From the Desk of School Superintendent Dr. Michael Hynes
The future of our school
There is nothing like making a pot of coffee, rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. I love hard work. I’ve always embraced it and in my career as an educator I’ve always loved the challenge of working with others to improve schools for students. Here on Shelter Island, the future of our school depends on a lot of hard work from all of us within our school.
We have work to do; a lot of work to do. This work is both exciting and important plus it is essential in moving our school into the 21st century. In a way, our school is going through a rebirth, a renaissance of sorts. The work that lies ahead will focus on two things: student achievement and the actual physical school building itself.
Student achievement is an interesting concept as it can be defined in a multitude of ways. To one person, student achievement may mean high scores on a Regent’s exam. To another person, it could mean a child moving up several book levels in an elementary ELA class, or it could mean a student achieving a four (4) on an Advanced Placement exam.
I tend to see student achievement as growth between two points in time — the kind of growth that takes place day to day, month to month and year to year. For student achievement to be meaningful, this growth needs to be documented and utilized by teachers to drive future instruction. The growth that we measure with our students should assist us to differentiate our instruction while making our assessments meaningful.
In order to enhance student achievement, it will take a lot of work. We need to focus on developing a more rigorous curriculum, a cumulative scope and sequence for the courses we offer; updated and upgraded resources for our teachers to use within the classroom; professional development for our teachers so they build their capacity and become better practitioners within their classrooms; a clear understanding of the support services we provide; the creation of a student management database so we can see in “real time” a historical overview of our students’ achievement levels; universal protocols and procedures for almost everything we do, and finally, making our school the educational beacon of light it should be!
We also have a lot of work to do in regard to the physical structure of our beloved school building. As you may know, we will begin our bond work this summer. Our beautiful building will get a much needed update in order to become more efficient and safer for our students and staff. Additionally, our school Historical Committee is currently underway in redesigning our lobby and bringing back the history of Shelter Island and its past alumni. It is all very exciting!
All of the work to enhance student achievement and update our building comes with a price. The price doesn’t have to break the bank, but it does come with a price. Believe me, I understand we have to do more with less and I know that we will be fiscally prudent as the School Board develops our budget, not only for next year but for years to come. Unfortunately, as we work on the budget, we are bombarded with state education constraint after constraint after constraint and these constraints are continually placed upon the backs of our school system.
Whether the constraints surface in the form of unfunded mandates or appear as a new 2-percent tax cap, it will become increasingly difficult to do more with less. In fact, we will reach a tipping point where it will be almost impossible and certainly unsustainable to keep the programs we currently have in place.
I believe our students deserve the best. They deserve the best education. They deserve a top-notch curriculum. They deserve opportunities that will prepare them to succeed if they choose to attend college, join the military or seek a vocation once they graduate from our high school. We need our students to be pushed academically. We need courses that will push our students more. In fact, next year I want to introduce an Intel Research program for our high school students. I also want to offer a journalism course for our students that will allow them to create their own school newspaper and perhaps work with our community newspaper, the Shelter Island Reporter.
I have high hopes for the future of our students. The future of our school is bright but in order for our renaissance to come to fruition, it will take the support of our community to make it a reality.
