Board Reviews Plans for Scarsdale Education for Tomorrow: Residents Continue to Call for Additional Language Instruction

On Monday evening 9/26 the Scarsdale School Board heard from the Administration about an array of initiatives getting under way this school year, culminating with the highlight of the evening, the Education Report. Entitled "Scarsdale Education for Tomorrow Report: The Road Ahead," it was presented by Superintendent Dr. Hagerman along with Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Lynn Shain and Director of Instructional Technology Jerry Crisci.

Dr. Hagerman announced that there would be several other similar presentations throughout the year which will be announced to the community in advance. He said, "We want to continually point out that we're here about teaching and learning and about students, and this is one way that we feature that and keep that at the forefront of our decision-making."

The Report contained a wealth of detail about the thinking that has taken place in multiple phases since 2009 to arrive at the most up-to-date educational plan that makes up SET 2.0 (Scarsdale Education for Tomorrow). A brief overview can be found here, and the full presentation is available for viewing on-demand on the Board of Education webpage.

Ms. Shain and Mr. Crisci outlined how SET 2.0 maintains the foundation of Scarsdale educational ideals such as "Non Sibi" and "A Classical Education Taught in the Progressive Tradition" and builds on it with a new emphasis on active learning. Active learning is being promoted through areas such as STEAM, Making, Design Thinking, and various collaborative projects. In the classroom, parents may see this taking place through 5th grade Capstone, the high school's City 2.0 class, online publishing, and many other classes and activities. Additionally, these goals are supported by the extensive new K-12 STEAM curriculum and the latest Scarsdale Teachers Institute courses for faculty. (Those who would like to review the new STEAM curriculum will find as link on the main District homepage.)

The very newest part of SET 2.0 to be implemented is a turn toward exploring Global Connections in the classroom in both large and small ways. This is a clear outgrowth of the Scarsdale-initiated GLA (Global Learning Alliance) which brings together educators from high-performing districts around the world, most recently with its 3rd Summit this past August. From the U.S., Columbia Teachers College and Edgemont School District joined with Scarsdale in traveling to Singapore, where select schools from Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Sweden, China, and Finland were also welcomed as partners.

Lynn Shain said that the GLA Summit exceeded all expectations of the power of coming together and sharing ideas across borders. Similarly, Dr. Hagerman reported that his first attendance at the Summit was incredibly enlightening both culturally and educationally. One immediate result is that Scarsdale, with Scarsdale students, is working with Singapore's National Institute of Education and the Hwa Chong Institution on an ongoing research project. This project studies intercultural collaborative problem-solving and the seeks the best ways to teach students positive communication strategies that move such collaboration forward.

At the conclusion of the Education Report, each Board member expressed thanks for the huge amount of work it represented, and followed up with questions to clarify their understanding. School Board member Chris Morin made a particularly pertinent observation: "The two biggest sets of decisions we have to make this year are probably about the language program and brick and mortar issues and those are both heavily implicit in both your observations about what you've learned there and what other people are thinking about around the world."

Student Reports:

In other news from the meeting, a key event fast-approaching for District parents is the release of the Individual Student Reports from the spring 2016 state testing, set to arrive through the Parent Portal on October 5. Ms. Shain walked the Board and meeting attendees carefully through the new reports' format. This format was sought by the state PTA, however it may surprise or confuse those accustomed to the previous layout. Although the new format has the benefit of being larger and easier to read, it will also include a percentile giving a comparison of each student to other students, first within the District and then within New York State. Ms. Shain emphasized that Scarsdale itself does not rank students even in the high school graduating class since in a high-performing district like Scarsdale this kind of rank-ordering is misleading. Students who do very well on the state tests may nonetheless find that their percentile within the District is not what they would expect given their performance. However, as the point of the test is to measure their proficiency against a set of standards and not their relative rank, parents and students should focus on the main result and not on these new, prominently displayed percentiles.

Scarsdale TagBoard:

Another item of immediate interest is the launch of the new Scarsdale TagBoard, announced by Jerry Crisci. A TagBoard displays aggregated social media posts and will give our community a deeper look at daily activity in all of the Scarsdale schools. Ms. Crisci encourages the community to check it frequently as the display is constantly changing. Click here and bookmark it: You might see what your child is up to today!

Comments on World Language:

During the two public comment periods provided, the World Language program seemed to be the topic of the day.

Coming to the microphone first, Julie Zhu of 11 Harcourt Road first thanked the District for reopening the World Language question, and then had two main suggestions regarding World Language. First she urged the District to "offer beginning level Mandarin to next year's 7th graders (current 6th grade students)" in order to increase opportunity and also meet enrollment targets. Her second suggestion: "Consider Croton School District's approach to introducing language instruction for next year's grade 5 students. As described at a Board Meeting last year by Mrs. Harriet Sobol, 5th grade students in Croton spend 1/3 of the year getting acquainted with Spanish, 1/3 with French, and 1/3 with Mandarin which allows them to make a much more thorough, informed choice of language for 6th grade."

From Heather Kolb of 5 Wheelock Road: "I want to second what Ms. Zhu said; I also want to thank you for bringing... the World Language Committee back. I'm hoping we can get updates about how you're researching, what you are researching and what kind of steps you want to take and how you came to those decisions. I would also urge if it was possible to put some parents qua parents on the committee, I think that would be really helpful – parents of school age children...My son's a 5th grader and he does want to sign up for Mandarin if it's available."

Co-Chair of the Scarsdale Forum Education Committee Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez (19 Fox Meadow Road) addressed several points. First, she invited the community at large to attend Education Committee meetings and provide input on topics such as Greenacres, long-term planning, and World Language. Regarding World Language she stated, "We also would like to know when we might get a little bit of disclosure or discussion on what's going to happen with Spanish. Spanish currently in the elementary school -- I've been here for five years and I repeatedly am meeting non-native Spanish speakers in the 4th grade and 5th grade who cannot speak even the simplest of Spanish. I have neighbors who've just come back recently from Spain and their children are already correcting the teachers. I know that the Hispanics in this community, we are only 5%, but our children are definitely at a disservice because our children will have to take Spanish and...it's not suitable for them. I encourage you also to be thinking about what to do about Spanish."

The final speaker, Paulina Schwartz of 17 Oakstwain Road, presented a fresh perspective on the Mandarin question: "I'm not passionate about language, no one in my family is; we're not going to Chinese school. But I think it's really important that kids who have parents like me get a chance to learn these languages. If my kid were going into the high school in 9th grade – and I'd like them to go to a good college - I'd be really nervous to let them take Mandarin...and I'd probably discourage it. It's unfortunate but I would. I think that in 6th grade I'd encourage them....It's really important to give the kids a chance before everything becomes so high stakes. We're missing a huge group of kids with this Mandarin by offering it only in 9th grade."