On Tuesday, April 9th, Boyertown Area School District’s Board of Directors had a meeting that covered topics across the whole district. Below is a recap of what was covered.
Pre K counts
Boyertown’s preschool program, which is free for qualifying families, has grown a lot since it’s start in 2007. At BASH, the program collaborates with the preschool classes, along with the family consumer science courses. Throughout the school day, different BASH students come in to help their pre-k buddy. You can find more about these courses in the BASH program of studies. Changes to your schedule can still be made through mid-May if you’re interested in signing up. One of the parents who had a kid go through the Boyertown’s preschool program said, “This program was a gift for my family. Without it, I don’t believe my children would have got the education they needed to thrive in school.”
What’s so cool about Manufacturing
Mr. Rothermel, a middle school west teacher and co-advisor for What’s So Cool About Manufacturing, spoke along with two of his students, Addison Antalosky and Emma Seyler, about their video production for 2024. This year they featured the process of making Unique Pretzels, along with interviews from people who worked there. The 5 students who are in the club are Addison Antalosky, Awwal Folorunso, Hunter Gorni, Emma Seyler, and Landon Smith. The club based there video off of the hit Netflix show, “Stranger Things”. The video they produced can be watched here, along with productions from other districts. Their awards event will be on Monday, April 15th.
New Science Curriculum for 2025-2026 School year
“Steels aligned curriculum” will be used from K-12 in the district, starting in the 2025-2026 school year. This brings new standards to the teaching, with “an emphasis on student performances”. This new curriculum aims to have “students experiencing science and making sense of what they notice,” rather then just memorizing information.
This new curriculum will be developed from scratch, which will take many hours to fully complete. For BASH specifically, starting next school year, there will be limited implementation of the new curriculum, with biology classes staying the same to fill the keystone requirement. It will “begin to instruct science classes with new routines,” with full implementation not taking place until the following school year. The course material won’t change drastically, rather the way it’s taught is what will be changed.
The meeting was just over 90 minutes long, and can be watched at full here. They’re next meeting will be on April 23rd, at the district’s education center. Future dates through June 2024 can be found on the districts website.
