TAC members confer.

At the final meeting of the Transition Advisory Committee (TAC), Portsmouth Supt. Sue Lusi announced that next year, as part of the move to co-location at the middle school, all 4th grades will be using a team teaching model.

"We're going to go with all two-person teams," said Lusi. "The reasoning was that a number of teachers wanted to do that anyway. We just concluded that teaming is the right way to go."

In the team teaching model, currently used in the 4th grade at Hathaway, teachers can "specialize" in areas of the curriculum, and students or teachers move from one room to another, rather than one teacher delivering the entire curriculum.

Middle School principal Joe Amaral said that the teams are still being developed, but would most likely be divided with one teacher doing either math and science or math and social studies. "We're in the process of polling people's strengths," said Amaral. "We're using Google Docs [an online form] to let teachers enter their preferences and training." Amaral later told me that he felt that the experience of using the team model in middle school would help in supplying professional development to support the teachers, and noted that the group would have the advantage of common planning time.

The rest of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing two key documents -- the list of Frequentely Asked Questions being developed around the transition, and the timeline with key dates -- both of which are to be posted soon on the district web site

Dr. Lusi also confirmed that they were still on track for a communication to parents on Friday confirming which school their children will be attending. While Lusi said that as of yesterday the district did have a preliminary map, she stressed that they were still ironing out details.

Said Lusi, "The elementary principals are checking the list against everyone in their buildings, and the special education staff from the Newport County Regional Special Education team are looking at kids with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)."

With all review work, Lusi could not guarantee what time the communication would happen, although the sense was probably that an e-mail would be sent in the late afternoon. Schools have been using the AlertNow system to remind parents to check that they have provided a current e-mail. As soon as the e-mail goes out, the transportation "district" map will be posted on the school district web site, and a dedicated voicemail box will be set up and monitored to help with any questions.

The meeting wrapped up about 8:15 with Dr. Lusi thanking the 20+ members of the advisory committee for their effort over the past couple of weeks.

"I want to thank you all enormously," said Lusi. "I know it was a lot of time, but it was really important. We got a lot of good feedback. I hope you feel we were listening."