The board also joined the New Jersey School Boards Association in recognizing January 2018 as “School Board Recognition Month.”
Lenape Regional High School District Superintendent Carol Birnbohm used her monthly superintendent’s report at last week’s Board of Education meeting to give an update on some of the recent activities taking place throughout the four high schools.
Birnbohm noted many of the schools’ teachers had been making use of their “common planning time” — the time during the week where educators are free during the same period to meet and collaborate.
“I always like to gather information from our principals on what happened last month that seems worthy of sharing with board, and I do have a couple of highlights,” Birnbohm said.
At Lenape High School, Birnbohm said an English teacher and driver’s education teacher teamed up for co-curricular lessons where students in the driver’s education class created posters throughout the school to convey the dangers of drug and alcohol use while driving.
Afterward, the English students viewed the posters and used information from their lessons on rhetoric to determine what audiences the posters were trying to reach and what techniques were used.
At Shawnee High School, Birnbohm said staff members opened their classrooms for colleagues to conduct peer observations.
Birnbohm said teachers used their free common planning time to observe other teachers in or out of their department as they taught students, as well as provide feedback on their lessons and gain insight on other teaching techniques.
At Cherokee High School, Birnbohm said the district’s lone Russian teacher used common planning time to gather performance tasks she had created for her students and shared those tasks with her colleagues in the World Languages Department for critique, despite the language barrier.
Birnbohm said Cherokee’s physics teachers also used common planning time to plan for the school’s new physics club.
At Seneca High School, Birnbohm cited another co-curricular lesson where an AP Biology teacher joined with an AP Psychology teacher. For the psychology students to better understand their unit on eyesight, the students teamed with the biology class to dissect eyeballs from cows.
In other news:
• The board joined the New Jersey School Boards Association in recognizing January as “School Board Recognition Month.”
Constance Stewart, business administrator and board secretary, said the month was a time when all residents can acknowledge the contributions made by local boards of education, including those boards within the eight constituent municipalities that make up the LRHSD.
Stewart noted that although the LRHSD is only one of the 581 local boards of education in the NJSBA federation, the board embraces the association’s common goal of high quality education for all students in New Jersey’s public schools.
“The Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education does hereby recognize the services of local school board members throughout New Jersey … and be it further resolved, the Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education urges all New Jersey citizens to work with their local school boards of education and public school staff toward the achievement of our children’s education,” Stewart said on behalf of the board.
• The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education is set for Feb. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the LRHSD Administrative Offices at 93 Willow Grove Road in Shamong.
