1982-09-13 School Committee Minutes

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32 READING SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES Superintendent of Schools' 1982 -83 Goals SEPTEMBER 13, 1982 Superintendent Wells recapitulated his goals for 1982 -83 school year, as contained in his opening day of school remarks and his memorandum. They were divided into two categories -the first four related to curriculum, and the remaining three to administration. Dr. Wells' curriculum goals are: 1. To do all within my power, in cooperation with the Citizens Advisory Council and Middle School Advisory Committee, to bring about a middle school reorganization by 1984. In- service training programs will be used to get this major reorganization off to a good start. 2. To Improve the quality of writing in the Reading Public Schools, committing a major portion of FY83 in- service training funds to this goal. Dr. Wells emphasized that students are not doing poorly in this area of curriculum, and much improvement has been made since this was brought to the attention of the teaching staff in 1979, but added that he believed further improvement is possible. 3. To develop a long -range plan and a design for a computer learning curriculum through a broadly based task force which will sort out usages and possible usages and possible usages and develop meaningful ways of incorporating them into our overall plans for computer instruction. 4. To Foster efforts by the staff of teachers, principals and specialists to seek ways of developing the higher thought capabilities of our students, teaching them to analyze and use logic. This goal recognizes that society is undergoing rapid change to an informational processing society and that future occupations and ways of dealing with life's issues will be centered around the problem solving capability of this information. Dr. Wells' administrative goals are: 1. Central Office Computer Application - To seek assistance from outside sources as to how best the Town's new computer operation can serve the School Department. We will need to determine what demands and expectations the Town places on the Central Office for informational purposes; what information now stored on school computers should be transferred to the Town's computer to make more space available on school computers for academic use; and determine whether the Town computer could be programmed to generate certain school reports. 2. School Space Needs /Surplus School Facilities -To make both short and long range decisions concerning the relocation of the Central Office and the use of future surplus space in schools. To make decisions about the educational use of our plant and, secondly, decisions as to what to do with the space which will not be needed.