Petersburg Public School Board releases Innovate 2022 plan for students and staff

The Petersburg City School Board had a meeting Wednesday night but it was able to show the work they put in for changes within the system for Innovate 2022, an initiative with the mission to develop 21st-century citizens able to collaborate, communicate and innovate. 

The plan has three separate goals with multiple strategies that will allow students at all Petersburg schools to improve in all areas of their education. Teachers and staff also will participate in different factions of the plan, including attending training to help them make plans on the new aspects of the curriculum. 

"Innovate 2022 actually became into existence before my arrival," said Superintendent Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin. "I know our school board has had a great deal of involvement... with this particular plan."

The three goals include academic mastery, student empowerment, and digital learning and beyond. These goals and strategies align with the plan to help move the school division forward and target support and services to provide a high-quality educational system for students. 

Academic Mastery, being the first goal, is focused on having teacher-focused training on how to teach the curriculum and monitoring improvement to make sure what is being taught aligns with the Standards of Learning. Something not often been done in the past. Teachers and staff will also be trained on how to incorporate project-based and service-learning opportunities be part of the curriculum. Students within goal 1 will have a more thorough literacy plan that will put them on track instead of behind where they should be regarding literacy. 

"We have talked about the need to have our students reading on grade level by third grade," Pitre-Martin said. 

The best practice for this, according to Innovation 2022 is tiered learning. This practice starts as a full class and then it is divided into smaller groups based on what students need help on. Tiered learning continues to make appearances throughout the plan. 

Another aspect of academic mastery is course offerings being exposed to students if it is something they are ready for. If an eighth-grader wants to take a high school course and enter their freshman year with five credits that is something PCPS will allow.

"It puts you on track to get college credit as a high school student, which, if that is an option... we want to be able to push them to be able to do that," Pitre-Marin explained. 

 Pushing students to better leads to the second goal, student empowerment, which is about students shaping their own academic experience. 

Dividing students into tiers again for support systems regarding their behaviors to help them with any problems they may have. This comes as an element due to a lot of acting out that teachers and staff are seeing in some of the schools. PCPS is offering various supports to students as they revise the Student Code of Conduct. 

Students will also get support from staff when they empower their students with goal setting in the classroom. There will be a tracker that students fill out throughout the year and can build on that goal setting in the year to see where they improve. This striving for more in the classroom will push students as young as middle school to think about their careers and future, which is why the Diploma Plus Initiative is so important when they get to high school. 

"We're going to continue to grow that [Diploma Plus] out but I think we have a great start with Diploma Plus," said Pitre-Martin. 

Goal three, which is about digital learning and beyond, is what was made from scratch according to the Superintendent because of the COVID-19 pandemic. PCPS has new programs are online to help with their skills and academics. Some cost more than what was expected, but the programs are better than the ones that were previously used. 

But to make digital learning easier for students PCPS is incorporating changes to the infrastructure such as installing new hardware and wiring to allow access to the internet. That also extends to allowing internet access for students anywhere, anytime so they can work on their school work. Changes like these include new software, devices, and hot spots for people in the class. 

With these comprehensive plans and more PCPS is looking to push their students academically by creating stronger plans for their students. 

Zoe Collins Rath (she/her/hers) is a sports and education reporter for the Progress-Index. For times email her at ZCollinsRath@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @zoe_jordan99.