Superintendent’s Message Communicator August 2016

Dr. Stephanie Starcher

Let me be the first to welcome you to the 2016-2017 year at The Fort! Thank you for entrusting Fort Frye Local to educate your child and to prepare him/her for an exciting career or .

Student learning is our main focus at Fort Frye so let me share with you some of the things that we have academically changed for the 2016-2017 school year. Over the past several school years, our district has invested a lot of time and resources in updating our curriculum products that no longer match the state required curriculum. For the upcoming school year, there will be new curriculum resources for Social Studies in grades through six. We also have secured additional Chrome Books so that all of our schools have a least one set of mobile technology devices, and our junior high/high school has multiple sets to meet the learning needs of our older students.

There have been some course changes throughout the district as well. We are excited to be offering some new courses this year at Fort Frye High School without having to add additional staff members. In Social Studies, we will be offering the College Credit Plus American History course as well as the Fort Frye History/Archives class, which is an elective to allow students to research and display school and local community history. Students may choose to take the elective course Current Events to study political issues occurring in current times. We will also be sponsoring a new music course elective as well as a nine-week career exploration class for 7th and 8th grade students and a nine-week Health class for 8th graders. Based on our state assessment scores, our 7th and 8th graders need more time and support in Mathematics so we will offer these junior high students an additional 30 minute for daily math instruction.

Some of the skills and content that were previously taught as Industrial Art classes are now part of the courses taught in the Vocational Agriculture department. Finally, we will no longer pull students out of regular education classes for Talented and Gifted (TAG) services. For students who qualify, we will be providing TAG services in the area of Superior Cognitive, Science, Social Studies, English Language Arts, and Mathematics within the regular classroom in grade three through eight. Our teachers are receiving specialized training for this transition in TAG services.

This summer we only have one major capital improvement project occurring in the district which is the renovation of our traditional library space into the Cadet College and Career Center. The reason for this renovation is to provide a space for distance learning courses to occur via a technology system called Polycom, to create small areas for group collaboration, to offer a student media center where students can access technology for individual projects while also having a comfortable space during transitions in between classes since many of our students do not have a traditional high school schedule, and to continue to provide both a computer lab and a traditional library area where online books can be accessed on mobile tablets. We already have scheduled to offer several online classes by connecting to instructors at other sites, including Trigonometry and Speech for college credit, and we will be sharing via a “live” distance learning connection to another high school our new college course, Instructional Planning, which prepares interested students to become future teachers. The traditional high school experience is changing rapidly as student options for what and how they want to learn continue to increase. This renovation projects allows us to make changes to accommodate our students’ learning needs. We hope you will arrange to visit the newly renovated space where there unique experiences are occurring this fall

Fort Frye Local Schools has a variety of ways to share and receive communications with our school community. During the school year, we send out this district-wide Cadet Communicator, with the one in August being mailed to families. Each building sends out at hardcopy newsletter or email at least monthly with building-level communications. We also send automated calls and emails as needed with information. (Please note that all of our staff email addresses have been updated in the past six months to [email protected]) . You can also follow us on Facebook at Fort Frye Local Schools or Twitter @fortfryesuper .

While I feel our district tries uses multiple approaches to sharing information, I am always considering the district’s openness to receiving feedback. I hope you will partner with us by participating in district and building-level events, attending Board of Education meetings, and sharing ideas and/or concerns with us vie emails, telephone, or in- person meetings. I strongly encourage your participation in your child’s education.

I am looking forward to another great year at Fort Frye Local Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to serve your kids, your family, and our community as the Superintendent.