From the Desk of Mr. Jeff Kuhns

As the 2024-2025 school year begins, it is essential that we look forward to where we are going as a district. Over the summer (yes, administrators do work in the summer!), the administrative team spent a lot of time looking at data from parents, students, and staff to determine building goals for the year. This data came from surveys that were distributed in the spring. We also spent a tremendous amount of time talking about our district goals and how we proceed as a team.

The two goals of the comprehensive plan have driven our objectives for the year. Our primary goals center around professional learning and curriculum development. At every level, our instructional team will be focused on these two goals. Our administrative team began this professional learning with weekly, intensive sessions.

At all levels, the administrative team continues to hold consistent, engaging instruction as a top priority. This will be addressed in different ways in different buildings, but the overarching professional learning will be in removing barriers that interfere with effective instruction. Every teacher will have multiple sessions of professional learning on this topic.

Districtwide, a curriculum platform has been purchased. This will allow the public to be better informed on the curriculum at all levels. This platform will be built out over the next few years. In the current year, the focus will be on K-12 science, Early Literacy, Technology Education and 6-12 math.

On the school safety front, a few upgrades have been made. Some of those upgrades are obvious, such as the fencing at New Bloomfield Elementary and Blain Elementary as well as the concrete vehicle barriers at the High School, Middle School, and New Bloomfield Elementary. Less obvious is a completely upgraded camera system in all the district buildings. All these upgrades have been made possible because of school safety grants.

While the camera system falls into the safety realm, it was also a massive undertaking for the technology department this summer. All of the cameras in the District were removed and replaced by our staff. Besides that initiative, the wireless infrastructure was updated throughout the District. These large tasks were in addition to the normal summer tasks that the technology department engages in relative to student and staff technology.

In other upgrades, the Middle School received new HVAC units over the summer. This upgrade was paid for utilizing the remaining ESSER funds. While this replacement was already slated for completion, the District is also undergoing a comprehensive feasibility study to look at deficiencies across all buildings and prioritize maintenance issues. In the future, large maintenance expenditures will be driven by the findings of the feasibility study.

Also, the District has begun to utilize some new resources, most notably at the middle school level. With the change in the state standards for science in Pennsylvania, a new resource was needed to meet the new expectations. Over the course of this year, we will be exploring what resources are needed in the High School and the elementary schools to meet the new standards. The Middle School additionally has acquired a new resource for math called iReady. This resource includes a self-guided pathway that is based on each individual student’s strengths and weaknesses. We are excited to see how this resource builds our middle school student’s basic skills and enhances their ability to achieve at high rates. In addition to those new resources, we will also be piloting additional early literacy resources in the elementary schools.

School-home communication has been an identified weakness in our school improvement surveys. West Perry has had a learning management system called Schoology for the last four years. Up to this year, that application has been woefully underutilized. Beginning this year, the secondary school teachers will be expected to use this tool to improve teacher-family communication. In the elementary schools, we utilize SeeSaw for home communication and have worked through the last several months to ensure that all elementary teachers have a baseline level of proficiency with the application. We are also exploring opening parent access to PowerSchool like the option that parents have in the secondary buildings.

The elementary schools have similar goals based on their school improvement survey data. At New Bloomfield, they will be working to improve their data culture. Administration will provide increased opportunities to analyze assessment data in a team setting. At Blain, there will also be professional learning centered around improving the data culture while additionally addressing strengthening internal relationships. The school improvement surveys from Carroll also highlighted the need to work on internal communications and relationships as well as improving the use of data to inform instructional decisions.

To meet the district’s vision of preparing students to be well-rounded members of society, we have hired a K-12 Career Coordinator. We are very enthusiastic about the potential for this position to better prepare our K-12 students for life after high school. This position will be tasked with working with students and parents at all levels but will have a primary mission of working with our secondary students on multiple avenues to ensure that they have a plan to thrive after graduation.

We look forward to continuing to build on the momentum created over the last couple of years to make the West Perry School District a place where people are proud to say that they live and work.