College Preparation at RHS

My name is Shawna Stilian, the College and Career Counselor at Raymond High School, and I have the pleasure of writing a guest blog this week to let you know a little bit about what I do here in Raymond and what the students have been working on.

This is a new position here at the high school, it has definitely been a learning experience for me, but it has been a wonderful experience so far meeting all of the students and helping them to discover what could be next for them after high school.

Some of the things we have done in preparation for college are:

●     Classroom lessons on using Naviance to apply for schools and navigating the Common Application.

●     College Information Sessions by local College Admission Counselors.

●     “I Am College Bound Event.” This event was held in November in the media center, where students submit applications with the help of local college admissions counselors. Students were able to ask all of the questions they needed as well as have their applications and essays reviewed by the people who will actually read their college application when the time comes. A majority of the New Hampshire colleges and universities waived their application fee that day.

○     We had 72 students participate in the event

○     With 161 total applications submit

○     And 147 fee waivers used with a savings of around $7,000 dollars for our students.

●     Students have attended college fairs put on by UNH

●     Students attended a College Access Convention with workshops on:

○     Money for College from Financial Aid experts from NHHEAF

○     Inside the Admissions Offices: What Colleges Look For

○     Student Panel Presentation with current students from local 2-year and 4-year schools sharing their experiences and answering questions.

○     A tour of Southern New Hampshire University

●     FAFSA Filing and Financial Aid presentations

●     Students have been working on their applications along with applying for scholarships, requesting teacher recommendations, filling out transcript release forms, going on college tours, listening to college information sessions from college representatives here at the school, taking the SAT and SAT Prep classes and so on.

●     Some students are now receiving their acceptance letters and it is great to see all of their hard work paying off.

In the future we will have:

●     SAT Prep Classes put on by Reach High Scholars

●     State SAT testing for Juniors

●     College Tours

●     Junior Family College Overview

●     Spring College and Career Fair

●     And many more events for students to stay on track with college applications.

Some extra things I would like to mention are:

●     Dual Admission: This is a great program put on by the local Community Colleges and University System of New Hampshire. If your student is not sure what they want to do yet, or whether or not they are ready for a 4-year institution, or just really want to save some money the first two years of college, they should really consider the Dual Admission Program. Students can spend two years at any of the participating Community Colleges in NH at a very large discount from the state tuition. After two years the student will have an associate’s degree and will automatically be transferred (with no need to reapply) into their choice of a participating 4-year institution to complete their bachelor's degree. The student must have the required credits and maintain a GPA of 2.5 for most programs, but it gives your student a chance to get used to college courses and figure out what they want to do without spending the tuition of a 4-year state school right away. Any questions you can check out the website http://www.dualnh.com/

●     SAT Prep Boot Camp for Juniors: The Reach High Scholars Program and Academic Approach will offer a winter SAT boot camp for Juniors. The NH Dept. of Education will use the April 5th mandatory SAT test as a statewide assessment for all juniors. Although they will be used for statewide assessment, students can use these scores to send to colleges when they start applying senior year. By taking the SAT boot camp for the mandatory (and free) SAT, you will help to improve your student’s scores while minimizing the amount of times they will have to take and pay for the SAT over senior year. This boot camp can help raise your score and make your reach school that much more accessible.

○     The course starts on January 7th and has ten class sessions and three diagnostic tests before the SAT on April 5th.

○     The fee for the SAT Boot Camp is $450 (compared to courses other places run $650-$1000) and has possible reduced prices based on household income.

○     Please come see me in the School Counseling office for an application or email me at s.stilian@sau33.com and I can email the informational letter and application to you.

Google Apps for Education

This week's guest blog post comes from our Technology Director, Bailey Rigg.

