By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
The Cheney School Board decided to follow the recommendations of a study committee and approved the adoption at its May 23 meeting of a new science curriculum for all K-12 students in the district.
The first phase of the new Full Option Science System (FOSS) was adopted last year for students in grades K-6. After waiting for the new Washington State Science Grade Level Expectation requirements to come out this year, the committee recommended to adopt the remaining elementary school components as well as the middle and high school curriculum.
The new curriculum adopts publisher Prentice Hall's “Physical Science Concepts” for freshmen students, and “College Physics” for seniors.
Prentice Hall's “Chemistry” along with Bendford, Freeman's “Chemistry in the Community” will be used by juniors, with sophomores getting Kendall Hunt's “Insights in Biology.”
Students in grades 6-8 will use Prentice Hall's “Science Explorer” curriculum, with the committee recommending the purchase of a second FOSS module for each teacher in grades K-5. Besides the texts, the committee also recommended the purchase of supplemental materials necessary for hands-on experimentation, as well as additional training for teachers to implement the curriculum.
“If you're going to do science well, do it with inquiry, you have to have hands-on materials,” school district curriculum and assessment director Vickie Kennedy told the board.
The cost to adopt the new curriculum over the next three years is $359,000, with most of that, $331,000, spent in the first year to purchase text, materials and provide teacher instruction. About $17,000 will be spent in the second year on additional core curriculum and supplemental materials, with $9,000 going to technology support, followed by the remaining $2,000 spent in year three on materials only.
To pay for the curriculum's first year the district will use a $12,725 Boeing science grant received a couple years ago, as well as $10,750 from the clock hour revenue fund. A $34,000 appropriation from Initiative 728 funding for professional development and a $94,000 Title II grant will also be used. Kennedy said the Title II grant could be used for supplemental materials only.
The rest of the funding, $202,000, will come out of the district's general fund in the first year, along with $18,000 in the second year and $2,000 the following year. The current technology levy will provide $9,000 in year two as well.
“We do have the budget capacity,” district finance and operations director Dave Sackville-West told the board.
Sackville-West also said the district showed another year of increasing enrollment. The district had an overall increase of 146 full-time equivalent students over the 2006-2007 year, up from 3,321 in 2005-2006, as well as an increase of 160 individual enrollments, up from 3,494 at the end of last year.
In other business, maintenance and operations director Jeff McClure said the district plans on doing about $341,000 in capital projects over the summer, with a pair of $125,000, two-classroom portables being installed, one at Sunset Elementary School and the other at Windsor. The district also plans a $30,000 re-sod and re-crown of the high school football field, and a $9,000 relighting of the high school's little gym.
“It will dramatically change the lighting in there, plus it will save us $1,500 a year,” McClure said.
District nurse Susan McDowell told the board they had seen a dramatic increase in personal health plans last year, with most coming from food allergies. McDowell said they hope to implement a food accommodation policy next year, as well as increasing staff hours at each school, and having health services staff on-hand four days prior to first day of classes this fall to facilitate individual health needs.
Finally, the board voted unanimously to accept a $14,800 donation from TransCanada GTN System to be used for providing reading materials at Salnave and Windsor elementary schools.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com
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