OVERVIEW OF HWRSD EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Assistant Superintendent, Donna M. Scanlon, Ed.D.

The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District has a rich and rigorous core curriculum that is designed to develop the unique talents of individual students and to celebrate excellent accomplishments. The curriculum renewal process is ongoing and ensures continuity and consistency in grades PreK-12. T he District has established equity in access to high quality curriculum materials and resources in every classroom. All teachers use these assets to design powerful, standards-based learning opportunities that actively engage students in the learning process.

Strengthening the integration of technology into instruction to improve learning is a high priority. Through sound planning, incremental investment, and creative allocation of staffing, information centers have become the hub of every school. The level of technology integration across the curriculum has intensified with improvements in staffing, infrastructure, equipment, reliability, and professional development.

The District has launched a district wide goal promoting the concept and practice of differentiated instruction within the general education program. Differentiated instruction meets the needs of individual learners, and provides all students with the appropriate level of challenge and support to help them reach learning goals. A differentiated classroom offers multiple ways for students to access content, to process and make sense of the concepts and skills, and to develop products that demonstrate their learning.

Competitive funding awarded from the United States Department of Education Elementary School Counseling Initiative has allowed the District to provide education, prevention, and intervention services, which are essential to removing barriers to learning and promoting academic achievement. The project, locally known as Starting Strong, Staying Strong, is developed around the theme of resiliency, and has significantly increased the District’s capacity to integrate academic and social learning as a solid foundation for future success.

Below are some highlights from across the curriculum areas:

• The reading program incorporates National Reading Panel recommendations which address the five components of literacy learning: vocabulary/oral language comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension. Supplemental services, with varying degrees of intensity for students who are experiencing difficulty, include: Reading Recovery and small literacy groups for first graders, as well as other intervention programs for students who require specialized support or instruction.
• Students in the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District write a great deal across the curriculum areas. Writing is critical to language development, learning content, and developing thinking skills.
• The mathematics curriculum is designed to develop understanding of mathematics concepts through student-centered activities while enhancing skills through meaningful practice.
• The science program helps students to advance scientific reasoning as they investigate and solve complex problems using the tools they need. Standards-based science units are studied in the classroom and, at the elementary level, are enriched through a weekly science lab with a specialist.
• History, geography, civics, and economics concepts and skills are addressed through the engaging units of study in each grade.
• For all children at all ability levels, the arts play a central role in human development. Cognitive, language, and social-emotional development are positively impacted by participation in the arts.
• As an integral part of the total educational process, health and physical education opportunities develop a lifelong physically active lifestyle, as well as respect for self and others, through a safe learning environment.
• D.A.R.E. and School Resource Officers in both Hampden and Wilbraham have provided schools with an inimitable presence. The officers and schools develop relationships that build safe schools and align with the principles of prevention research.