Decorah Schools open Thursday

With the opening of schools on Thursday, Superintendent Mike Haluska shared the following statement with decorahnews.com:

"We are very excited about the beginning of the new school year!  Between our new teachers to the district and those staff members who have been with us for some time, but moved to new positions within the district, we have 18 people in new positions.  While the district lost a great deal of experience via early retirement, the new staff members bring a great deal of enthusiasm and that is exciting.

We have also been working to develop an active District Leadership Team.  These folks have been active in the work with the Iowa Core Curriculum and now are taking on an even greater role within the district, one of real involvement in the planning and development of our curriculum mapping project, the setting of professional development activities, and the evaluation of district data and the goal-setting work within the district.  Members of this team are:

Elementary representatives:  Barb Johnson, Judy Moen, Rhonda     Thompson and Karen Van Der Maaten;

Middle School representatives:  Amy Suhr, Liz Fritz, and Randy Iverson;

High School representatives:  Tim Hayes, Dana Hogan, and Elaine Lore;

Principals:  Rick Varney, Cheryl Sommers, Leona Hoth, and Kim Sheppard;

 AEA representative:  Jen Soland; and,

 District representatives:  Diane Lovstuen, Laura Smith, Kurt DeVore, and Mike  Haluska.

Our professional development this year will be very interesting.  Some of our early work this year will be to create consensus curriculum maps based on integrating the work staff has done with the Iowa Core and the Common Core, or National Standards in Math and Language Arts.  The primary focus will be on English/Language Arts in grades K-12 and in subject matter areas for those teachers who do not teach English/Language Arts.

Ultimately, though, our goal for the district is to create a guaranteed and viable curriculum for every student who passes through the doors of the Decorah Community Schools. As I told the staff on their first day back, it shouldn't matter through whose classroom a third grade student passes, or who teaches 8th grade American History, or 11th grade Language Arts.  What we should be able to guarantee to the patrons of the Decorah Community Schools is that regardless who the teacher is, regardless who sits on the Board of Education, or who the Superintendent is, we will guarantee your student has received the essential skills and concepts that warrant your child moving to the next grade level or subject.  That is what we are working toward."