SIDNEY — The Fairlawn Local Schools recently had the opportunity to purchase 84 acres of land surrounding the schools’ campus. The land was purchased from the estate of the late Rita Borland.
“We are very appreciative to her children, Craig Borland, Rhonda Keister and Wayne Borland for offering us the first opportunity to purchase the land,” said Superintendent Steve Mascho. “The land is completely adjacent to our PK-12 complex.”
His report continues:
With the purchase of the land, the district has the space to add or expand the programming or facilities that the Board of Education believes are relevant to our district. Initially, the district will use a small portion of the land to the south of the track to relocate the throwing field events for track meets.
The relocation of the field events will create a more open and safer location for these events. Once the field events have been relocated, we will convert that location into needed additional athletic parking close to the ballfields and the track.
The rest of the recent land purchase will be used by the FFA to raise various agricultural crops. As the FFA manages the process of raising crops, students will gain valuable real life agricultural experiences. The FFA will cash rent the land from the Board of Education. The FFA will then be able to keep the profit of their crop management for FFA programs. This is a win-win situation for the FFA and the Board. Last year, we made a valuable contribution to the FFA program when we completed and began using our new greenhouse. This spring, real crop management will be added to the instruction FFA students will be actively participating in at Fairlawn.
In preparation for holding the Shelby County Track Meet at Fairlawn this spring, the district recently added a large section of raised bleachers. Combined with the smaller bleachers we had, the district now has ample seating for spectators. The new bleachers will be used at all future events held at the track/soccer complex.
We are currently in our second year of offering an online curriculum to provide the opportunity for students to take over 50 credit classes that are not offered in our building. We call this our Expanded Learning program. We have a dedicated computer lab where the students are able to take these one-on-one online classes. Students don’t have to be in the computer lab, they can take the classes anywhere they have Wi Fi to connect to their classes. Soon, we are going to integrate some of the online curriculum into our regular class offerings to support classroom instruction. Using this approach to Blended Learning will offer students the structure of consistent online instruction in combination with teacher directed instruction.
This year, the reorganization of our staff into Teacher Based Teams (TBTs) to better direct their instruction was completed. These 5 teams (K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12) manage all facets of their students’ instruction. While the teachers in the teams teach only a specific subject to all students in the team, the whole team works together to manage the needs of the students for the multiple year time period they are providing instruction. Fairlawn believes in using progress monitoring multiple times during the year to continuously check the progress of its students using a program called Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). Each TBT uses the MAP data to meet the individual needs of each student assigned to its team. Students don’t just have one classroom teacher; they have a Team helping them learn at all times.
Fairlawn has a new website. Visit us at www.fairlawn.k12.oh.us Visit us often! Go Jets!
