001All right, welcome everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started to respect your time. It's 6:30. I'm just waiting on the signal. We have a live stream, but we're good to go. All right. Welcome. I'm Matt Burroughs, proud, proud superintendent of the Apoquimic School District. I'd like to introduce our board president, President Richard Forston. Um, he has a few words before I get started tonight. >> Uh, thank you all for being here tonight. Uh, as Matt just said, my name is Richard Forson. I am the school board president. I wanted to just say two things real quickly. First, thank you all for being here tonight. Um the single most important I think influence the single most important thing that makes a difference in a student's achievement is parental involvement and parents paying attention and
002parents caring. U making sure your kids do the homework, making sure your car parent making sure your kids put in the work. The fact that you're all here tonight tells me that you are concerned and that you're going to play that valuable support role. So really thank you all for coming tonight and for being here. The other thing I'll just say and then I'll shut up and sit down. Um I'm a member of the school board. There are five of us. I'm just one of five. But one of our roles is essentially I'm budsman. And by that I mean, you know, go through the normal channels and if there's still an issue or a problem that uh you're not getting um the right attention on or you're still frustrated by, reach out to us. Um
003you know, our contact information is on the website. Um we've got emails. You know, I've had people call me at the office. I'm happy to talk to people during the day and see if we can't get you situated. Now, sometimes it may be that we can't, but I mean, the school board is there for you. So, don't be shy about reaching out to us. So, again, thank you for being here, and I'll give it back to Matt. >> Thank you, Mr. Forson. So, again, thank you for joining us. We appreciate you choosing the Aquamic School District. This is our annual new parent orientation meeting. Um, we're going to I'm going to run through some slides and then there's going to be an opportunity we're going to have breakout sessions for you to ask questions and
004we also have information tables here tonight for you to get specific information specific questions. We'll get into that later in the presentation. All right, Steve, I might need you to click tonight because not clicker is not working. So, already went through that. Next slide, please. So the vision of the uppering school district is to provide a world-class education so that our students will contribute as leaders in a global society. We know that our kids are not just going to be competing against kids in our community, our state or United States. They're going to be competing against uh students across the world. So we want them prepared and ready. The mission of the upcoming school district is to create an education system where each student is engaged, supported, and successful. We know that our students need
005to be engaged in learning and we feel that we provide opportunities for them to be engaged so they are successful in their learning. Core values. So our core values we operate on nine core values. Give you a second there to look at them. The biggest one is that we and this is the school board, myself, everyone in our organization is that we always do what's best for every student. That is our goal as we make decisions and sometimes they're not easy decisions, but we keep the students at the center of those decisions. So, who are we as a district? We're over 13,000 students, over 2,000 employees, and 21 schools at this point. We've been very fortunate as a district. Nine out of the last 10 years, we've been named top school district in the state
006by Nishi. We've also 10 years in a row have been named best communities for music education. We've also the last two years and this is an award that is like in the only 1% of all schools earn this is excellent in school psychology services. And then this is our second year in a row we're being named the top um school choice district in the state of Delaware. So we've been also very fortunate the last two years and actually um in the last seven years four times we've earned national blue ribbon schools. The last two years in a row, we've had National Blue Ribbon School, Seir Lane Elementary, and I'll be los uh elementary. We're very proud of this fact that 95% of our students uh graduate. Uh our goal is 100% of our students graduating.
007We also see 75% of our students go on to college, realizing that not every student college is the best choice for. We um feel as we get into this, I'll show you in our course catalog, there's also for students an opportunity for them to enter the workforce or into the military. But something we're very proud of, not only do we send 75% of our students, but I think a great piece of data that we have is 93% of those students persist through college. So, they're not just going to college and then coming home. They're persisting through college and graduating college. And then our dropout rate is less than 1%. Again, our goal is to have 0% there. We're getting very close to that. Um, as a district, we've done a lot of work with that.
