At the Sept. 28 Salisbury Township School District curriculum and technology committee meeting, Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss and Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Lynn Fuini-Hetten detailed their entry plan findings and outlined three areas the administration team will focus on.

After many interviews with parents, school board members, community members, students and local businesses, strengths of the district were listed as pride in the district, technology, size of the district, reputation, varied curriculum offering and an increase in use of facilities and resources.

Challenges noted included no central place to congregate for a sense of community outside of the district, a need to support all learners, a level of involvement between district representatives and government, internal and external community and the need to tell the school district’s story.

From those interviews, Ziegenfuss and Fuini-Hetten determined three areas to focus on including instruction (teaching and learning), communication and community.

Regarding teaching and learning, administrators will strive to determine what learners will need for a successful future and how the district can best provide it.

In addition, administrators will work on employing design thinking to establish a vision for teaching and learning for 2020, create a data culture to better support learners in most need, better utilize community resources to support learner outcomes inside and outside of the classrooms and remain innovative within current levels of financial and human resources.

In the communication area, the district will work to determine how it might become more engaged with the community through increased communication, how to best tell the story of the district, how to expand communication with legislative representatives and increase internal trust, cohesion and communication to improve the services provided to families.

Along those lines, parents and community members are invited to engage in coffee and conversation with the administrators 6 to 7 p.m. Oct. 22 at the administration building, 1140 Salisbury Road. Register with Mary Bishop by emailing mbishop@stsd.org or call 610-797-2062, ext. 1000.

The third focus area is on community where administrators suggested the school district could be the hub of the community. Administrators also noted the need to establish strong community relationships with the township, hospitals and businesses and the desire to better utilize community resources to support learner outcomes inside and outside of the classrooms.

Board member Mary Ziegler said she was excited about the district being the community hub.

There was some discussion on the district website which Ziegenfuss is looking at revamping. Board member Tom Mantz was interested to know how effective the district website is and if a counter could be placed on the website to see how many people visit.

Ziegenfuss added he and Fuini-Hetten met with representatives of both St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network to work on establishing relationships. “We will keep the conversations going,” Ziegenfuss said.

In other business, board members reviewed changes to the resolution pertaining to standardized testing. The final resolution will be presented at the Oct. 12 board meeting. The resolution will be sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Education noting the district’s opposition to the exorbitant amount of testing required of public school students.

The resolution also notes the district’s belief “the top priority is the personalized education of every student, every day and it is difficult to measure factors that we consider to be essential: the dedication of our teachers, the rigor and breadth of our academic offerings, the opportunities for co-curricular exploration, the level of parental engagement and this community’s commitment to public education.”

Board member Dr. Chris Spedaliere said he doesn’t know if he can support the resolution because he doesn’t see the purpose.

Board member Audrey Frick disagreed with Spedaliere and said she believes the resolution will be read. “I can’t imagine anyone reading it and seeing a negative.”

Board member Carol Klinger, a retired district teacher, said “you cannot evaluate a student on a test score. We are educating the whole child. I can’t see anything negative.”

Klinger said a student’s home life and family are factors in educating a child. “You can’t blame it all on teachers, administrators and the school,” Klinger said.

In new business, Ziegenfuss said the law firm of King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul has proposed to update school district and administrative policies at a rate less than proposed by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Board President Russell Giordano asked for a contract with details and a table of contents for the October board meeting.

In other new business, Giordano said he believes it is time to revisit the health and physical education offerings for students in both middle and high school. He said there are two full-time teachers at the middle school for 380 students and one and a half teachers at the high school for 600 students. Giordano said he is also being questioned by parents why the district stopped teaching the “behind the wheel” driving theory classes.

The next curriculum meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 26 at Lehigh Carbon Community College.