The Conewago Valley school board discussed school improvement and corrective action plans for New Oxford High School during a back-to-back study session and regular meeting on Monday evening.
The board also went into three executive sessions.
School improvement, corrective action plans
Dr. Brad Sterner, assistant superintendent of the district, said New Oxford High School recently had to create a school improvement plan.
Being put on an improvement plan came as no surprise as the school had been notified of being put on one just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the pandemic, the plan was put on hold.
“That just means that our sub-group of our special education population wasn’t progressing as much as we wanted them to,” Sterner said.
Sterner said the school will focus on two areas in particular: a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) and offering further chances for students to explore careers.
The MTSS will look into how the school provides for student needs.
“That’s looking at our curriculum and our core content area, meaning that our core curriculum is being utilized for all of our students. But it’s also showing that any students that need more intervention, that we’re able to provide that, whether it’s intervening or we’re extending our students,” Sterner said.
Much of this year, the administration will consider how to provide more chances for career exploration.
“We’re looking at the idea of career academies or career pathways and what that means is we would explore throughout this whole year working with the Colonial Career and Technology Center (CCTC). Mr. (Drew) Little, (principal of the CCTC), and also working with our high school administration and steering committee, making sure that we’re offering courses and electives that could give career exploration for our students that are focused on that since we have such a high population of our students that are going out into the workforce,” Sterner said.
Sterner said being at the TSI level means that the district is at the lowest of three possible school improvement plan tiers.
Sterner said administration is currently formulating an “action plan” to utilize during the school year. That plan is posted to the high school website for a 28-day public review and will be presented to the board during its August meeting. If approved, the plan will be submitted to the state for review, though the state will not require additional monitoring during the duration of the plan.
Clicking on the high school’s website brings up a pop-up window with a link to a PDF containing basic information about the plan.
Superintendent Sharon Perry said the CCTC had its first audit late this spring and also received feedback for areas to improve.
The Corrective Action Plan (CIP) for the CCTC pointed out five areas for improvement and a plan to address the concerns. Perry compared it to a CIP she remembered 14 years earlier that required 46 corrections.
“So I’m really pleased that there were only five notated items, which we anticipated,” Perry said. “We knew that they would be coming. Some are easy fixes and the others are safety, more building-related fixes that we need to collaborate with our facilities team and this is done to ensure that that happens in a timely fashion.”
Perry thanked Little and the teachers involved who helped ready CCTC for the audit.
“I think that evidence shows through those corrective actions, which are very doable,” Perry said. “It was the easiest corrective action plan I’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of… (The state) did provide a number of recommendations that programatically will help us get better and better, and they’re all very reasonable, very easy to integrate into our practice.”
Principal’s resignation
Dr. Christopher Bowman, principal of New Oxford High School, will resign on Aug. 9 or sooner if the district hires a replacement before then.
Bowman’s resignation was approved during Monday’s meeting.
Initially, the board’s agenda included an item to potentially hire a replacement for Bowman effective Sept. 16, or earlier if the candidate’s district allowed, but that item was removed from voting consideration before the board approved personnel matters. No name was provided for the potential candidate.
The board also approved the hire of new employees, including that of Mark Herb as assistant principal of Conewago Valley Intermediate School (retroactive to June 24) and Nicholas Zepp as director of technology for the district (retroactive to July 1.)
Policy updates
The board approved over a dozen updated policies from the 100 section covering homebound instruction, field trips, interscholastic athletics and more, as well as one from the 200 section related to attendance.
During the study session, board president Jeffrey Kindschuh reminded the board that all of the policies were ones the board had reviewed and updated in recent months, and no changes had been added since.
“So, what’s happened in the policy review is we’ve had our first review a couple months ago,” Kindschuh said. “Feedback from the first review was reviewed in the first committee, which met a couple months ago. That feedback, then, was forwarded to the administration for review and update and also to (our legal counsel) Stock and Leader for review and update. What we have on the agenda tonight is that final product.”
Other business
The board also approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the 2024-25 school year between the Career and Technical Center and the Bureau of Career and Technical Education (BCTE).
The district agreed to participate in the BCTE Technical Assistance Program, which the MOU defines as “an initiative designed to assist schools in raising student academic and technical achievement” across CTC programs.
“The TAP will assist CTCs, their sending school districts, and high schools offering Career and Technical Education with increasing student performance as measured on academic assessments and occupational end-of-program assessments, like the Keystone Algebra exam or the NOCTI exam, by providing job-embedded professional learning for educators and administrators,” the MOU states.
Perry said this will be the second school year the district has participated in TAP.
The board approved its health and safety plan for what should be the last time. As of Sept. 30, the district will no longer need to follow the plan or post it to the district’s website, Perry told the board.
Perry said the parent-student handbook for 2024-25 will go before the board for approval in August.
The board held executive sessions before the study session, between the meetings, and after the regular board meeting to discuss personnel and student issues.
The board will hold a study session at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5.
A regular board meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 12.
Both meetings will be held in the district board room.
Imari Scarbrough is a freelance journalist. She was a staff newspaper reporter for five years before becoming a freelancer in 2017. She has written on crime, environmental issues, severe weather events, local and regional government and more.
You can visit her website at ImariJournal.com.