Rice Elementary chooses 'best of everything' curriculum

By Gary Raham
Wellington Correspondent

Karen Kohn, principal for the new Rice Elementary School, has been busy selecting her staff of teachers and working with a parent committee to help determine how those teachers will use curriculum to get students excited about education.

At an April meeting, Kohn introduced her first nine choices for teachers. Kohn knew Derek Decker and Shelly Tamburro as fellow educators from Putnam Elementary. Decker will teach sixth grade, as he did at Putnam, and Tamburro will move from second grade to teach a combination of kindergarten and literacy classes. Kohn also recruited three Eyestone teachers. Tanya Cienfuegos-Baca will teach sixth grade at Rice, Sari Bosch will teach kindergarten and Patti Zamora will teach first grade. Rounding out the initial slate are Beth Cavanaugh who will teach fifth grade, Joalie Alldredge who will teach fourth, Jennifer Graves who will teach third and Jody Drager who will teach second.

"This year I will hire teachers with at least a year or two of experience," said Kohn, "so they won't have to learn classroom management skills along with everything else."

Kohn also announced that Rice will operate as a two-track school initially (two classes for each grade) except for kindergarten. Kindergarten will require four classes.

Kohn says classes will be small this first year with no more than 20 students per class and most having 17 or less. The kindergarten classes will serve 15.

For the first year, Eyestone students could choose to attend Rice, but students within the Rice attendance area cannot move in the other direction. Since funding for schools is determined by head count, Kohn hopes school population will rise as expected, although home purchases have slowed in south Wellington.

Initially, a committee of parents who looked at the direction Rice teachers might take in implementing curriculum appeared to be divided, said Kohn. They looked at traditional Poudre School District curriculum and liked much of it, but they also liked elements of the IB (International Baccalaureate) program used by some schools and the Core Knowledge approach used by others.

Kohn said two messages came through from parents: "We don't want to split our community" (so that it's hard to move from Rice to Eyestone or vice versa, for example), "but the community needs some level of choice," she said. Kohn was pleasantly surprised when parents came together and decided they could have the best of all three programs.

The new teachers explained just how this would work for Rice. A handout titled "Rice Elementary Curriculum Map" allowed parents to follow the discussion. Much of Rice's approach to writing, math and science will use a framework familiar to Eyestone students. Youngsters will explore expository and narrative writing, use math in everyday settings, and take an inquiry approach to science by using popular teaching modules.

Teacher Beth Cavanaugh likes some of the techniques used in IB schools. Cavanaugh explained that an IB program is "not a curriculum, but a way of teaching." It approaches history, for example, with a greater emphasis on the international community while stressing inquiry-based learning and local community service. It would take five years of training and certification for Rice to become an IB school, however. Why not just borrow the unique focus and approach without worrying about the IB label?

In a similar way, Core Knowledge schools use certain literary classics to provide children with exposure to "what every child should know." Why not pick and choose from their reading lists and approaches to enrich the standard curriculum? Kohn says the parent committee and staff asked themselves, "Can we take the best of everything?"

They decided they could.

Kohn said at a principals' meeting she was asked by a colleague: "Well, what curriculum will you be using at Rice?" She said she was a little worried about the response she might get as she explained their "best of everything" approach. But after a pause, her questioner simply said, "I am so jealous."

For information about the new school or to ask more questions about new teachers and curriculum, contact Kohn and her staff in their temporary quarters at Wellington Junior High, phone 488-8700.