Published: July 25, 2007 04:52 pm         

LYNDONVILLE: School board adopts annual goals

LYNDONVILLE — In an ongoing effort to improve the Lyndonville Central School District, members of the Board of Education adopted a set of annual district goals Monday evening and will be welcoming a staff development consultant for the 2007-08 school year.

“I think that the targets our board set are fantastic,” said high school principal Kenneth Smith. “They provide us with the target for organizing our school district so that we can continually improve.”

The district’s “Strive for Five” goals are to improve student and school achievement, improve instruction and expand the use of instructional technology, ensure a safe and secure environment, further improve resource management, long-range planning and budgeting and to increase quality, customer service and accountability.

“Everything that is being done is in some way connected to meeting those five goals,” Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams said. “We’re really trying to mobilize teachers and personnel. It’s so exciting for this small district to have this momentum to do good things.”

To help meet those five goals, former teacher and school administrator Ned Paulson will be working with the teacher leadership team on improving academic instruction. The ultimate goal is to train the teachers with a special expertise so that they will be able continuously improve the curriculum on their own, Deane-Williams said.

Paulson consulted privately with the district last year on a school redesign project for academic performance, Smith said.

“Ned Paulson is awesome,” Smith said. “I know it’s going to mean great things. He has a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of experience that will really help us.”

Paulson, who is now retired and consults privately with only one district per year, will be paid through professional development grants received by the school. He will work with the staff once a month and three days in February, Smith said.

“What we’re trying to do is develop capacity so that we have the ability on our own to learn new things and revise our system to meet the needs of the students,” Deane-Williams said. “That’s important so that our kids can maintain a competitive edge.”

The implementation of new advanced placement and honors courses and a district-wide focus on literacy learning are also among the district’s initiatives for the upcoming year.

Contact reporter Nicole Coleman at 798-1400, ext. 2227.