Education

Shelby County Public Schools showed overall good performance against the goals the school board set for its 2010-11 school year, but there also are some areas in which aggressive goals weren’t met.

That was the assessment the board heard at its meeting Thursday night during a review of the goals, which center on the district’s 5 Main Things of Curriculum Alignment, Instructional Norms, Professional Learning Communities, Intervention and Enrichment.

Members of the Shelby County Board of Education got a bit of a surprise Thursday night: an accidental preview of a new approach to educating the county’s highest achieving students.

Kerry Fannin, the assistant superintendent for student achievement, was so excited during his presentation at the board’s meeting that he couldn’t sit on an announcement that had been scheduled for the meeting on March 24.

"In two weeks I can't wait to present an accelerated academy for both high schools," he told the board.

More than 100 people attended the "Wild About Books" event, which was hosted by the Painted Stone Elementary Title 1 program, the 1st grade team and the Family Resource Center and Preschool Resource Center. The evening had an outdoor camping theme where students, and parents dressed in their camping attire and brought their flashlights so they could hike to each literacy station. Teacher Nathan Simpson read a story, written by Buck Wilder, who is known for his wildlife adventures, which included Rayya Beckington (from left) with her parents, Noora and Jeff, and her brother.

Painted Stone students Katty Rodriguez, Bryson Ethington, Evan Weakley, Walden Gomez, Chloe Bodden in Sally Zaring's first-grade class had a day of exploration with toothpicks and marshmallows. Students were given few instructions and lots of freedom to discover creative ways to make pyramids, triangular prisms, cubes, and much more. This hands-on activity made it easy to compare 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures while counting the number of vertices and faces.