PTA Wins Awards

National Group Honors Work On Common Core

— The National Parent Teacher Association has given the Springdale School District Parent Teacher Association two awards for its work related to the new Common Core education standards.

One award is for how Springdale’s association has educated families about the changes coming because of Common Core. The other award is for the way the group has worked with Springdale school administrators and School Board members on the awareness campaign.

Springdale officials learned about the awards last weekend.

The Springdale association received a $20,000 grant from the National PTA last year to educate families about how instruction is changing because of Common Core and how to help their children through the changes. A group of five from the Springdale PTA, along with board members and administrators, made presentations on Common Core locally and elsewhere, including the National School Board Association meeting in Boston in April.

Common Core refers to new national standards that define the knowledge and skills K-12 students should have so they graduate high school prepared for college or work force training programs. It was implemented for kindergarten, first grade and second grade last school year. This year it is being launched in grades three through eight.

Keli Gill, Springdale PTA president, said there’s still a lot of confusion about Common Core.

“There’s a lot more hands-on learning” in Common Core, Gill said. “The kids won’t have as many worksheets coming home. And that’s the most difficult thing for parents to understand … the way we educate our kids has changed.”

Gill gave an example from Sonora Elementary School, where groups of fourth-graders last year had to research what books they wanted to add to their classroom library, then go out and buy those books based on a budget they had been provided. The project taught lessons in ways that a set of math problems wouldn’t, Gill said.

Though the association’s grant money has run out, Gill said the group hopes to continue its work educating people about Common Core.

Kathy McFetridge, school board president, said she has lost track of how many Common Core presentations in which board members had participated. She recalled one meeting at Shaw Elementary that attracted about 300 parents.

“The PTA did an amazing job,” McFetridge said. “They traveled out of state to be trained, were given a grant and worked really hard with the board and administration to get the message out.”

McFetridge said she is also fully behind Common Core, noting it stresses problem-solving skills, engineering and technology.

Upcoming Events