At the close of its annual retreat Tuesday, Jan. 27, the Mercer Island School Board extended the contract of Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano through June 30, 2018.
Before taking action on what was the agenda’s final item, Board President Janet Frohnmayer said the board was full of gratitude and appreciation for the superintendent and his accomplishments over the previous six months, particularly noting the district’s swift response to an E. coli scare on top of ongoing projects taking place throughout the district.
“We couldn’t be happier with the work that’s going on and all the progress that’s been made,” Frohnmayer said.
Plano was quick to acknowledge his leadership team, which includes MISD Chief Finance/Operations Officer Dean Mack, Executive Director of Learning Services Jennifer Wright, Director of Human Resources Mark Roschy and Director of Learning Services Fred Rundle.
“I couldn’t perform at this level without tremendously qualified, talented and dedicated staff,” Plano said, addressing his team.
Survey results indicate need for more languages
Plano presented survey results from Mercer Island staff and community members regarding world language instruction in the elementary program. Collecting responses from 77 MISD staff members and 187 community members, 90 percent of community respondents said second language instruction should be included in the elementary program, and over 70 percent agreed the target language should be Spanish.
Nearly half of staff respondents said second languages should begin at the elementary level.
The Foreign Language in Elementary Schools (FLES) program, which the district looked into in September and requires 75 minutes of instruction per week, received the most support from both community and staff respondents as the program that should be adopted, with immersion being the second choice from the community and enrichment ranking second among the staff.
At the School Board’s special meeting with the Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club Jan. 20, Plano said he was targeting the fall of 2016 for introducing world language instruction at the elementary level. The target language would be Spanish, and instruction could begin as early as Kindergarten.
“Know that we are thinking about this, because depending on what kind of program we implement will determine what happens in middle school and in high school,” Plano said. “Presently, second language instruction begins in seventh grade, and so if we begin second language instruction in kind, obviously our middle school program will need to dramatically change because children will have a very high fluency depending on which model we pick in the target language.”
Late start times could begin in 2016
Also targeted for the fall of 2016, should the district follow through, would be a later high school start time. Mercer Island is partnered with the Bellevue School District, and the two districts have put together a joint committee studying the impact to the high school program. Plano said the feasibility of later start times happening revolves around after-school sports and activities, and if their athletic conference will allow later start times for games and competitions.
