It's All Down Hill...

Last Monday we reached that annual milestone in the world of education - the half-way point in the school year. I am sure that many students and even some teachers start thinking of the inevitable countdown to that magical day in June when classes end for another year. Clearly, we have turned a corner, but there is so much more to learn and much to do in the weeks and months to come.

I truly love the first day of the second semester. Since we operate on a semester schedule, that day is almost as exciting and energy filled as the first day of school in September. Students are generally excited about starting fresh in four new classes and I believe the teachers feel the same way. For me, the transition means the beginning of another scheduling cycle. The new program of studies has been revised and is currently being printed. We will distribute the informative booklets and course selection sheets in our next advisory meeting and guide our advisees in making appropriate selections for the next school year. When all of the course request sheets have been turned in the scheduling process can begin in earnest. My spring will be filled with course sections, priorities, conflict matrices, and course overloads. It is challenging work but I love it. Despite the inevitable frustration, I know I will have a master schedule and every student will be fully scheduled by early summer.

Speaking of the new program of studies, I am pleased that we are planning to offer four new courses for our students next year. Introduction to Engineering will be our first offering as part of the district's new STEM initiative. In computer technology we plan to offer Advanced Web Design and Advanced Microsoft Office. All three of these courses were determined to be popular choices on a recent student survey we conducted on technology offerings at CHS. The last class is a course in Statistics which we hope will be a popular choice for seniors who are not opting for Calculus, yet still want four credits in mathematics. We are excited about all of these new opportunities for our students. I just hope I can get them all scheduled!

Lastly, a month or so ago I wrote in this blog about the many sacrifices that were made to bring forth a balanced budget to FY 11. There is an addendum to that posting. This week the administrative team unanimously and, very willingly, agreed to a salary freeze for next year saving the district close to twenty thousand dollars. I feel pretty good about that!

As always, I would like to know what you think.