With co-chair Julie Haywood presiding, the Educational Affairs Committee convened for its monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 15. The meeting featured an end-of-school year calendar change; a professional development proposal; and a two-part presentation from CSD Director of STEM Dr. Brian Reilly. 

Due to unused snow days, the administration recommended the final student day be moved to Tuesday, June 14 and the final staff day be moved to Thursday, June 16. The board will vote on this at its April 19 legislative board meeting.The committee also presented a Wednesday professional development proposal, in which every other Wednesday would be an early dismissal. This time will be utilized for the purposes of ongoing professional development, guided collaboration, and review of, and action planning based on student data. 

The first part of Dr. Reilly’s presentation was an update on the progress the Pennsylvania Department of Education has made on updating its science standards. The new standards will feature performance expectations for grade bands, and will incorporate the concept of the three dimensions of learning science (disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science/engineering practices). The second part of the presentation was a showcase of some of the projects completed in the project based learning classrooms at CBK and CHS. Dr. Reilly provided information for and student artifacts from each of the 12 projects. Two themes prevalent across all of the projects were authentic student engagement in the feedback and revision process and connecting the students’ work to the larger community. Also included in the presentation were links to a series of podcasts produced by High Tech High that allows listeners to hear about the vision, challenges and successes of project based learning in CSD from its inception through the pandemic. The next Educational Affairs meeting is Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m. Video>