Page 4 - Priorities #8 1997-98 Annual Report

StrategicPlan,Financial FaCUltY Plan, Long-Range Plan:
What Matters Most is Support for outstanding
Being a teacher in a good, small school requires a certain kind of magic. The act of teaching is the part of the job that shows. Underneath, teachers must also be quick-change artists, skilled at reading their audience - in this case, students - and the resources around them. They must be quick to respond every year with a curriculum and club program that best suits individual talents and individual classes. Their work must acknowledge the changes in their field of expertise. It must be seamless - it must blend in with last year and next year, with no rough edges showing.
Fortunately, Priory teachers seem to thrive on change. Donor support makes possible the faculty’s most important tool, which is funding for summer professional development and for new technology.
“The faculty support program here is extraordinary. Of course, it is also expensive. We could not possibly provide it if we relied only on the tuition portion of our income.
“The summer grants are entirely funded by gift support. Donors like the program because their contributions have a positive impact which is both immediate and long term,” said Doug Ayer, WPS Director of Development.
Three-fourths of the faculty chose to spend Summer 1998 re-tooling themselves and their courses for this academic year. To qualify, each teacher wrote a grant proposal last spring and the granting committee awarded 42 projects (some teachers received more
than one grant).
Here are a few of the changes students will
experience this year as a result of summer grants:
• In sixth grade, Mitch Neuger is integrating a “responsive classroom” concept. It involves teaching students how to create a positive social environment as a natural part of their academic learning. (See photo)
• The college counseling office now has additional computers and software to assist students with their planning process.
• Kim (Stoner) Heffernan, Helen O’Hara, Tom Webb and Mitch Neuger are using “History Alive,” an exciting teaching process that calls on students to interact with information, not just listen or read. Their Middle School students will dramatize historical issues and work on projects that build critical thinking skills (such as comparisons and analysis, rather than recitation of facts). Students also learn academic skills, such as note-taking and monitoring their own discussion groups, while learning history concepts.
• AP courses are newly strengthened, or are being newly offered. In line with trends on the AP US History exam, Jim Lawhon spent time intergrating more social history into his class. Jim also studied the AP European History course material and primary source material and has re-designed his course based on that information. Steve Marsheck expanded his AB Calculus to include the BC (second semester) components. David Hafleigh designed a course offering in AP Statistics.
• Kim Mason’s physical education students will make use of math and science knowledge in using new technical equipment - a heart rate monitor, a Star Trac treadmill, and a body composition and
Three-fourths of the faculty spent Summer 1998 re-tooling themselves and their courses for this academic year.
Team building and fostering a sense of community within an international group were issues addressed at the Residential Life conference attended by WPS Director Kathy Immel. Priory resident students, joined by several faculty and administrators, started the year with a two- day canoe trip down the Russian River.
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