The Oakdale Grade School Board of Education met Monday night and Superintendent Ryan Wamser says the students finally got back to school after the holiday break and extended weather closings.  He says they wanted to make sure the students were safe and since the road conditions were still not good at the end of last week, they took the extra time off.  He says he traveled some of the roads, talked to the transportation director, who talks to the people driving the buses, as well as talking to other schools, but they decided to take the extra day off for safety precautions.  Oakdale Grade School will be a pilot school to field test the PARCC test.  This will be a new testing program going into effect next year.  Wamser says they will test only in English, not Math, in grades 3 through 8 on paper and computer.  Some testing will be done in March and more testing in May.  He talks about the excitement of it.  This will allow the teachers to get an idea of what the tests contain and what is needed to prepare students, as well as seeing how a small school handles the online and paper testing.  This will exempt the school from the ISAT test results for Adequate Yearly Progress, which has not been favorable for many schools in the state.  Wamser says they do not have 1 to 1 computer usage for the students, but they do have 5 to 8 per classroom now, which will allow them to do well taking the test.  He says they will eventually try use funding for getting a computer for each student in the future.  First they need to get wi-fi in the entire school.  Because of the weather, report cards will go out on Friday, as school gets out at 11:30 and they will have staff development afterwards.

The Oakdale Grade School Board of Education met Monday night and Superintendent Ryan Wamser says the students finally got back to school after the holiday break and extended weather closings.  He says they wanted to make sure the students were safe and since the road conditions were still not good at the end of last week, they took the extra time off.  He says he traveled some of the roads, talked to the transportation director, who talks to the people driving the buses, as well as talking to other schools, but they decided to take the extra day off for safety precautions.  Oakdale Grade School will be a pilot school to field test the PARCC test.  This will be a new testing program going into effect next year.  Wamser says they will test only in English, not Math, in grades 3 through 8 on paper and computer.  Some testing will be done in March and more testing in May.  He talks about the excitement of it.  This will allow the teachers to get an idea of what the tests contain and what is needed to prepare students, as well as seeing how a small school handles the online and paper testing.  This will exempt the school from the ISAT test results for Adequate Yearly Progress, which has not been favorable for many schools in the state.  Wamser says they do not have 1 to 1 computer usage for the students, but they do have 5 to 8 per classroom now, which will allow them to do well taking the test.  He says they will eventually try use funding for getting a computer for each student in the future.  First they need to get wi-fi in the entire school.  Because of the weather, report cards will go out on Friday, as school gets out at 11:30 and they will have staff development afterwards.