The curriculum committee of the Salisbury Township School District met March 18 prior to the monthly meeting of the board for an abbreviated meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss encouraged residents and board members to visit the TL2020 website regularly, TL2020.org, to see what the children are learning in the district. Ziegenfuss said principals are posting regularly to the site.

Administrators told board members they are walking through the classrooms every month to observe how technology is being used to determine how and what the district needs to do to support the teachers. Administrators said they are evaluating the programs, not the teachers at this time.

The committee discussed Response to Instruction and Intervention which is a school improvement approach to provide early academic and behavioral support to struggling students rather than waiting for a child to fail before offering help.

Western Salisbury Elementary School Principal Grace Hartman described a trial the elementary schools are using for student intervention. The students are in a 30-minute block of time every day with one of five teachers. They are grouped based on their test scores. If they need additional help, they receive it at that time. No student is pulled out of the classroom for remediation; therefore, students do not miss any work.

If a student is working at an advanced level, they continue moving foward with that teacher. If the student is working below the expected level, they receive assistance during this time.

Director of Special Education Nora Perron-Jones said she is working on the gifted education handbook. She is working on a 3-tier system including identification, looking at the data and screening tests with the gifted teachers. Perron-Jones said they will put into place a matrix evaluation and will create a parent handbook and faculty handbook.

With software in place, Perron-Jones said teachers will be able to see the data on the accelerated students.

Perrone-Jones hopes to have two handbooks published by June.

Two field trips were approved: a twirling educational tour to Wildwood, N.J. for middle and high school twirlers April 30 to May 2 and an FBLA educational tour to Hershey April 12 to 15 for students to participate in a conference.

Ziegenfuss announced the district has used eight snow days. School will now be in session April 1, 2 and May 22. Ziegenfuss proposed these days be early dismissal days with the remainder of the day being used for professional development. An updated calendar will be presented for approval at the April board meeting.

The 2015-2018 Salisbury Township School District Comprehensive plan is posted on the district website at www.stsd.org. It will be posted for 28 days before being submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The next full curriculum meeting will be held 7 p.m. March 30 at WSE.

The June 8 curriculum meeting has been changed to 7 p.m. June 10 before the 7:30 monthly board meeting.

The June 17 monthly meeting has been changed to 7:30 p.m. June 10.