I hope you will enjoy several noteworthy events from the
October 14th School Board Meeting in Grove.
The first audience before the Board was with Matt Lane. His daughter had asked why there wasn't prayer before the games here. She had observed this being done at other schools. Mr Lane researched and found the OK state statutes which would allow this practice and presented them to the Board.
As a result of Mr Lane's presentation, there was swift action by the Board and Administration as shown by this Facebook post by Darrin Hill, School Board member, the next day.
I am proud to announce that we are bringing student led prayer back into Grove Public Schools, OK. For whatever reasons we got away from allowing students to pray before games, but the drought is over!! Thank You to Matt Lane for addressing this at the board meeting last night. Thank you to Mr. Dodson and ALL of the other board members that are 1000% in support of student led prayer in our school!!!
My audience with the Board included references to the "Mississippi Miracle" where the reading scores in their schools went from being at the bottom nationally to 6th in the nation. in a 10 year time span. However, I had found that OK Senator Pugh from Edmond had authored the Strong Readers Act which was adopted this summer. This promises to give the needed boost to our teachers and schools in making reading a priority. Our new Superintendent of Education has stated reading literacy as one of his goals.
Then there was math. I had learned that 50% to 60% of our students entering sixth grade do not have basic math facts memorized. This causes a delay when computations are required. How has this happened?
Quoting from an article in The Science of Learning. "In1989, the National
Council of Teachers in Mathematics introduced new math teaching standards. These standards recommended the use of calculators at all grade levels and emphasized the development of reasoning skills. At the same time, the NCTM suggested that teachers reduce the time allocated to the rote memorization of math facts and algorithms. The NCTM's recommendation were influential and many U.S. states and Canadian provinces modified their curricula in response. "
"Proficiency in any field is built upon a foundation of automatized knowledge. (Automatized means being able to immediately recall a fact or procedure without any significant mental effort. It usually required repetition and practice to achieve automaticity.
My note: when we memorize something, it is stored in our long term memory which is vast. Think about people you know who start losing their memory. Often times they can still remember things from long ago while not remembering while what they had for breakfast.
The summary of the article states : "The paper Designing mathematics standards in agreement with science makes a compelling case that math standards need to be modernized to bring them into alignment with evidence-based research. Specifically, we need to better emphasize the need for students to be able to quickly recall core math facts.
A Board member told of working in the concession stand with students who could not figure how much to charge if someone asked for 5 Cokes and a hamburger when they were even dollar amounts.. Students wanted to get out their phones .
(I have talked with a math teacher and one school principal about this. I assure you they recognize the challenge and want to do everything they can to correct the situation. I would encourage adults of any age to contact a school principal and offer to volunteer in the school. You will need to pass a background check but then you will be welcomed in at a time of your convenience and any duration to work with students and make our Grove schools better!)
The Superintendent's report included information of challenges to our budget which includes being required to pay for breakfast and lunch to be given to each student at no charge and step salary increases for employees. There is optimism that we will be able to meet our new budget. (Budget was approved later in the meeting.)
Mr Kreutz introduced a student who had entered a contest to name a ODOT snowplow. His winning name was SNOWbi-Wan-Kenobi. The story of coming up with name was quite entertaining!
Dustin Matthews presented the plan for new turf on various sports fields in the district through the Ridgerunner Athletic Vision for Excellence group. The turf will be paid for by selling advertising displayed along the edges of the fields.
The Parent Teacher Association has been organized and will include parents and teachers from the entire district. They are off to a successful start and the group was approved by the School Board. There will be more information about joining this group.
There is much to learn at the monthly Board Meetings. Hope to see you there next month!
Pam Jarrett
