Exciting Things are happening in the Valley!
It is nice to be back in my column again. I have been working on other aspects of our district and have missed writing updates for our Maple Valley News Readers. I want to highlight some exciting things that are happening in Maple Valley!
First I have to celebrate our own Mr. Aaron Saari, our FFA Faculty Advisor and soon to be recognized as the Outstanding Agricultural Educator of the Year during the State FFA Convention. I have had the privilege to attend many functions, fundraisers, fairs and activities that benefit from Mr. Saari’s leadership and passion for Agriculture and this honor is so well deserved. We are so proud of Mr. Saari’s accomplishments.
Mr. Jeff Seavolt, our Construction and Woods teacher has recently finished all of his requirements to be allocated CTE (Career and Technical Education) status. This will allow us to offer more courses to our students that are allowing them to gain specialized skills in construction. This contributes to our long standing commitment to give our students the skills they need to be job market ready as soon as they graduate from high school.
We have also put into place a program that is geared to help expose our students to more career strands at an earlier age. With the support of Eaton RESA we have launched an Industry 4.0 curriculum that focuses on Science, Technology. Engineering, Marketing, Health Sciences, and Programming. As our Jr. High students learn more about different career paths, we plan to expand their explorations to give them career knowledge and experience that help to fuel their connection to the workforce. This will increase the likelihood that they will choose career paths that bring them great satisfaction.
At the High School level, we have also redesigned our Honors offerings to make it possible for students to pursue honor’s options in more courses while also learning the self-advocacy and autonomy to become scholars in areas of interest to them. I know from my time as a college professor that most students do not receive the type of empowerment they needed to be successful in advanced University studies. The way we have reconfigured our Honor’s programs will increase the skills students need to be successful in the self driven world of higher education.
Finally, our elementary schools are entering their final professional development phase of this year for the implementation of new English Curriculum called Wonders™. Our staff have been incredibly dedicated and focused on learning new curriculum to drive our students’ learning to higher levels of achievement. This is a huge undertaking and we appreciate our staff for investing their time, energy and passion for learning into this new work.
It is a great day to be in the Valley!
Dr. B
