Hall-Dale School District

The KIDS RSU (Kennebec Intra-District Schools Regional School Unit), Hall-Dale School District and the towns of Hallowell, Farmingdale, Monmouth, Richmond and Dresden were honored today by the Maine Department of Education for being the first successful consolidated district under the school consolidation law.

DOE Commissioner Susan Gendron was present to award the KIDS Regional Planning Committee and each town with a plaque thanking us for our very successful efforts to improve education while reducing education costs.  Commissioner Gendron even brought a cake!  Congratulations to the RPC members, school board members and the voters.

Last night, the School Board approved a motion to use standards-based grading and reporting at the middle school grades 6-8 beginning this fall 2008.  They approved the initiation of standards-based grading in grade 9 for fall 2009.  The motion also approved the creation of an “Implementation Team” consisting of some administrators, teachers, parents, and students to focus on developing timelines and answering the many questions still being asked by the community. 

Thanks to so many of you at Hall-Dale who worked hard to support this initiative.  We’ve seen what it can do for kids at ES.  Now the middle school students will benefit from standards-based instruction and grading!

-Christine Chamberlain

Check out this great opportunity for families who have never been camping to register to win a Family Camping Weekend for First Time Campers at a Maine State Park.
Camping in Maine is one of the best ways to reconnect with your children and start a great tradition.
Take it Outside is an initiative led by Governor John E. Baldacci to encourage Maine’s children and families to reconnect with nature.
Click on the link below to register to win:
http://www.take-it-outside.org/
The deadline for registration is June 15th.
Renee Page, MPH, CLC
School/Youth Community Coordinator
Healthy Communities of the Capital Area
A Healthy Maine Partnership
36 Brunswick Avenue
Gardiner, ME 04345
tel. 207-588-5020
cell. 207-557-2945
fax. 207-582-5804
rpage@mcd.org

(Thanks Chris Chamberlain for letting us know about this!)

Please remember to vote on Tuesday, June 10.

School consolidation is one important question on the ballot.  Hallowell, Farmingdale, Monmouth, Richmond and Dresden have submitted a plan to consolidate into the Kennebec Intra-District Schools (KIDS).  Read more about it at www.kidsrsu.org.  If you have questions feel free to contact any consolidation committee member.  Names and contact information are listed on the web site.

Click the “Read More…” link below to read the ballot language.

A weblog has been established for news and information regarding the move to standards-based grading in the Hall-Dale School District.
Likewise you can share your ideas and concerns regarding standards-based grading in the Hall-Dale Forum.

“Would you like to have the cultural experience of a lifetime?  AFS, the foreign exchange organization, is looking for host families for next year.  If you would like to learn more about welcoming a student into your home, please contact Jody Bachelder at 622-6211 ext. 301 or jbachelder@halldale.org”

Be sure to check out Mr. MacDougall’s excursion to China and his weblog commentary

“Growing Up Online” a recently aired documentary discusses the perils and promise of living a life on-line.

... the “Frontline” franchise has never been interested in promoting panic at the expense of good reporting, and “Growing Up Online” quickly establishes itself as an even-handed look at the generation gap between teenagers who have never known life without e-mail and their parents who are all-thumbs with text messaging.

                - Alan Sepinwall, The Newark Star-Ledger (N.J.)

A video well worth viewing.

The Regional Planning Committee or RPChas been established to produce a plan for the consolidation of the schools in Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth and Richmond.  While everyone would agree that this represents a significant challenge, we feel that such a move could benefit our schools.

This plan will provide a framework upon which we can build a collaborative, mutually beneficial and excellent yet cost-effective school system and the very best educational environment for our children in the years to come.

Visit the RPC section of our web site here.

A webcam view of the outdoor conditions at the High School…
(note: If the date and time at the top of the image is not current, please press the refresh button on your browser to clear any cached image)

November 11-17th

Join National Geographic and Google and explore Asia!

http://www.google.com/educators/gaw2007.html

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize—much less cultivate—the talents of many brilliant people. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: “If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, please stop whatever you’re doing and watch it now.”

Tips to Protect Your Child Online:

October Newsletter from the NY Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination

From Wired News:

“Suffering from its exorbitant price point and a dearth of titles, Sony’s PlayStation 3 isn’t exactly the most popular gaming platform on the block. But while the console flounders in the commercial space, the PS3 may be finding a new calling in the realm of science and research.

Right now, a cluster of eight interlinked PS3s is busy solving a celestial mystery involving gravitational waves and what happens when a super-massive black hole, about a million times the mass of our own sun, swallows up a star.”

Astrophysist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStations 3s