083010 School district staff gathers for convocation
By Sharon Haught
August 23, 2010
253
Before the smiling faces of the 3800 students in the Wooster City School District returned to the classroom, the faculty and staff gathered at the Performing Arts Center at Wooster High School on August 19 for the districts annual convocation.
Today represents new beginning for us as individuals and as an educational team, said board of education president Jim Barnard.
On Monday families will once again entrust us and really expect us to maximize the educational experience for their students, said Barnard. As a board we stand ready to support you as you lead us to an excellent rated district.
Wooster is a great school district, and a great community with great students, staff and administrators, said Barnard.
We open this school year with momentum towards our goal of being an Excellent rated district, said Barnard noting that the districts preliminary state report card indicates that the district is just on half point from being rated an Excellent district.
According to Barnard that momentum for that drive comes began with the implementation of new programs such as Every Day Math, Literacy by Design, the Littlest Generals Pre-School and all day every day kindergarten and will continue will professional development for the faculty and staff as the district continues to align our resources and strategies to achieve this goal.
Peter Larrousse, President of the Wooster Education Association, spoke of the role the districts teachers play in meeting the districts student achievement goals by describing what it means to be a Wooster City Schools teacher.
I know what effective teaching entails and I know how to manage the curriculum and needs of the diverse learners in my classroom I greet the smiling faces of my students and am reminded of their challenges, struggles, successes, failures, quirks and needs, said Larrousse.
Im not alone. I represent over 500 Wooster Education Association members, all of whom can say the exact same things about the training, planning, effort and dedication that they give to the students of Wooster in the jobs that they do, said Larrousse.
The teachers arent the only members of the districts staff with a big job to do.
According to Director of Business and Community Affairs Dave Kocevar our support staff accomplishes some amazing feats.
Kocevar noted that the food service staff serves just under 500,000 meals annually and the transportation department travels over 340,000 per year. While the custodial staff cleans over 875,000 square feet of building space, the grounds crew maintains over 186 acres of property. The warehouse services department processes over 80,000 pieces of mail annually while the copy center processes over 4 million copies a year.
It truly takes a team effort amongst the staff and the faculty to keep a district the size of Wooster humming.
It is truly comforting and refreshing to look out and see you. You make the Wooster City School district a truly amazing place to educate the citys children, said Superintendent Michael Tefs adding I am so incredibly proud of what we are accomplishing here, what were doing academically, fiscally and technologically.
Make no mistake about it. Its you – the leadership, the faculty, the staff, the board of education – that is creating a system of education that is truly making a difference in the lives of our students, said Tefs.
Tefs concluded the convocation by saying Ladies and gentlemen thank you for all you do for our community, especially for our students. I will leave you with the two finest words ever said, to which the familiar voice of Wooster High School principal Anita Jorney-Gifford responded Go Woo.
