The February 11 meeting of the Rye City Board of Education meeting featured a presentation by Rye Middle School Spanish teachers Kristie Orlando and Dawn King detailing how they have changed the Spanish curriculum to make it more rigorous for next year’s seventh graders.
By Sarah Varney
The February 11 meeting of the Rye City Board of Education meeting featured a presentation by Rye Middle School Spanish teachers Kristie Orlando and Dawn King detailing how they have changed the Spanish curriculum to make it more rigorous for next year’s seventh graders.
Through exposure to the Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) program, students are coming to middle school better prepared.
“The students are more knowledgeable and also more enthusiastic,” said Ms. Orlando. “They really want to learn and they’re very proud that they’ve nearly caught up to the eighth graders.”
Next year, seventh graders will master the present tense, along with learning reflexive and irregular verbs such as saber and conocer, and the present progressive tense. These tasks will be added to the current curriculum, which centers on regular verbs with just a few irregular ones.
“We’ve brought irregular verbs down to the seventh grades so they’re better prepared in high school,” said Ms. King.
Befitting the general February doldrums, other board business centered on the mechanics of HVAC and a brief lesson on Roberts Rules of Order.
The interruptible gas supply to the high and middle schools is being cut so often by Con Edison that the district’s fuel oil bill has hit $40,000. The school has two systems — one gas-powered and a reserve fuel oil system for use when Con Ed informs the district that it will require the school to switch over from gas to fuel oil due to supply constraints. Assistant Superintendent for Business Gabriella O’Connor informed the board that the schools have already had four interruptions, one lasting almost ten days.
Finally, Board member Ed Fox voted down a request by Board President Laura Slack to add a matter to the existing agenda. Considering that both members of the District’s counsel team were in attendance, it’s likely that they had planned to present a document connected to the recent conflict of interest kerfuffle. That skirmish will now have to wait until the February 24 board meeting.