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Parents to D-Y district: Offer more, fight less
February 5, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
SOUTH YARMOUTH — Parents who have removed their children from the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District have some advice for school officials: Focus more on academic programs, including languages, make classroom sizes smaller and stop squabbling over the budget.
Parents made these points in an online school choice survey that the district conducted to see why students left for other schools.
The online survey, which ran from October to December, got only 32 responses, or 6.6 percent of 480 students who left the district, mainly to pursue school choice or charter school opportunities, said Carol Woodbury, D-Y regional school superintendent. The most recent figures available on the school district’s website show 3,241 students in the district as of October 2010.
“I wish I had 50 or 60 percent that responded,” she said. But Woodbury said she believes school officials can learn from concerns cited by parent respondents.
The district offers accelerated and innovative programs for students in grades 4 and beyond, including advanced placement courses at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School and virtual high school courses in subjects such as Latin.
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Any interested School Committee candidates out there??
January 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
e) Ultimately, my opinion is that we need to do more to embrace the multiple different online learning systems, to provide a more enriching curriculum while still keeping costs under control. We already do some such programming, through Virtual High School at SHS, and our partnerships with WPI and Stanford at the middle schools, but can do far more. By embracing the new non-traditional methods of delivering information, we can keep our costs in check, while leveraging our way to an infinitely higher level of learning. Many districts around the nation use such techniques, partnering with other local towns and universities to augment their in-class instruction.
(f) I want to find ways to provide top notch programming and services, without charging people fees upon fees upon fees. A parent in our town with three kids in school could easily be paying $3000 in fees alone, between $500+ for buses, $800 for sports, more for activity fees, admission to sports events, music lessons, busses to the speech tourney, etc. I have often felt that this creates an inherent imbalance between those who can afford all the things they want, and those who cannot, and think that fees, quite simply, need to begin to go down, and then vanish, in my opinion – even if that means making harder choices in other areas.
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Virtual High School Expands Students’ Options
January 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
No one at Canton High School teaches “Investing in the Stock Market” but that didn’t prevent senior Bryan Fitzpatrick from taking it this year.
Fitzpatrick is one of 18 students at the high school taking online courses through Virtual High School Inc.
For the courses, students log into a website and receive instructions from a certified teacher, interact with other students, submit their work, “discuss” ideas and more.
Students and staff said the courses have several advantages, one of the most obvious being that students can study topics the district either can’t afford to offer or doesn’t provide due to limited student interest.
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