Easton Schools Eye Improved Academics

And so begins the 2011-2012 school year.

On Tuesday night, the Easton Board of Education held its first regular meeting of the academic year.

“The opening [of the school year] has been a lovely one,” said Susan Kaplan, principal of .

This year, Easton’s schools welcomed students with 15 new staff members, according to the school board. Included in the new staff are a music teacher, a recess aid, a Sacred Heart University intern and a third grade teacher, according to Kaplan. The two new faces that were in attendance at were those of , the district's new superintendent, and , the new assistant principal of HKMS.

“When you have a new staff, the energy and enthusiasm is great,” Kaplan said.

According to Burke, 390 children entered the hallways of HKMS last week. In addition to faculty changes, students in grade six will now be able to experience a full year of foreign language studies, as opposed to last year’s six-month limit, according to Kaplan. The emphasis of string instrument studies has also returned to HKMS.

“It’s really exciting to me that string instruments have returned to Easton students,” Kaplan stated.

Parents will be seeing changes as well, according to the board. Their ability to access their children’s academic records will be quicker and more direct this year, as they'll be able to access their children’s report cards online.

“We are working with a data manager to get the report cards into PowerSchool,” Kaplan explained. “We are also going to be blending Redding and Easton report cards.”

Easton schools are slowly and carefully moving into the technological generation of learning, according to Josefsberg. The new superintendent said he would however like to speed things up.

A new website?

Currently, the Easton school board is looking at ways to include the Redding and Region 9 school boards in a decision regarding the region’s new website service provider. The top three vendors that may meet the needs of all three boards are Edline, and PowerIT.

“We are looking to identify dates for presentations [of the vendors and sites] by the end of the month,” Josefsberg stated. “We’d like to make a decision by November.”

Daniel Underberger, board chairman, said all three districts will be involved in the decision-making process.

“We all want to do this as an entire district,” Underberger stated.

“Essentially you want to give the two remaining boards time to debate on matters of substance,” Josefsberg added. “We want to make sure all three boards have all of the information necessary to come to a common decision.”

When the three boards come to a final decision, one of the three top vendors will revamp the site. According to a review of the programs for future purchase, prepared by Vicki Cram, the human resources coordinator for Easton, Redding and Region 9 schools, what the three boards will need are a product that will give users easy access for updating purposes, an easy way of learning how to use the site and a place where teachers can communicate via blogs, messaging or posts, amongst other needs.  

CABE

Another topic that was discussed at the meeting included the potential reentry of Easton BOE into the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE). Due to uncertainty of the benefits of reentering into CABE, the BOE took no action on a decision Tuesday evening. The Easton BOE was once part of CABE, but stopped using them due to budgetary purposes, according to Underberger.