goals for New YearBy Jack Guerino, iBerkshires Staff
01:19AM / Friday, June 10, 2016 | |
 The McCann School Committee hears about policies being implemented in the school improvement plan. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The McCann School Committee accepted the school improvement plan for next year designed to beef up honors courses, integrate new software and focus on behavior.
Principal Justin Kratz presented the four school improvement goals Thursday that the School Council, a group made of students and teachers, decided to focus on for the upcoming school year.
He said the first goal is to increase the rigor of honor level classes and clearly organize the honors curriculum.
"We are going to get our department heads together and look at what we have been doing the past two years in our honors classes ... and really look to beef up those classes," Kratz said.
He said this will be accomplished by sending teachers to more professional development classes focused on honors classes.
Also the school will look at honors criteria
"Right now we have different criteria for different subjects and it is a little disjointed ... it's kind of all over the place," Kratz said. "We will get together and come up with one set of honors criteria that covers all of our courses."
The second goal the principal presented was to create a common lesson planning approach throughout the school. He said this will be accomplished with new software.
"We want to have our faculty all lesson planning in the same manor in the same way in an electronic bank," Kratz said. "They can access and carry over information from year to year."
The third goal Kratz read was to improve school culture and behavior.
To reach this goal, the school will implement a consistent cell phone policy. Currently students can use their phones before school, after school, and at lunch.
"It caused a little bit of ambiguity with passing time and if they can us it because they aren’t in class and some teachers let students use cell phones at different times," he said. "We don’t really have any clear guidance."
Kratz said to further accomplish this goal, the school will improve communications with a morning announcement time in each classroom.
Along with this, the school will demand that teachers conduct a dress code check every morning.
"Every morning, every teacher takes two minutes and, granted the first few weeks of school are going to be a little rough, but once we get in the habit of it will be fine," Kratz said.
He said students are often discovered to be out of dress code toward the end of the day when it is too late to have them to change.
Finally, he said the council would like to continue adding and strengthening extracurricular activities.
Kratz said the third goal is to fully staff the student council. He said many members have graduated and the council is a little sparse.
"We have tried and this year's class has already five students that are fired up to join next year but I want to get some of the juniors," he said. "I'd like to get two kids from every grade level on there."
The final goal is to continue to host a Relay for Life team for the annual cancer awareness event.
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