Student Success Summit Planned for Monday, May 12

 

The Fairfield School District will hold a Student Success Summit from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Mon., May 12, at Fairfield High School. Parents, staff, older students, and interested community members are all welcome.

“We all want our students to be successful,” said Dr. Mark Morris, president of the Fairfield Board of Education. “But how we can measure that until we know a successful student is?

“We need to know what it means to be a successful student in today’s world, and tomorrow’s world. It’s something beyond the standard academic measures, but deciding what it includes is a discussion we need the whole community involved in.”

Some of the questions likely to be discussed at the summit include:

What part should test scores, grades, extra-curriculars and life outside of school play in defining student success?

How can student success be quantified and measured?

How will students learn critical thinking skills and complex problem solving skills?

What is the role of the teacher in the classroom of the future?

What is the role of technology in tomorrow’s classrooms?

For today’s fourth-grader, what will high school look like?

“We can answer these questions for ourselves, as a district and a community, or sooner or later others will answer them for us,” Morris said. “We need to raise our own bar and have a serious discussion about it now. Ultimately, this drives decisions that are made every day. It helps us answer questions like, “What’s the payoff of doing something? How will it contribute to student success?”

The summit, to be held in the high school cafeteria, will have participants working in small groups. School board members, and administrators, will be on hand to listen to the ideas. The session will be facilitated by Terri Iacobucci and Al Sampson. Both are with Key Alliance, an area firm specializing in planning and organizational missions.

To see a video describing the changing world our students live in, see below.