Franklin School District curriculum director Christina Cohlhepp told school board members during a work session meeting on Monday night that the district is working on curriculum maps for each subject and each grade, which are in the process of being posted to the district website.
“A curriculum map outlines what we want students to be able to do and what order we’re going to teach that,” she explained. “We start with state standards and work backward from that.”
Cohlhepp clarified after the meeting that each subject for each grade level will have a curriculum map. For example, there will be a map specific to third-grade math as well as one for fourth-grade math.“The goal is to have all the curriculum on the website eventually,” she said, though at the moment it is still “a work in progress.”
She said the district has been developing the maps based on state standards and also looking at results from last year’s Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test scores from to “see where we are on things.”
Once the maps are complete, she said, all students in the district will be on the same curriculum and roughly the same time frame.
This would allow teachers from the district’s schools to get together and share strategies for teaching the same course material.
She said the district is also trying to incorporate advanced placement courses “where we can.”
Other business
Board President and Venango County Director of Elections Sabrina Backer said the county is bringing back the kids’ ballots for polling places this year since they were “such a big hit last year.”
The ballots allow children who come to polling places to vote on questions, such as their favorite ice cream flavor, while their caregivers vote in the election.
Backer said the county is accepting questions for this year’s ballots from teachers who wish to send suggestions from their classes.
Superintendent Eugene Thomas said he and Cohlhepp were continuing to meet with Trenton Moulin, president and chief executive officer of Bridge Builders Community Foundations in Oil City, about a potential scholarship program for the high school.
Moulin spoke to the board about the program, which was dubbed the Promise Program, in June. Thomas said Monday that the program is “evolving” and the district is hoping to have something started this year.
Thomas said high school principals Tom Holoman and K.C. Miller will give a presentation to the board in November on a proposed Community Engagement Committee, which he said they want to dub the “Honorable Knights.”
Victory Elementary School Principal John Bianconi said the school had raised $1,000 for a family of seven whose Meadville Pike home burned down this month.
Andy Boland, head of the operations committee, said work on the new ballfields was waiting on state Department of Environmental Protection permitting. Once that is complete, the contractor can start on the work.
For more local news, visit TheDerrick.com.
