Brownsville board retains officers
BROWNSVILLE – The Brownsville Area School District’s Board of Directors reorganized Monday evening, but decided not to make any changes. Rocky Brashear will remain board president, with John Evans continuing to serve as vice president. The board will still meet on the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. They also retained Davis and Davis as solicitor for the board.
During regular business, Superintendent Larry Golembiewski said that the district is planning to “revamp the curriculum in all disciplines” during the upcoming year. He said they are discussing all subjects and considering ways of improving how they are taught.
“We need a logical sense of order,” said Golembiewski. “Sometimes there are gaps in the curriculum and we need to change that. We are trying to not only align the curriculum to standards but also have a sequential order.”
Golembiewski said the administration and the board are discussing changes with the Intermediate Unit and they would soon have an explanation of the changes available so that students can begin scheduling for next year. The board voted at a previous meeting to do away with block scheduling, which broke the students’ classes into two semesters.
“Students don’t learn the same way we did when we were in school,” said Golembiewski. “There are different intelligences, and if we continue to do thing in the same manner we are going to get the same results. We are going to have a partnership with the Intermediate Unit to have ongoing training for teachers every other week for the entire year.”
Golembiewski said that because forth and fifth grades are critical grades, during which students are preparing for standardized testing, they would begin training for teachers of those grades in January.
In other business, the board approved Andrea Roebuck as one of the district’s teachers who will be available for the after-school education assistance program. Because there are now more teachers involved, the board agreed to allow the aides for the program to work for three hours a day instead of two.
The board also approved a request from band director Robert Mascia and chorus director Debra Mascia to accompany the high school band and chorus on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tenn., at no cost to the district.
In another matter, Golembiewski said that after several months of waiting for completion of the high school gymnasium, contractors have said that it will be finished in January.
“The last I was told, it was going to be done in January and that hasn’t changed yet,” said Golembiewski.
He said the track and the flooring for the gym are already being installed.