Schools
School Committee Welcomes New Igo Elementary School Principal
School Committee Notebook: Board welcomes Michael Stanton, holds public hearing on new state teacher evaluations, approves new textbooks.
Vincent M. Igo Elementary School’s new principal Michael Stanton received a warm welcome at Monday night’s School Committee meeting. The father of two has been the principal at Boyden Elementary School in Walpole for the past seven years, and has a masters in elementary education from Cambridge College.
Stanton says he is “very excited to join the team” at Igo Elementary, and that his philosophy is “to make a difference every day.” He told the school committee that his passion for working with children stems from his belief that “you never know when you are making a memory that will last a lifetime.”
Find out what's happening in Foxboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Also at the meeting, members held an “open hearing” on the new Massachusetts Educator Evaluation System. Foxborough Assistant Superintendent Dr. Amy Berdos presented the complex new system via PowerPoint as educators and board members listened and discussed the components involved. Foxborough schools will implement the program for the upcoming school year.
Superintendent Debra Spinelli called the evaluation system, “the most complicated, but revolutionary, change to come through the Massachusetts Education system in years.”
Find out what's happening in Foxboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The state mandated program promotes teacher participation in the evaluation and goal-setting processes, in what school committee member Kate Kominsky called "a two-way conversation" between educators and evaluators.
Ultimately, the Committee voted unanimously to adopt the model system in its entirety, with the exception of some of the “contract language”, which the board elected to adapt.
Spinelli said the board will be “tweaking some of the contract language to fit our district.”
The school committee also elected unanimously to adopt requests for new textbooks for both the health and woodworking departments. The new textbooks will be the first the woodworking department has seen since 1979.
The board also voted to adopt the Sangari Active Science program for kindergarteners, and reviewed changes in their policies on wellness and internet acceptable use.
