Curriculum & Professional Learning/Assistant Principal
Happy Spring from the Office of Curriculum and Professional Development! Hopefully this update finds you enjoying our Western New York Spring weather, with the promise of warmer and sunnier weather to come.
The Professional Development Day held on March 13th for our teachers and staff was a success. Faculty attended a half-day session on Explicit Instruction, presented by a facilitator from BOCES. Explicit Instruction focuses on five major areas of instruction: segmenting complex skills, promoting successful student engagement, focusing student attention on critical pieces of content, providing opportunities to receive feedback, and giving students purposeful practice of a skill. Our faculty also met with their instructional team leaders to review student data and develop plans to adjust their instruction based on the data.
Our Juniors took the ELA Regents exam back in January. We had a Proficiency (passing) rate of 96%, which is the second highest Proficiency rate over the past 7 years. Congratulations to our students and the secondary ELA teachers for a job well done.
End of year assessments for students are also in full swing. By the time you read this article, the NYS 3-8 assessments in the areas of ELA, Math, and Science will have been administered. Regents exams will take place throughout the month of June.
Work has also been completed on the District’s technology plan for the next three years (2026-2029). Three major goals around the areas of learning, teaching, and infrastructure were developed. This plan will be sent to New York State Education Department for final approval and posted on the District website.
If you have any questions regarding your child’s educational program, or the instructional program of our school, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You can email me at ccornwell@barkercsd.net, or reach me by phone at 716-795-3388.
Yours in education,
Christian Cornwell
Coordinator of Curriculum & Professional Learning/AP
716-795-3388
EMAIL CHRISTIAN CORNWELL