Thursday, May 19, 2011
Lacey Township School District's Superintendent Richard Starodub announces his retirement
When Richard Starodub took the position as the Superintendent of the Lacey Township School District, he told the Board of Education to let him know when it was his time to go. Twenty-one years later, it is time, he said. Although the school board never told him it was time, Starodub’s retirement was noted at the last school board meeting and his final day is slated for Sept. 1. “I knew it was coming. I had given the board notice that if everything went okay with the budget, we would move ahead on this date,” Starodub said. Starodub would have left earlier, he said. But with cuts in state aid, the school district was put in a difficult situation, leading him to believe it was not a good time. “I think things are stable right now. We could …
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Lacey's Board of Education honors teachers and students for their achievements
Teachers and students alike were honored at the Board of Education meeting on Monday, May 9. The accomplishments of Lacey Township Middle School’s Gifted and Talented Program were noted as they recently took the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT), an exam designed for high school juniors and seniors. “Taking the SAT’s as a junior or senior is arduous to get those scores for college. To do it as a seventh grader, absolutely amazing,” Principal James Handschuch said. Six students scored above state average on the language arts and reading portion while five students scored above the state average in mathematics. One student scored 620 in math, which is 100 points above the state average and another scored 540 on the verbal, which is 24 points…
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Lacey Township School District seeks community input with online poll.
Amid flagging interest and budgetary concerns, Lacey Township School District put the community in charge of whether its defunct Community Education program will be re-established. Input is being sought through a simple online survey on the district's website. "Our Community Education program had been in existence for quite a few years. For the current school year, we put the program on hold because we wanted to research it and kind of revamp it," said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Vanessa Clark. "[Community] input is very important because the more input we have, the better planning we can do," Clark said. She designed the survey with colleagues from the district and the Board of Education in order to learn what the community's …
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Lacey teachers form Focus Groups to sharpen their skills
With state aid for the Lacey Township School District dwindling, formal training for teachers has done the same, Superintendent Richard Starodub said. But Lacey teachers have taken the initiative in developing Focus Groups, a form of workshops for teachers and by teachers. “There’s a great attitude and commitment among our teachers to professionally develop, grow, and get better. It’s something that you can’t go out and measure,” Superintendent Richard Starodub said. All Lacey schools participate in Focus Groups but the programs vary depending on need. Focus Groups consist of one-hour lessons on topics such as literacy centers, helping struggling readers, integrating technology, strategies to increase achievement, classroom management, and…
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Dropout rate, test scores and advanced classes among items deserving attention
Standardized test scores, a decrease in students taking advanced classes and an increase in the dropout rate are all areas of concern per data released by the state in its School Report Card, said Lacey Township Superintendent Richard Starodub. “The report card in general is a pretty good place to look. Not just what we did well in but examining for things we need to focus on so we approach it from not it’s a great report card, where’s my reward kind of a thing, we look at it critically, some of the areas. Some of the areas where we’re not doing as well as we would like to have some explanation and some of it we’ve been working on for a while,” Starodub said. Dropout Rate Lacey Township’s dropout rate rose from 1.9 percent in the 2008-09 …
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Standardized test results improve, testing method does not
Lacey Township School District’s standardized test results seemed to improve significantly over the past year but Superintendent Richard Starodub doesn’t believe that says much. “You can’t make wholesale judgments favorably or unfavorably looking at one year of transition… If the scores go up, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing a better job. We like to think we’re very tuned into doing a better job and it’s one of our goals, it’s a part of our mission but you need to look at test scores over a period of time,” Starodub said. The number of students at the high school level who were considered proficient and advanced proficient in language arts and math as a result of their HSPA scores increased considerably. But Starodub says the …
Tim O'Connor
8:30 am on Wednesday, December 21, 2011
One of the top ten stories and only one comment left. That is the true story of the year. more ›