008So, I was mentioning our course catalog. We currently in our high schools have 25 course pathways that are connected with work work-based learning experiences. So, students are not only learning in the classroom, they're out in the field learning, which we feel if the student student is looking to go to college, great transition. If they're not, there's work-based learning. they they're getting those skills, those soft skills and things like that they need to enter the workforce. We have 80 plus advanced courses um where students can earn college credit for those courses. I was just talking to a a parent um whose son was entering his well supposed to be entering his second he's entering his second year of college, but he was a junior engineering major at Virginia Tech because he was able to earn 39
009credits towards college um at his in his high school. We also offer 24 dual enrollment courses and then something with our community supports us. So when I talk about work-based learning experiences, we have 400 businesses that are connected with our course catalog and workbased. So our students can go out and get their work-based learning experience in whatever field they choose to pursue. This is kind of our road map. So this is our road map and the things and the skills that we want our students to have. Not just us, but we've worked on this for several years where we brought in community members, stakeholders, teachers, administrators to say, "Okay, what is an Appeoquimic graduate? What skills are they going to have when they leave us and walk across that stage and we shake their hands
010and you're cheering for them, have tears in your eyes, what skills are they going to have? What can we promise that they're going to have?" So, this is our road map. This is what you can expect your student to have when they graduate from one of our high schools. And that just doesn't start at high school. So they don't start developing those skills in high school. This starts if you're entering at preK, kindergarten. We're starting to have students exposed to different careers and things like that as they move through our system. Our motto is the world is our campus. We're very proud that we have two immersion languages. Uh we offer Spanish and Chinese. Um, we currently have 10th graders. Our first class, our first cohort is entering 10th grade now. Um, for Spanish immersion,
011they're in the process of where they can earn a college minor. So, they're taking college, some of them are taking college courses um to earn a minor in Spanish at this point. And some decide they're going to pursue and master a third language. I'm tonight I'm still trying to master the first language of English. Um, but we have students that are going to master two or three languages. And then our Chinese immersion program is goes to is at seventh grade right now. And we continue to expand that as we go along. Same with Spanish. We also offer five languages that you can take. We offer Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, and American Sign Language. And we do, as I just mentioned, we have options of AP uh language classes. And we also offer a multi-iteracy certificate
012to our students. So, first days of school. So, Monday is Labor Day, no school. Yay. Um, Tuesday, September 2nd is our first day uh for 1 through 9th graders. And then if you have a kindergartenner with a last name that starts A through L, they will go to kindergarten on um Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, it's we also have so it's K through 12 on uh Wednesday, but if you're A through L that day, you stay home. We have M through Z will come on Wednesday to school. We do that to give students that the kindergarters a great start. I know it's hard to imagine, but with 200 little ones trying to get to the right bus, the right place, and all that. So, if we can have smaller groups and give them a better
013start, we have seen success with that the last three years that we've done that. And then Monday, September 8th, um, everyone's in school. Our prek through 12th, everyone is in school. I also should mention on Thursday, September 4th, all kindergarters come to school that day as well. Something that's new this year. You may have seen there's a lot of research out out there on the impact of cell phones. This past year we p this past year we passed a cell phone policy. It's always been at elementary school. We're enforcing best practices there. We do not encourage elementary students to bring a cell phone to school. Um they do not need a cell phone. At the middle school level this year, students will have a yonder pouch. So when they enter the school building, they will
014be locking that phone up in the yonder pouch. It'll be locked up until they leave for the day. At the high school level, cell phones, we have um hanging baskets in the classroom or hanging like calculator pouches or pouches in the classroom. Uh when students enter the classroom, they are to put their phone in the pouch. it is not to be taken out of the pouch until they leave to go to their next period. Um, I know there's different things being done throughout the country, but that's what we're looking to do um to limit the impact that cell phones are having on our students. So, you may have seen several emails about this, but we're switching systems. The whole state is switching systems. Uh we're going to what's known as infinite campus for student and
