Walpole School Committee Notebook: Sept. 27 Meeting

Here are some notes from the Walpole School Committee's meeting Thursday night at the town hall.

Walpole Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Update

Robin Chapell, Walpole Board of Health Director, addressed the committee to talk about the Walpole Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Chapell talked about the recent activity for the Coalition and the group's upcoming events.

“The more people that we get involved the more things that we can do and I think last year we stepped it up and this year we’re really stepping it up with the activities,” she said.

In a partnership with the Walpole Recreation Department, the group will be producing weekly podcasts about the Coalition.

The podcasts will posted on Walpole Rec’s website and the school district website, they can be found on the Coalition’s Facebook page as well.

Chapell also announced that the Coffee with a Cop program will resume Saturday, Oct. 13 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Walpole Library.

“This is another venue where residents can talk to cops about various concerns that they might have,” she said.

On Oct. 10, a parenting expert will be visiting Johnson Middle School.

“She’s entertaining, she really gives parents really good tips on how to talk to their teens and preteens all about the topics that we’re concerned about.”

Everyone in the community is welcome to attend.

“We encourage all parents to go if they can make it that night,” she said.

“A whole community of people, that’s what’s really making it work, and we’re really trying to get parents of elementary school students to start coming and learning because we want to change norms." said Chapell.

Fales, Leach, Rogers & Kunde Scholarships

Superintendent Lincoln Lynch announced that the application process for the Fales, Leach, Rogers & Kunde Scholarships will be opening Monday, Oct. 1.

The applications are available online or in the Superintendent’s office from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31.

“We usually have quite a bit of activity for these scholarships, I believe there was about $40,000 distributed last year alone,” said Lynch.

The committee wanted to stress that the scholarships are for students who are currently enrolled in college.

“Fill it out yourself. Do not have your parent fill it out, it usually shows and it’s not impressive,” said committee chair Nancy Gallivan.

“This is the result of four families who very generously established in their wills that they were going to donate some money to the town for scholarships,” said Gallivan. “It’s just a very generous thing that people do for future generations of Walpole students.”

New Math Curriculum in the Works

Jean Kenney, Assistant Superintendent, spoke to the committee to give an update about the progress being made to develop a new math curriculum for the school district.

Planning for the new curriculum began approximately two years ago.

According to Kenney, the new math program will raise the expectations for Walpole students.

“The one important part to note about Massachusetts is that we have also defined standards in pre-kindergarten, which indicates how important early learning is for our students,” she said. “So our standards are from pre-K all the way through Grade 12 and they actually provide a much more rigorous set of learning standards for our students.”

The district has implimented a Mathematics Curriculum Task Force to work out the particulars.

They set out goals which include ensuring that all of the teachers in the district fully understand the new standards.

“It requires teachers to have a different approach to student learning than that which we had previously been implementing,” Kenney said.

They also developed budget projections to implement the new mathematics program, which will likely go into effect next year.

They will be meeting again in October to reinforce their guiding principles for mathematics instruction.

“Those are basically to inform all people that student learning is at the core and that it is most important to transfer knowledge from one concept to another,” said Kenney.

As part of the new trajectory standards, freshmen will be in Algebra I, sophomores in Geometry, juniors in Algebra II and seniors in Calculus.

“What our students typically do is take Geometry as freshmen. We will have some students who will be doing that but we will have some students who will be taking a much more rigorous Algebra I class,” she said.

“The goal, ultimately, is to enable all students to participate to the extent that they are able and motivated in Calculus by the time they are seniors,” said Kenney.

The Walpole School Committee will meet again Thursday, Oct. 11.