Act 80 Day Recap

On March 1st the district utilized an Act 80 Day to offer professional development and training opportunities to our K-12 staff. Section 1504 of the Pennsylvania School Code, as amended by Act 80 of 1969, authorizes the Secretary of Education to grant an exception to the 180-day requirement or to the daily schedule "when in his opinion a meritorious educational program warrants."

An Act 80 Day differs from an "in-service day" in that the day counts as one of the 180 school days required by the state. With that said, schools must still provide a minimum number of hours of instruction per school year. For example, secondary schools must provide 990 hours and elementary schools, 900 hours.

The following activities were held as part of North Schuylkill's Act 80 Day program:

Saxon Math Presentation and Discussion. The district is piloting Saxon Math in its elementary school. If adopted the program will be implemented in grades K-5. In addition to the K-5 teachers, Math teachers in grades 6-12 attended the presentation and participated in the discussion sessions held afterwards.

Curriculum Review and Study. Elementary and Secondary Social Studies teachers met with Jeff Zeiders of PDE to discuss the framework of a K-12 Social Studies curriculum and components necessary to prepare students for the 21st Century.

Elementary and Secondary English/Reading were trained in use of Curriculum Connector. The teachers will use this curriculum mapping tool to initially create core maps and then diary maps.

Elementary and Secondary Math and Science teachers continued work on their core curriculum maps. Dr. Evelyn Wassel of Schuylkill Intermediate Unit 29 led the teachers through activities which allowed them to compare the core maps thus far completed with the curriculum framework models available on Pennsylvania's Standards Aligned System.

Guidance Counselors, Computer, and Business Education teachers previewed Hands on Banking, a new career development/consumer education program being offered to schools free-of-charge, locally by Wachovia Bank. After this presentation the teachers attended an Adobe C4 workshop taught by Lynn Wiscount of Schuylkill IU 29.

Heath/Physical Education teachers, along with staff involved in extracurriculuar activities, received AED/CPR Training led by colleague Lynn Minalda.

This spring, a student morning newscast will debut at North Schuylkill Elementary. Teachers involved in this project used the Act 80 day to plan for this endeavor and to become familiar with two tools which will be used to create and broadcast the news program, Visual Communicator and EduVision.

A Workforce Safety Meeting for elementary and secondary staff was held.

Title I teachers continued preparation for the Dr. Seuss Read Across America activities.

Elementary staff attended an afternoon workshop led by Dr. Dona Bauman and Sandra Lamanna. Among the topics covered were: The 13 exceptionalities of IDEA; What is intelligence and how do we measure it?; How do we classify children under IDEA?

Technology Education teachers received training in use of AutoDesk software. This CAD program was recently added to North Schuylkill's curriculum and will be introduced to our secondary students during the second semester.