Monday was the first day of school for Wrangell Public Schools, and the Kindergarteners are not the only ones new to the district. New teachers, administrators and standardized tests are all making a debut this year.
Wrangell Schools Superintendent Patrick Mayer said teachers spent last week learning about new state standards for language arts and math, as well as new teacher evaluations.
“Those are difficult topics to have to deal with in one year,” Mayer said. “But teachers were real receptive, and we made a lot of progress, and so that kind of paves the way for us this year.”
Wrangell Public Schools had to replace several administrators and teachers this year. Despite all the new faces, Mayer said planning for the upcoming school year has gone smoothly so far.
“I have spoken at length with Colter Barnes, our middle school/high school principal, Deidre Jenson, our elementary principal. And we’re all on the same page as an administrative team. We’re going to really work together well I think. We’ve had great initial meetings and strategized for the direction for the year, and then that collaboration that we’ll subsequently have with teachers is gonna go really well,” Mayer said.
There are 284 students enrolled for this school year. Mayer said the district expected 263 students.
“So you know, 21 kids in excess of what we anticipated we would have, so that’s a great thing to see our enrollment going up this year,” Mayer said.
Mayer added a goal for this year will be maximizing opportunities for students to earn college credit during high school.
