SABINA — Several new courses are coming to the middle school of the largely rural East Clinton school district, including a yearlong eighth-grade elective in Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
All seventh- and eighth-grade students will be required to take a quarter-long Career Exploration class, as well as a quarter-long Design and Modeling class, and then if they wish they can elect to take a Computer Science for Innovators and Makers course the next semester.
Those four new courses are the result of the EC school board approving some middle school Laurel Oaks programming for the 2022-23 academic year.
In addition, first-year East Clinton Middle School Principal Matthew Melnek said the school day will have a 15-minute homeroom period or advisory period to start the day “so we can work on different social-emotional things with our students.”
Next fall for sixth-graders who are transitioning from elementary school, a yearlong Middle School Skills class will be required.
One of the bigger concerns expressed at a local parents forum was that students were not prepared for middle school and high school life. Among things the EC teachers will emphasize in the Middle School Skills class are time management, studying, and being organized, plus some study hall time will be built into the class.
East Clinton Middle School science teachers are creating three new elective STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) courses, one per grade level, to be offered in conjunction with the required general science classes in grades 6 through 8. In order, these semester courses are Energy & Our Environment, Magic of Electrons, and Flight and Space.
Two English Language Arts (ELA) teachers are working to create ELA semester-long electives for seventh- and eighth-graders, said Melnek. The courses will have students practicing ELA skills such as writing, researching, thinking, and doing ELA-related presentations and projects.
The new middle school ELA course electives are: World Studies, Creative Writing, ELA Through Music, and What’s New With Writing.
Melnek said they’re trying to find a way to incorporate an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) support period for middle school IEP students. He feels sure it will happen.
At the same Board of Education meeting, Sabina Elementary School Principal Matthew Willian reported a discipline plan implemented after Christmas break appears to be going well, with a significant decrease in bigger incidents.
“We have seen, not perfection, but a dramatic improvement with our fifth-grade group,” the principal said.
The responses include a 30-minute detention, an hour detention, and suspension — with community service requirements added.
“Those conversations with those students have been very p0werful. They’ve left those detentions with a plan to repair their relationship with the teacher or Mr. Burns [custodian],” said Willian.
“One of our students decided he was going to take an apple sauce [cup] and throw it against a wall in the bathroom. That student had already been warned, had multiple bathroom-related incidents. He spent a considerable amount of time with Mr. Burns and part of his community service is to come in early in the morning and help Mr. Burns prepare the building before school starts,” the principal elaborated.
At Sabina Elementary a teacher-led focus group is investigating Universal Design for Learning which acknowledges learner variability.
And a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) team is seeking a system to enable consistency grade-to-grade in expectations, consistency in how students are held accountable, and consistency in how to respond to misbehaviors.
The Sabina Elementary PBIS team took part in introductory training Feb. 1 in the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching and discipline.
While no decision has been made, the PBIS team’s initial feedback is positive regarding Responsive Classroom, said Willian, so it “may be something on the horizon.” New Vienna Elementary’s PBIS team also took part in a one-day workshop about Responsive Classroom.
EC Superintendent Eric Magee said on Wednesday the school district currently had zero students and staff who were positive for COVID.
He said they’ve stopped taking temperatures of students as they come into their school building.
Reach Gary Huffenberger at 937-556-5768.
