Prekindergarten among many changes coming to Connellsville Area School District
A prekindergarten program will be the featured part of the reconfigured Connellsville Township Elementary School when it opens for the 2017-18 school year.
Reconfiguring the school was approved by the Connellsville Area School Board on Wednesday after the closure of three other elementary schools for next year was approved.
South Side Elementary School in Connellsville, Clifford N. Pritts Elementary School in Melcroft and Dunbar Borough Elementary School were closed to save money, but prekindergarten is being added to Connellsville Township Elementary to try to get students on the same skill level in kindergarten.
Children currently enter kindergarten with different levels of education, ability and developmental skills, said David McDonald, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
“We need more prekindergarten instruction to help make all students on the same level in kindergarten,” McDonald said.
Other changes from the reconfiguring haven’t been finalized and will be revealed soon, but the new prekindergarten learning center is the focal point, he said.
“We have a plan and a process in place. The prekindergarten learning center — that is the focus,” McDonald said.
Other academic program changes approved by the board will impact students from sixth through 12th grade next year.
The board approved a re-alignment of the math program beginning in the sixth grade. The plan includes four pathways for honors, high, medium and lower level students, McDonald said.
He said the changes, which he and math teachers spent three months developing, are designed to make better math students.
In the past, 70 to 80 percent of the students didn’t take algebra 1 until ninth grade.
“That’s a little too late. We’re raising the bar,” McDonald said.
The pathways are intended to challenge high performing students and help struggling students do better, he said. Teachers will be able to move students to different pathways based on achievement, he said.
In the honors pathway, students progress from pre-algebra in sixth grade to advanced placement statistics and advanced placement calculus in 12th grade.
Pre-algebra classes start in seventh grade in the other pathways. Students in high and medium tiers can take AP statistics, AP calculus and calculus in 12th grade. Middle level students have the option to take trigonometry and precalculus in their senior year. Lower tier students go from math in sixth grade to algebra II in 12th grade.
“We really feel like we have a plan for excelling students and students that need help,” McDonald said.
Students in ninth to 12 grades will have 26 course changes to consider before the 2017-18 school year begins.
There will be 11 new classes — AP statistics in grades 11 and 12, digital graphic design in grades 10 to 12, business bloggers in grades 11 and 12, fabric art in grades 10 to 12, healthy foods fast in grades 11 and 12, voice II in grades 10 to 12, information systems technology III broadcast media operations, senior art in grade 12, journalism — broadcast writing and editing in grades 11 and 12 and AP English languare and composition in grades 11 and 12.
Other classes were expanded to be offered in grades 9 and 10 and others had name changes to reflect changes in content, McDonald said.
“We’re changing with the times,” he said.