School Views

James Tarwater

Starting a new year gives our district the opportunity to make new plans,

design new strategies and implement new ideas.

The Ocean View School District has adopted a new logo for the 1999-2000

school year: Charting the Course -- Success for All.

This year, as in the past, we are concentrating on the processes that

promote academic growth and have established two primary goals: to

increase student achievement through an assessment-driven,

standards-based instructional program; and to effectively use the

instructional day and year to increase student success.

On Sept. 2 and 3, Ocean View began Charting the Course -- Success for

All, by giving our teachers an intense staff development program. Two

full-day workshops were planned and facilitated by Ocean View teachers

and administrators.

This year, the district is dedicating 210 instructional minutes per day

to language arts. The expanded language arts program will facilitate our

mission to assess reading and writing skills to diagnose, prescribe and

develop appropriate interventions for students.

The district also has expanded its math program to 75 instructional

minutes per day. The elementary teachers’ workshop let the participants

learn new strategies, specific to their grade levels, and maximize the

expanded programs in language arts and mathematics.

Middle school teachers focused on the implementation of student-led

parent conferences at their sites: Marine View, Mesa View and Spring

View. Student-led parent conferences were successfully spearheaded at

Vista View Middle School last year. The sixth-, seventh-, or eighth-grade

student guides the conference, discussing his or her strengths and areas

needing growth, and presents a work portfolio as evidence of his or her

achievements. Middle school teachers spent the remainder of this

first-day workshop discussing, in depth, grade level standards for math,

science, social science and language arts.

On the second day, 165 middle school teachers and administrators took

part in a compelling study session led by Dr. Ron Klemp, a well-known

educator. The subject was “Middle Level Literacy -- That Reading Thing!”

This was enthusiastically embraced by all the participants.

Ocean View looks forward to the challenge of this new year. The entire

team of district employees -- whether one’s responsibility is

administrating, supervising, teaching, preparing lunches, aiding in a

classroom, maintaining a building or managing an office -- supports and

contributes to the district’s goals: Charting the Course -- Success for

All.

JAMES TARWATER is superintendent of the Ocean View School District.