015perennial parent port hole. Um I don't know if you've had previous experiences or anything like that, but this is our new operating system. You should receive an email about Infinite Campus. You are to create your parent port hole. Um if you do not receive an email, please feel free to reach out to your school and they will be able to help you with activation so you can get onto the system. It's very important that you get onto the system because a lot of information is shared through that. Um, and you'll have access to information on that system for your student. Something else that's uh new this year, as a result of House Bill 91, all students will have access to free breakfast. Uh, students who wish to eat breakfast are more than able to get
016it. They will have to enter their ID into that. You will, if you're kindergarten, you'll get your ID in the um first few days of school. So, they'll have access to that. New student, you also have an get a new ID as well. We are very proud um that this year we'll do an official ribbon cutting on Lewis L. Reading. It's um it's not a new school. It's a new it's a new building for Lewis L. Reading. The original school was built in 1952. It's a historical landmarker as one of the um few black schools in Delaware. And so we're excited. It has a great history and past and we're excited for the future that we're going to have there at Reading. We have um switched the mascot. The mascot has gone back to the
017original colors and mascot that was at the school in 1952. They're known as the Reding Eagles and they're in green and gold. So, thank you to our community for their support in our 2024 referendum. Um, just a little bit down the road here at Summit Airport across from it. Uh, there's already a school there, Crystal Run Elementary. We are building a new middle and high school there. Summit High School, there going to be a Summit Aviators and then Summit Bridge Middle School. We also on the opposite side on the west side of town um we're going to have a new elementary school built there in Green Giant Road um Green Giant Elementary School. So how do we communicate? So there's a lot of ways we communicate. We want to find the best way to communicate
018with you to make sure that you're getting the information. As Mr. Forston said, this is the first step. Parent engagement so vitally important. We see that as part of the student success and so we'll communicate by email newsletter. Every school and district or district has a website. There is a parent app that you can get on Google Play or on um Apple Store. We have social media. Each school has a social media and the district has social media. As I mentioned earlier, infant campus is another way to get information. And then we also for students and for parents we have anonymous reporting. Um, it's called Safe Delaware. So, anytime you're hearing something or your kids are hearing something, they don't want it connected to them, they can go right on that and report it so
019we can investigate it. It's one of those things. See something, say something, please. Or if you're hearing something, please say something. All right. So, we're going to have two different placements um are for you to go to and we'll have a rotation. So, if you have a kindergartener um or if you have an elementary student and a secondary student that are new, you'll have an opportunity to go both places. So, we're going to have breakout sessions. Option one is our prek kindergarten uh and elementary. If you're in that group, you'll just stay right here in the auditorium. You don't need to get up. You don't need to go anywhere. If you're middle and high school, you're going to go to the red pod, which is the center pod here in the middle. You saw it
020when you walked in. So, you're going to leave the auditorium, make a left, and it's going to be the first pod to your right. It's going to be have red tile on it. So, at this time, feel free. And then at 7:15, we'll have a rotation. If you still if you have a elementary student or vice versa, you can go to the opposite place at that time. Make sure that I'm covering everything. All right. And we also have information tables available for you. So in the cafeteria, which if you go out of here, you're going to make a left and you're going to go down and it's going to be on your left. You'll see people standing out there to guide you if you have questions about a athletics, instructional technology, nutrition, social security. Yeah,
021safety and security. Social security. That's not here. Sorry. safety and security, school choice and language immersion, special education, student services, and then transportation. I do have a caveat with transportation. The best way to get your transportation question answered is the email address that you see up here on the um screen is the best way to get that answered because they're going to have access to everything tonight. They're just going to take your questions and then get back to you um as best they possibly can. But I do encourage you if you have a transportation question to please use that email. That'll be the fastest and most efficient way to get your transportation question answered. Resources. So if you want to scan that QR code, it will give you access to resources as well that are
022important for you to have as a new parent. So, just a reminder, if you're elementary, you're going to stay in here. Kindergarten through elementary, you're going to stay in here. If you're middle school or high school, you're going to go out of here, make a left, and go to the red pod. Thank you again for coming tonight. Let's hope let's have a great school year this year. [Applause]