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Photo Kevin Mullaney
Sixth grader Nate Calley works on a poetry project with Garage Band software, with help from Principal Brian Davis (middle) and sixth grade teacher John Burns. |
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Bucking the trend
Truro Central School sees enrollment rise
By Kevin Mullaney
Banner Correspondent
TRURO — Enrollment is up, the budget is down and kids are continually being caught doing something good for another person without being asked, says Brian Davis, principal of the Truro Central School. “The year’s going fast. It’s really going well,” Davis reports.
Enrollment at the elementary school is up 13 percent this year, from 122 students last September to 139 this fall. In addition, the budget is down a bit, around one percent. “Grade numbers are up across the board,” Davis says. There were seven first graders last year but the second grade this year has 10 students. Sixth grade has 13 students, up from 10 last year, and the kindergarten has 23 little ones. The other grades have 20 kids each.
“People do choose Truro,” Davis says, adding that they are very careful looking at the known students every spring before they open up any school-choice spots. There is one class per grade at the school.
“We’re pleased to see [the increase], while other districts on the Cape are declining. We do have the capacity,” Davis says. There are para-professionals to assist the teachers, two remedial support teachers and two full-time special-needs teachers. “We are able to really serve the students,” he says, adding that the trend is that a few kids move out to the charter school or Nauset in the upper grade levels.
There are two new faculty members. Erika Meads, a paraprofessional the last two years, completed her certification requirements and has now moved into the kindergarten teacher position. Kathy Dowd is the school’s new physical education teacher, a two-days-a-week position. Dowd has taught in the Chatham Elementary School and the Harwich Middle School and has returned to teaching from an early retirement. “She wanted to work with kids again,” says Davis.
In terms of curriculum, the school has implemented “Fundations” as a piece of the reading program for kindergarten to third grade. It is a sister program to special needs that addresses phonics only. “It trains the mind to visualize,” Davis says. “Kids learn to put into words what they’re seeing. It enhances comprehension.”
Davis speaks of an interesting school-wide anti-bullying program that has two components, called “Caught in the Act” and “Mix It Up at Lunch.” In the first, all staff are asked to catch students doing something good for another person without being asked. The kids get a certificate that’s placed in a binder at the top of the stairs for all to see. The latter is part of a nationwide program where once a year kids are randomly assigned to sit together at lunch. Davis calls the shuffling an awareness effort that teaches tolerance and deals with cliques and teasing. There is a full-time school social worker who works in the classrooms with the children. “I’ve seen huge changes in my 12 years here,” Davis says. “There’s been a dramatic decrease in the amount of intervention required for teasing and bullying, and physical contact is almost zero,” he says.
In terms of technology, the school has two Smart Boards, the interactive “blackboards,” and will get three more during the year through a federal grant. The fourth and fifth grade students have small “Dana” word processors that can connect to a PC. Teacher John Burns’ sixth graders have MacBooks. For one project, the Found Poetry Project, the kids are using the Garage Band program to record poems using words from a chapter in a novel they are reading, a poem dealing with the subject matter of the chapter, then adding music and sounds for tone and atmosphere. The final products will be put on the school’s website. The website, maintained by administrative assistant Heather Kaplan, has a link for each class, including homework for the upper grades. There is a weekly reminder page and other information. Graphically, the website is very cute.
Last but certainly not least is the adventurous fifth grade teacher, Megan O’Leary, who left on Monday for a month’s leave aboard the Ronald Brown, the biggest of NOAA’s state-of-the-art research ships. From South Carolina, the Ronald Brown will travel through the Panama Canal, then south to replace a scientific buoy off the coast of Chile. O’Leary will send the kids daily e-mails and perhaps video streams of her journey. She did the same as a tornado chaser two years ago. Retired teacher Sara Hutchings will substitute for the month. “It’s going to be a remarkable experience,” O’Leary says, somewhat sad that she’ll miss the Red Sox in the World Series — hopefully.
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Oct 11th, 2007