Newton Senior High School Principal Bill Peters could barely contain his excitement at Monday’s Newton Community School Board of Education meeting.
Peters presented the board with proposed changes to the NHS 2014-2015 Academic Planning Handbook, which would expand the school’s offering of AP and college credit courses, change the way special education students learn at NHS and help better serve Newton’s current industrial base.
“We are going to start with industrial technology,” Peters told the board. “That’s a ninth-grade class … and we have really changed the focus of that. Two of our business partners, TPI and Thombert, (use) plastic mold injections and that’s a huge industry in Newton, Iowa and it’s a huge industry everywhere.”
The revised handbook, which was approved, would eliminate the exploring drafting and metalworking class and replace it with a materials and process class. The new class would introduce students to working with multiple materials and the processes manufacturers use in a modern workplace.
“We meet with those groups (TPI and Thombert) and we talk about what they need to see in our kids so they can have more employability,” Peters said. “We come back and we adjust our curriculum. We didn’t have plastics in our curriculum for probably the last eight years.”
“It had always been metalworking prefab with Maytag,” he continued. “So, we’re switching back to plastics and we’re working with those companies and they are going to give us some of their scraps … You’ll see that class changing focus just a little, but it’s going to meet the (needs) of not only Newton’s industry, but all industries going the plastic way.”
Under the language arts banner, two courses were removed and creative writing was added.
“(For) upper-level kids, we’ve never had this before for those kids,” Peters said. “It’s high time that we did provide it. It’s a creative writing class that matches with the (curriculum) for DMACC, so we will be able to offer it for college credit, as well.”
Peters was proud of being able to offer his students additional chances to earn more college credits at no direct- cost, thanks to NHS’s partnership with DMACC.
“It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” he quipped. “It’s a wonderful thing when kids come out of here with 20 or 30 credits.”
A slight change in the course descriptions will also allow junior and senior students to earn DMACC credits for taking pre-calculus. NHS also offers an AP level biology course for juniors and seniors, thanks to NHS science teacher Bill Reed earning certification to teach it during the summer.
In social studies, two new alternating courses will be available for students past the ninth grade. Dark Ages and Discovery, a class that will explore everything from Medieval Europe to the French Revolution will be introduced.
When that class isn’t available, 20th Century Wars, which ranges from World War I to the Cold War, will take its place.
Another new course will be an early morning class for upperclassman called advance athletic strength and conditioning, which is described as being “designed to get the most out of an athlete.” Students will focus on improving physical and mental attributes in the course.
The biggest wholesale changes will be toward special education at NHS. More than a dozen classes were omitted from the previous edition of the handbook.
“In all those situations, those kids are going back into gen ed classrooms,” Peters said. “(There) will be supports for those students and supports for those teachers so those students can succeed inside the gen ed setting.”
One of the supports Peters mentioned was the University of Kansas Learning Strategies that Newton, and a number of other districts, have implemented into their curriculum. Secondary Education Services Director Tina Ross explained that SPED students would get a double dose of learning by having both their general education class and the supports on top of that.
“I would just like to commend Bill, (NHS Vice Principal) Dave Kalkhoff and Tina,” Superintendent Bob Callaghan said. “They have been working tirelessly finding ways to increase expectations for these students and getting them back into the gen ed classrooms and finding ways to not only support the students, but the teachers as we move forward.”