Next Generation Science Standards implemented in RSU 68

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — This year students in both the elementary and middle schools at SeDoMoCha will be learning lessons using Next Generation Science Standards. During a school board meeting on Jan. 7 Assistant Principal Matthew Lokken provided an update on the alignment of science curriculum with the standards.

    “Next Generation Science Standards are kind of the science standards of the Common Core,” Lokken said, mentioning he and the teachers worked on incorporating the standards into the classroom instruction. “With the elementary standards they were laid out for grade level, in middle school it was a little more challenging because it said these are the standards that should be covered in middle school,” he said, with specific skills and knowledge not specified between grades 5-8.
    “This really is a guide,” Superintendent Alan Smith said about the Next Generation Science Standards and another listing of science curriculum themes. The listing is comprised of three main disciplinary standards, life science, physical science and Earth and space systems, and what related topics are for pre-K through grade 8.
    Lokken said the standards include “benchmarks that will demonstrate a student understands these things.” As an example he said how under grade 3 life science standards, by the end of the school year pupils should understand life cycles of organisms, adaptation to environment, inherited traits and genetic variation in plants and animals of the same group and fossils.
    When asked, Lokken said teachers have been responding well to the Next Generation Science Standards. He said at the middle school the faculty have divvied who teaches which standards. At the elementary school, “They have been very welcoming of the clear standards they are going to teach.”
    In other business, Smith reported the first meeting of the budget committee is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. “By that time I will have met with all the administrators and the administrators will then have their pieces of the budget,” Smith said about the early working of the 2014-15 RSU 68 spending plan.
    Smith also provided an update on the seventh- and eighth-grade after-school intramural basketball program. “We have an intramural basketball program running at this time, but with very low numbers,” he said. One idea being tried is letting students on the B basketball teams take part to ensure enough participants for scrimmages.
    The intramural program was started to create an opportunity for more students to play basketball, with a number of players trying out for the boys and girls basketball teams but not making the squads. Participation is for grades 7-8 so as not to infringe on town recreation teams which can go up to sixth grade.
    The school board voted to extend the district’s commitment to participate in the Piscataquis Valley Adult Education Cooperative through June 30, 2016. “It’s a great opportunity for out kids and adults alike,” Smith said. “The program is growing and there is a move to do consolidation with the (Penquis Higher Education Center) building.”
    SeDoMoCha Principal Julie Kimball invited the school board to both the annual One Book, One School kickoff and middle school spelling bee on the ensuing two nights. “It’s a huge testament to our elementary teachers and Mrs. (literacy teacher Carolyn) Clark,” Kimball said about the shared family reading program One Book, One School.
    This year’s book is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, and school board members were each given a copy. An ending celebration for One Book, One School is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 12 from 5-7 p.m.