Parkhurst named Wallingford’s assistant school superintendent

As published in the Record Journal, Tuesday, July 16, 2013

By Eric Vo
Record-Journal staff
evo@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@ericvoRJ

WALLINGFORD - The Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to appoint Shawn Parkhurst as the new assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the school system.

Parkhurst is expected to begin his new job on July 29. He is replacing Ellen Cohn, who is leaving the Wallingford schools to become the new division director of standards, curriculum and instruction at the state Department of Education. Cohn joined Wallingford in 2010 after serving as the senior educational consultant for Hartford-based Capitol Region Education Council.

“We were very impressed with Shawn’s candidacy,” said School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo. “Shawn was able to interview with a variety of groups ... We’re very excited to have him as part of the team.”

Parkhurst will be coming to Wallingford from the North Branford school system, where he has been the principal of Jerome Harrison Elementary School since 2007. He earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in educational leadership from Johnson State College in Johnson, Vt. He began his teaching career in Vermont and went on to teach the fourth and sixth grades at the Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan.

Upon returning to the U.S., Parkhurst became the assistant principal at Killingworth Elementary School. He then became principal of Dunn’s Corners School in Westerly, R.I., and was eventually appointed principal of Abraham Pierson School in Clinton.

Parkhurst played a key role in the area of curriculum and instruction for the various school systems he was a part of and was nominated for the National Distinguished Principal Award in 2011.

Board of Education Chairwoman Roxane McKay said she and the rest of the board are looking forward to seeing the things that can be accomplished with Menzo, Parkhurst and Colin McNamara, the assistant superintendent for personnel.

“I know the process was grueling, but you survived,” McKay said. “I welcome you as well and I know you’re going to be an amazing fit for our central office and I only see great things happening with our new team.”

Menzo said it has not yet been determined what Parkhurst’s salary will be when he officially joins the school system. As assistant superintendent, Cohn’s salary was $139,260.

While Parkhurst has years of experience as a principal of elementary schools, this will be his first time serving as an administrator for an entire school system.

He said he’s looking forward to being a part of a “powerful team” where he can move his passion of teaching and learning forward.

Wallingford schools to hire seven clerks

As published in the Record Journal, Sunday, July 14, 2013

By Eric Vo
Record-Journal staff
evo@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@ericvoRJ

WALLINGFORD -  The Board of Education plans to hire seven new clerks to prepare for the increased workload expected with the rollout of the new teacher evaluation program and a revised student attendance policy.

Moses Y. Beach School, Cook Hill School, Highland School, Parker Farms School, Pond Hill School and E.C. Stevens School will each get an additional clerk, School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo said.

“This was to help with the implementation of the new truancy and tardy policy and teacher evaluations,” said Menzo. “It’s a lot of paperwork ... Timelines are such a key part to the evaluations. There’s the clerical aspect of getting them printed, signed and mailed in an appropriate time frame.”

The clerks will be paid between $17.41 and $21.55 an hour. They will work 10 months a year and work 37½ hours a week.
Since the clerk position is considered a classified service, the Board of Education has to hire from a list of people who scored high enough on a test provided by the town, according to Terence Sullivan, the town’s personnel director.

The tests are tailored to the position being sought. For example, if a job requires knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel, the applicants will take a test to determine if they’re proficient in those computer programs, Sullivan said.

“We have a whole range of tests,” he said. “They’re based on the job descriptions and job requirements.”

The names of the top five scorers are provided to the appropriate hiring authority. The list of names is good for two years.

“The town offers a test and whoever sat for that test and scored a certain level, that’s where we can start hiring from,” Menzo said. “If we exhaust that list, we have to potentially give another test.”

The goal is to have the clerks hired and in place at each of the seven elementary schools by the first day of school, Menzo said.

New federal mandates have state seeking flexibility

As published in the Record Journal Thursday July 11, 2013

This story originally appeared at CTMirror.org, the website of The Connecticut Mirror, an independent, nonprofit news organization.

By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

© The Connecticut Mirror

State officials are seeking flexibility in implementing the U.S. Department of Education’s accountability measures to avoid students being double- tested during the roll-out of the national Common Core State Standards.

In announcing the move Wednesday, state officials said they will also seek flexibility on implementing new teacher evaluations that link student test scores to teacher ratings.

The flexibility that the State Department of Education will seek includes giving districts a one-year pass on using test scores when evaluating teachers for the coming school year. The state department also will request approval to allow districts to choose which standardized test its students will take next school year. If granted approval, districts will be able to choose between a new test that evaluates student comprehension of Common Core or the old standardized test that students have taken for years.

“This is a choice,” Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Wednesday to a panel of educators. “I believe these are common-sense measures.”

Members of the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council — which includes leaders from the associations representing school boards and principals and the teachers’ unions — unanimously approved the state making this flexibility request. The State Board of Education is expected to sign off on the flexibility request on Monday.

“It’s absolutely essential to be fair,” said Shelia Cohen, president of the Connecticut Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

The Common Core State Standards are a national in initiative that most states have adopted in an effort to have students focus more on historical and non-fiction documents versus fictional reading and writing. The standards also focus on critical thinking versus memorization. The tests associated with Common Core is set to be fully rolled out by the 2014-15 school year.

This new evaluation system was as the center of the governor’s education reform initiative that became law after a contentious debate last year. Those new requirements ensure the state’s 50,000 teachers will be graded every year based on the results of their students’ standardized tests, announced and unannounced classroom observations, and possibly surveys and other measures. The results from these evaluations will help districts make tenure and dismissal decisions.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan last month wrote state officials to inform them that he is supportive of giving states flexibility to ensure a smooth rollout of these reforms.

“The Department is open to additional flexibility for states... Given the move to college- and career-ready standards, the dramatic changes in curricula that teachers and principals are now starting to teach, and the transition to new assessments aligned to those standards, the Department will consider, on a state-by-state basis, allowing states up to one additional year before using their new evaluation systems to inform personnel determinations,” Duncan wrote.

Malloy said he hopes to get an answer from the secretary on this request by September.

If approved, this will be the second time that the state has made changes to the rollout of its new teacher evaluations.

State lawmakers last month passed a law that gives districts the ability to phase-in the evaluations over the next two years so that every teacher and administrator will not be required to be evaluated at once.