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Hawthorne board approves overhaul of middle-school digital and career courses
Summary
The Hawthorne Board of Education approved committee recommendations to replace and rename multiple LMS courses, expand summer curricular rewrites and add a gifted-and-talented consultant; professional-development days and a keynote speaker were also scheduled.
The Hawthorne Board of Education on Tuesday approved curriculum committee recommendations to replace and rename multiple middle-school courses, expand summer course rewrites and add a consultant for the district's gifted-and-talented program.
The committee’s motion to adopt CI-1 through CI-27 — which includes the middle-school course changes — was made by Board member Mrs. Goff and seconded by Mr. Corrijo and carried on a roll-call vote with one member absent.
Miss Scott, presenting the committee report, said Computer 6 will be replaced by “TechSmartt, safety, citizenship, and code,” which she said will cover “Internet safety, digital citizenship, safe use of social media, severability, and coding.” She said Computer 7 will be replaced by “Navigating the Digital World,” which will emphasize research best practices, artificial intelligence and design-and-create tools. A course previously listed as “20 First Century Careers” will be renamed “Personal Finance and Career Readiness,” covering money management, investing, credit and debt, income and career exploration and digital citizenship. “Media Arts” will be renamed “Future Makers, Business and Design,” focusing on business concepts, marketing research, brand identity, storefront/workspace design, photography, promotional video and website development.
Miss Scott told the board that 20 courses across K–12 underwent full rewrites over the summer in subjects including social studies, math, ESL, arts and computers. She also said elementary teams completed standards-based revisions in math and ELA and worked on NJSLA task development and common assessments. The committee reported that the district will add an outside consultant to support the gifted-and-talented program; Mr. Mininelli and Dr. Tomono were cited as staff who know the consultant and helped arrange the support.
The committee also confirmed opening professional-development days will take place the Tuesday and Wednesday after Labor Day and will include I-Ready training, strategies to foster student independence, mindful practices and turnkey training on standards-based revisions. Miss Scott said the keynote speaker for those days will be Dr. Katie Peters.
Board members who spoke during general comments welcomed the course updates and praised the wider curricular work done over the summer.
