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08/21/2012 12:00 PMClinton public schools begin on Tuesday, Aug. 28 and a number of new faces will greet students. Superintendent of Schools Jack Cross said students could expect 12 new teachers district wide, with the majority at the elementary school level and a couple at both the middle school and high school.
Two new additional positions include a part-time Chinese teacher and a part-time speech and language pathologist. There will also be two “long-term” substitute teachers for the 1st-grade class who are filling in for maternity leaves.
It’s “a lot of new teachers, more than we had anticipated. Realistically we originally were at four or five, and then from June until two weeks ago we had additional people take another position or decide to retire,” Cross stated. “We are very excited about the new people. We are having new teacher orientation and part of that process is to identify some of the qualities of character in these folks. We have a pretty diverse group coming in.”
There will also be changes in policies throughout the schools. The superintendent said that teachers and administrators will begin enforcing some of the rules that have already been in place, including dress codes.
“We are making some adjustments at the high school with regard to expectations for reinforcing the district-wide dress code. For example, up until this past year hats were allowed at the high school and we’re making it consistent with the rest of the district that students don’t wear hats inside,” said Cross. “The other part of it is just more reinforcement that we’re going to take a little bit firmer stance in regard to appropriate attire—not beach attire.”
Cross said teachers and administrators will also begin cracking down on use of personal technology devices such as cell phones or iPods.
There are also some alterations to curriculum at all four Clinton public schools. Cross said kindergarten through 5th-grade levels are in the process of rolling out the new language arts and math curriculum, which will align the schools with Connecticut’s new Common Core Standards.
For the last two years, the high school has been working on a shift in the history curriculum as well.
Another change that the schools are undergoing is the new teacher evaluation program.
“It went very well last year, which was the first year. Teachers were pleased and administrators were pleased,” Cross said. “It put a little bit more responsibility on both teachers and administrators to collect data on their performance, so we’ll be in year two of that.”
Clinton schools will also be participating in Connecticut’s School Climate Plan, which focuses on promoting anti-bullying and a safe school climate.
“This year we’ll be fully rolling out the state’s School Climate Plan, which is really the “be nice to your neighbor” plan. The focus is really being able to work with kids and staff on treating people respectfully and then identifying those kinds of mean behaviors that could, if they continued, be construed as bullying, so we’re documenting that and holding kids accountable,” Cross explained. “We’ve been working on that district-wide over the last two or three years and technically, to meet the needs of the state requirements, we’ll be doing that this year as well.”
For more information about the new school year, call Clinton public schools main office at 860-664-6500.