Overview
Secondary Education Goals
The goal of the Department of Secondary Education is to provide a High Quality education and increase student achievement in order to prepare students for high school, college, career and civic readiness. The department will create pathways to lifelong success for students of Poughkeepsie City School District. A major focus, starting at the middle school, will be to increase ELA and Math proficiency. We will prepare our students to be successful readers and writers by the end of 8th grade. In addition, the department will adopt a curriculum aligned with the Next Generation Learning Standards that serves all learners; those with disabilities, the exceptional students, and English Language Learners.
The Department will provide professional development to all practitioners on best practices on instructional pedagogy, data analysis and the use of technology in the classroom. We will increase instructional capacity in content knowledge for both teachers and building leaders. Finally, the department will develop and implement the use of data analysis in order to increase student outcomes. The objective is to create a culture of data-driven decision making using the Essential Questions:
- What do students need to know and be able to do?
- How do we know they have learned it?
- What will we do when they have not learned it?
- What will we do when they already know it?