School District Releases Overview of What's New for the Upcoming School Year

The Manchester School District’s vision is to provide educational excellence in a caring community, and this year's school improvement goals will help them do just that. According to Superintendent Cherie Vannatter, the schools will strive to improve literacy, mathematical skills, and critical thinking through the use of 21st century teaching and learning. In addition, Manchester Community Schools has the goal of more communication with the community throughout the 2014/2015 school year about the progress and achievements their students. As an opener in the dialog with the community, Vannatter, on behalf of the district, shared an overview of what is new and exciting for the coming school year.

This year the teachers and students will dive deeper into personalizing education utilizing 21st century methods. This is the Manchester Community Schools’ third year of having one-to-one iPads. Over the last two years, teachers and administrators piloted these devices and now are consistently using them daily.The iPads allow each student to have a unique, challenging, and engaging school experience in an efficient and effective way. Vannatter explained, "Our goal is for every student to walk away from their school day thinking, 'the teachers in this school tailored this whole day for me; it was challenging and fun!’”  With two years of technological experience under their belts, teachers and leaders can build on this past success to help all students develop independence, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity.

“We are very excited that our supportive community passed our bond election for technology, safety and buses,” Vannatter stated.  The bond will be used to provide students and teachers with up-to-date technology facilitating the teaching and learning of 21st century skills, as well as to upgrade the safety of the schools and transportation.

Earlier this month, the Michigan Department of Education released the accountability scorecards. Luther C. Klager Elementary School was identified as a “Reward School” due to growth in student progress on state assessments. The Manchester Community Schools are very proud of this distinction and hope to continue this progress as another of their goals is to “implement a process of continuous improvement.”  Vannatter observes “this is on display every day at the Manchester Community Schools.”

The Manchester Community Schools are still accepting school of choice applications as well as new enrollments. Please contact cvannatter@mcs.k12.mi.us if you have any questions or interest.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.