Thursday, June 26, 2003

Summer learning program debuts

Local students working to continue their education through summer school are using a program from Newton Learning chosen by school officials.

Marceline R-5 is one of 68 school districts to reach agreements with the company, which specializes in offering summer and after-school educational materials.

Teachers and administrators from the school districts that use Newton Learning are hired for the summer school programs, and the company furnishes all of he training and teaching materials. Newton incurs all of the expense associated with the program, and districts pay the company with existing state funds.

Courses are designed to focus on the skills that the local district and the state have identified as required benchmarks for learning. The effectiveness of the Newton program is measured by a pre-class evaluation test that is given on the second day of class, and again on the second to last day of class.

Marceline’s 2003 summer school session is scheduled to conclude this Friday with an all-school assembly at Disney Elementary.