Habitat, City Schools to Form Partnership

By John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Jul. 22–When John Covington was being interviewed for the superintendent’s job in the Pueblo City Schools District, the question of vocational training came up.

Covington recounted for the board about how, when he was an assistant superintendent in Montgomery, Ala., he set up a program with Habitat for Humanity in which high school students performed a community service and learned construction skills at the same time.

Tonight, the Pueblo board is expected to approve a similar program and also will hear a presentation on the materials that will be used in the home that students will help to build.

Doris Harrison, president of the Pueblo Habitat for Humanity board, said that her organization will form a partnership with the school district’s industrial arts classes.

Also on the school board’s agenda tonight will be a presentation by Dale Stevenart of Polysteel of the Southwest, on the material that will be used in a house on which the students will work. Polysteel uses foam forms and concrete for walls to improve insulation and reduce the need for lumber. Another report will cover the Colorado Department of Education Growth Model for Colorado Student Assessment Program scores.

If the report looks familiar to veteran board members, that’s because a similar graphic presentation has been delivered to the board over the past few years by John Brainard, the school district’s former director of assessment.

The graphs chart median scores against improvement rates for every public school in the state. They may be viewed at the state education department’s Web site and show the performance of each school in math, reading or writing.

The results will be used to measure improvement in coming years and will be part of each school’s report card.

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ON THE NET

Colorado School growth model: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeedserv/GrowthModelDistSchReport.htm

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

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