ThisWeek CW 1/7/2015
http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2016/01/04/groveport-schools-district-officials-eye-partnerships-improvements-in-2016.html
Improvements, support and service are three words that figure prominently in plans for 2016, according to Groveport Madison school district officials.
“Our greatest challenges of 2016 will be focused around improving partnerships for learning and building understanding in our community of the benefits a strong education can bring to our students,” Superintendent Bruce Hoover said.
Hoover sees three “core components” that go into achieving educational excellence: student engagement, parent support and rigorous instruction.
“We are using the investment the community has made through the passage of our 2014 operating levy to expand programs and opportunities which engage our students in high-quality learning opportunities,” he said. “We are committed to raising achievement and preparing our students for life’s challenges.
“To complete this effort, we will need to increase the roles that parents play in developing successful learning and build better relationships between our schools, businesses and parents to maximize our instructional progress.”
Board members Libby Gray, Mary Tedrow and Bryan Shoemaker all have keeping an eye on the $30.4 million project to build a new high school high on their lists of priorities for the new year.
“We must remain vigilant in monitoring the construction progress of the new high school,” Shoemaker said. “We need to ensure that all of the many moving parts are working as they should and that we are on budget and on time.”
To go along with that, Gray said Groveport Madison officials need to “continue to be good stewards of the resources that have been provided by our taxpayers, and to be transparent in all of our financial dealings.”
Gray, who served as the board’s vice president in 2015, said it will be important to “strengthen the level of support provided to all students at all grade levels” and to “closely monitor data from our intervention programs to ensure we are meeting students’ needs, wherever they are, and taking them to the next level of achievement.”
Tedrow sees renovations now underway at 4400 Marketing Place as a way to transform the building into “a true ‘District Service Center’ where we will improve the level of service provided to our schools and community through the consolidation of all of our district support functions into one location.”
Nathan Slonaker, who was board president in 2015, did not seek re-election. Before he left the board in December, he said it would be important for the district to keep the high school construction work on time and on budget, to strengthen the Career Pathways and College Credit Plus programs and to develop “strong partnerships with the various constituencies within our community.”