August 22, 2022
Dear Chariho Faculty and Staff,
I hope everyone had a restful summer, took some time to reflect and recharge, and is looking forward to returning to school! This past school year saw the successful implementation of two new curriculum resources in math and ELA, revisions to several curricula, embedded professional development, and one-to-one teacher coaching. As a result, we had a very successful first-year implementation that also yielded strong student results. This could not have been done without your dedication to ensuring that the implementation was done with both fidelity and integrity.
This upcoming school year gives us an opportunity to collaborate and grow together in several ways. This year we will have opportunities to increase our knowledge and skill as we launch the proficiency training in the science of reading. This two-year professional development will allow our elementary teachers, special educators, and reading specialists the opportunity to learn about the research behind the science of reading and become active participants in implementing this learning in the classroom. In mathematics, we will also continue our collaboration with RIDE in bringing embedded professional development using the i-Ready program and begin our high school math implementation with our new curriculum resource. Science teachers will continue the work with interim assessments, and we will begin curriculum revisions in social studies.
Social-Emotional Student Support
The district has contracted with Educational School Solutions to provide two clinicians, one at the middle and one at the high school to provide additional support to students and professional development to staff. The clinicians will play a pivotal role in supplementing the supports that are already in place for students. Elementary schools will continue to access and utilize Dr. Pat Meinhold's services for student and classroom support.
Parent/Family Communication
All teachers and staff are required to use their district-issued email accounts to communicate with students and parents/guardians. For the safety of all, staff may not use their personal emails, cell phone numbers, or any apps to communicate with students and families. Please follow up with your principals if you have any questions.
Curriculum implementation
As mentioned above, we successfully rolled out our new curriculum resources in math and ELA. We will roll out our high school math curriculum resource (Reveal Math) at the start of this school year. This implementation will complete the district-wide K-12 resource implementation for mathematics. We will also continue to build on the success of our year one implementation of our K-12 ELA curriculum resources, maintaining a focus on implementing the resources with integrity. Research indicates that using high-quality curriculum resources can have huge gains on student achievement. Strong and skilled implementation of our curriculum materials has positively impacted student achievement. We look forward to continuing this momentum with embedded coaching and support in math and literacy.
Science of Reading Training
On June 23rd, 2022, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed legislation that modified the Right to Read Act. As a result, the training for teachers who need to meet the requirements for proficiency will complete the training over the next two years. You can find the Science of Reading PD Calendar here. We will confirm dates for the SY 23-24 in the Spring of 2023. This change will still allow teachers to meet proficiency requirements within an acceptable timeframe while learning about the most recent research and evidence around the science of reading. We will begin this training on August 31st with an orientation and pre-assessment. More information will follow as we get closer to our start date. We will also utilize our professional development and early release days for this professional learning.
Due to some accessibility issues that happened this year on PD days with Bridge-RI and the additional time needed to complete some of the course work with each module, teachers can continue to complete the modules for Awareness Training during the 2022-2023 school year. Please update your module completion here.
District Math Coaches
We are happy to introduce Kristina Sparfven and Eric Mulvey as our district math coaches for the upcoming school year. Kristina will work at the middle school, and Eric will coach across the elementary schools. Many of you know Kristina and Eric as district math specialists. They will continue the training and embedded coaching that many K-8 teachers received during year one of the i-Ready implementation. The purpose of coaching is to support the implementation of the math curriculum resource as well as to provide strategies to help teachers meet the needs of all students.
District Literacy Initiative
We are happy to have Kerry Pastore return in her role as ELA Fellow for the district. Kerry will continue to provide coaching as she has this past school year and lead the work of our reading specialists, who have collaborated to create a literacy assessment plan that will be rolled out in each school on August 31st.
Chariho Literacy Workspace
The Chariho Literacy Workspace has been updated to include our ELA K - 12 curriculum documents, assessments, the science of reading resources, updates to the elementary report card, and professional development. You can find all important information related to ELA on this site, which will be updated throughout the year. We will also be updating the math workspace this year as well.
Assessment Calendar
You can find the 22-23 assessment calendar here
Important Dates:
- New Teacher Orientation: Thursday, August 25th, 2022; 8 - 3:00 pm in the CMS Library
- Convocation: Tuesday, August 30th, 2022; 8:00 am in the CMS Auditorium
- Professional Development Day: Wednesday, August 31st, 2022, 8:00 am to 3:00 pm at your schools. Your principals will share the agenda for that day with you
- Upcoming PD Days
- September 13th, 2022
- November 8th, 2022
- December 5th, 2022 (Asynchronous day for students)
- Early Release Days (All dates fall on a Thursday)
- September 22, 2022
- October 20, 2022
- November 17, 2022
- December 15th, 2022
- January 12th, 2023
- February 9th, 2023
- March 23rd, 2023
- May 18th, 2023