A well-rounded education

By Lisa Wolland

Our children must receive a well-rounded education.

Academically, our District needs to provide our children with the tools to master math, science, foreign languages, and the humanities, as well as writing, reading, and comprehension. I believe that our District does a good job in these areas. It is the main reason why people continue to move to Croton.

I would, however, like to see our District revisit a more traditional approach to teaching spelling and grammer. I have heard many parents express concern that their children are having difficulty spelling and writing well. I think this can be accomplished without additional expense.

While the basics are important, our children should not be limited in what they are able to study, and they should be challenged individually. For example, I want to see more differentiation in instruction. This would be provided by the classroom teachers, and the teachers could reach out to their peers within the school for assistance and guidance, to ensure consistency across the grade.

As for the high school, I would urge our District to explore the idea of introducing interdisciplinary courses (e.g., English and Science, or Art and Earth Science). This would allow students, who want to challenge themselves further, to experience a broader, multi-faceted education. I fully realize that this suggestion would have a small budgetary increase, so I would not advocate implementing it until the local economy improves.