School district achieves many of its goals

PINE PLAINS — During its last meeting of the school year, the Pine Plains Central School District’s Board of Education outlined its accomplishments during 2010-2011.The goals outlined by the BOE at the beginning of the school year included:­• Keep pace with technology, taking into account the needs of the district• Increase students’ engagement with their school lives• Promote parent/guardian engagement in students’ education• Encourage professional development• Promote the importance of recognizing, reporting and preventing harassment, bullying and other forms of discrimination and disrespect for others• Explore energy savings and “green” initiatives• Maintain transparency in all communicationsAssistant Superintendant for Curriculum Instruction Catherine Parsons, with assistance from the superintendant, the director of special education and the principals of all four schools, gave a presentation to outline how the school has tried to meet each of the BOE’s goals for the year.During the school year, the district was able to meet its technology goal by implementing wireless infrastructure and mobile technology, and using Google technology — such as Google Docs — to allow collaboration and communication among staff members.To encourage student involvement in school life, the Stissing Mountain High School created the “Coffee House” events, which allow students to get on stage and share a self-written poem, song or other creation. The Coffee House events are similar to talent shows, but without the negative stigma that students often attach to talent shows. There were originally three planned Coffee House events, but after they proved to be very successful in terms of participation, attendance and as an outlet for students’ creativity, a fourth one was scheduled. Roughly 100 people attended the last Coffee House.Parent workshops were held during the year to engage parents and guardians to participate in the students’ learning process. The workshops had themes like “Homework Without Tears.”The school had designated district-wide professional development days and brought in specialists to work with the staff in furthering their professional education in areas such as effective teaching, curriculum development and respectful discipline. Among all staff members, a cumulative total of more than 8,700 hours of professional development training was logged during the year.To address the issue of recognizing, reporting and preventing harassment, bullying and discrimination, the high school held a bias awareness day and the elementary school students learned about diversity awareness. The Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse also conducted a self-protection awareness training for students. Grades kindergarten through eighth were part of a drug and alcohol prevention program.The lighting retrofit donated by Central Hudson Gas & Electric at no cost to the district has helped the school district meet its goal of exploring and implementing “green” energy-saving measures.The district worked hard during the year to create and update a functional website to facilitate communication and transparency. It plans on continuing to work on the website to make it easier and faster for users to find the necessary information. It also wants to standardize the way all staff members update the site to aid in that process.