For well over five years, the Raymond school district has been using the ultimate 21st Century technology tool in the classroom and it’s called Google Apps for Education, (GAFE). Teachers, students, staff and administrators all use GAFE for email, word processing, file storage, project collaboration, and much much more. GAFE has transformed how we think and use computer technology in our schools both in and out of the classroom. According to Google, over 30 million staff and students use GAFE as part of their technology and communication efforts within their educational facilities and that number is quickly growing every day.

GAFE brings email to all our staff and students and productivity tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets. When you tie all these programs together with Google Classroom, you really can see the power Google gives our teachers and students. Google Classroom offers each classroom a spot in cyberspace where teachers can post assignments and students can submit their work electronically. Feedback on student assignments are in real time, class communication is improved via the announcement and assignment areas, and Google classroom automatically reminds students when assignments are not completed.

Over the past two years, we have also used Google Classroom to provide professional development opportunities to the Raymond School District staff. Feedback from those who took part in these Google Classroom professional development opportunities was overwhelmingly positive. Staff commented on the busy lives they have and that having these professional development opportunities through Google classroom provided them the flexibility to complete assignments when time was available. Also, most commented that if this training was not offered online through Google Classroom, they would not have had the time to participate.

I encourage parents to create a Gmail account so you can experience what your children are using every day in our school district. Google allows anyone to have a free Gmail account (go to gmail.com to sign up for a free account) that comes with most of the tools I have mentioned here. By creating this account, you can use it to become familiar with the productivity tools your child uses while at school. There are endless video tutorials online to help users to learn how to use the many tools your Gmail account provides which makes learning faster and easier. Give it a try and discover some of the productivity tools available to you through Google.

WHAT IS NH PACE?

This week's guest blogger is Melissa Lefebvre, the District's Curriculum Coordinator.

Each spring, our students in grades 3 through 8 have an opportunity to experience the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  This is an assessment that provides the district with very detailed information about each student’s performance as well as overall strengths and weaknesses of each school and the district as a whole.  These scores are also helpful in determining which students to invite to school intervention programs.

Though the assessment has many benefits, it is not without its critics.  Even though Smarter Balanced Testing Week may ensure a week with little to no homework, many students do not favor testing on a computer for four, one to two hour sessions throughout the week.   Although the information gained is helpful to improve teaching practices, teachers must give up time for lessons and projects in order to administer the assessment to their students.  Teachers find it difficult to access computer labs for lessons during this time because students are testing in them.  Tests are administered in April or May, so teachers have not yet finished teaching the year’s curriculum.  

State and federal assessments probably won’t disappear anytime soon, but what if there was a better way to assess student and school performance without taking so much time away from instruction?  What if there was an assessment that is more meaningful to students?  An assessment that could be administered when students were ready, and not only in April or May?  The NH PACE (Performance Assessment for Competency Education) model addresses some of these concerns.  The model helps to limit the amount standardized testing: PACE districts only give the Smarter Balanced Assessment to students once in elementary school, once in middle school, and give the SAT once in high school.  Under the model, students take the Smarter Balanced Assessment only three years instead of seven.  In all other years (PACE years), students will be given a performance assessment created by a team of teachers in the school and approved by the state.  Other than limiting the time spent on standardized testing, the NH PACE initiative has some other benefits:

• PACE assessments are created collaboratively by the teachers in the district, so what is being assessed is being determined by the teachers, not an outside assessment company
• PACE assessments are administered when the teachers feel the students are ready, possibly after the end of a unit where learning is more recent
• Teacher created PACE assessments are generally more engaging for students than traditional standardized assessments
• Teachers gain expert-level feedback on the assessments they create for PACE

Many NH districts have already joined this effort and adopted this model: Sanborn Regional, Rochester, Souhegan, Pittsfield, and Epping, just to name a few.  Our district’s Competency Committee, composed of teachers and building principals, is currently considering the benefits of taking part in this movement and the possibility of adopting the PACE model and moving toward a more meaningful system of assessment.  For more information, please visit http://education.nh.gov/assessment-systems/pace.htm.

By Melissa Lefebvre, Curriculum Coordinator