September 29, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 9A
Seaside students get new
online science curriculum
Students learn by
doing, not just watching
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Sandy Spinrad and Sean Mitchell, current and former
Microsoft software engineers, who are teaching the class
distantly. Both live in the greater Seattle area.
Students are teamed
with professionals
TEALS from Page 1A
Classroom teachers are
supported by the four pro-
grammers.
“The first year they sup-
port a beginning programming
class, and the second year they
support an advanced program-
ming class, increasing the re-
sponsibility of the classroom
teacher over time to take over
the class,” Brown said.
The professional program-
mers leave after two years.
The school district pays the
programmers a stipend. The
school district also seeks local
professional programmers to
teacher or provide classroom
support.
“TEALS will provide pro-
grammers if we can’t,” Brown
said.
Courses include an intro-
duction to computer science
course using SNAP, a visual
object-oriented language.
“The goal with this course
is not so much to teach cod-
ing, but to teach the founda-
tion of computer science,”
Brown said. “To make sure
students understand how this
all works.”
Students learn using games
like Hangman, Space Invad-
ers and Mario Brothers.
The second semester intro-
duces data types, functions,
loops and the Python lan-
guage.
The results appear to be
paying off, Papini said. “We
have seen, consistently, year
to year, half of the students
who take TEALS courses
say they’re more likely to
pursue careers in computer
science.”
Nine out of 10 students
say TEALS is beneficial to
their learning, and TEALS
students scored higher on na-
tional computer programming
exams.
TEALS also provides the
curriculum and summer train-
ing for the classroom teacher
and the professional program-
mers.
“We want to continue to
make a deep impact in Sea-
side and other parts of Oregon
to ensure students have access
to rigorous high-quality com-
puter science and that teachers
are able to build their capacity
to teach computer science,”
Papini said.
County grades decline in
English, math, science
By Betsy Hammond
The Oregonian
Oregon students lost ground
in reading, writing and math
over the past year, according to
test results released Sept. 7.
Particularly in the elemen-
tary grades, fewer students
achieved proficiency on end-
of-year exams designed to
show whether they are on
track to be ready for college
and the world of work.
No grade level showed
substantial improvement from
2016.
Clatsop County schools
mirrored the state, with most
grades showing declines in
college and career readiness
in English, language arts,
mathematics and science.
Astoria fifth- and 11th-grad-
ers largely outperformed the
state average in English and
language arts but fell behind in
math, with a third or fewer stu-
dents college and career ready.
Seaside fifth-, eighth- and
11th-graders
outperformed
the state average on English
and language arts, but fewer
than 30 percent of those grade
levels reached proficiency in
mathematics. Warrenton-Ham-
mond students fell behind on
English and language arts but
nearly matched state averages
in mathematics, especially in
later grades.
How well Oregon schools
prepared high school juniors,
who have just a year before
they face college or the job
market, was less than clear.
Roughly 6,000 students, or
about 15 percent of the junior
class, skipped the tests, which
are more demanding than the
previous generation of year-
end exams. That was a tad
more than ducked testing in
2016.
WE’LL SAVE YOU A BUNDLE
AND QUITE A FEW LAYERS.
Students at Seaside High School will
see big changes this fall with a newly
adopted science and technology curric-
ulum.
A science program, STEMscopes,
helps kids get experiential learning to
meet national standards. A computer
science program developed by Micro-
soft helps students get the kind of com-
puter training needed to understand ad-
vanced programming.
The program was developed by
teachers and scientists at Rice Universi-
ty in Houston to meet national standards
for science, known as the Next Genera-
tion Science Standards.
“Teachers were very excited during
the training today,” Sande Brown, the
Seaside School District’s curriculum di-
rector, said after a teacher training at the
high school Wednesday. “We know that
excitement will translate to the students
once school starts. Excited students are
engaged students, and engaged students
are learning.”
The program focuses on connecting
science to reading, writing, speaking
and math and helps students prepare
for careers in science and technology,
Brown said. Students learn by doing,
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Clockwise from top left, teachers Erin Meyer, Chuck Albright, Danielle Reese and
Toni Paino at a training in Seaside School District’s new technology curriculum.
not just watching, and kids work in
groups to solve problems.
“We are also excited about this cur-
riculum because it is our school dis-
trict’s first completely online curricu-
lum,” Brown said. “By purchasing this
online curriculum instead of textbooks,
we were able to save money and use
some of that money to purchase com-
puters and science materials and equip-
ment for the classrooms.”
Although the curriculum is online,
teachers have the flexibility of download-
ing and printing paper copies of work-
sheets, information pages or tests online
in a program that varies by grade level.
“The focus, however, is to have stu-
dents doing science, not just be on the
computer,” Brown said.
The text is in both English and Span-
ish, and the computer can read out loud
text in both languages.
Dunzer is lone voice in opposition to changes
Campus from Page 1A
The ordinances are con-
sidered administrative steps
endorsing the plan, Mayor
Jay Barber said. A third read-
ing is required for adoption
of the ordinance.
About 49 acres of zoned
forest land on the 89-acre
campus, donated to the dis-
trict by Weyerhaeuser Co.,
needs to be brought into
Seaside’s urban growth
boundary and rezoned be-
fore building can proceed.
Another 40 acres, already in
Seaside but zoned low-den-
sity residential also requires
a zone change. Both parcels
will be rezoned as institu-
tional campus, a designation
for properties more than 20
acres intended for large-
scale uses such as hospitals
and school campuses.
Seaside’s John Dunzer
was a lone voice in opposi-
tion to ordinance changes
designed to facilitate con-
struction of the new campus.
“This urban growth
boundary expansion — the
concept is wrong,” Dunzer
said.
The council’s decision
did not meet state goals, he
said.
Dunzer said the city could
find alternate sites within the
urban growth boundary that
did not require the ordinance
changes.
“We can do this on the
existing ground inside the
city,” he said. “There’s ab-
solutely no reason to spend
all that money going up that
hillside. Absolutely none. It
won’t make them any safer,
it will not make them any
smarter. It will not make
them any of those things.”
After a public hearing
on both ordinances, coun-
cilors unanimously voted to
approve both ordinances in
first and second readings by
title only. A third reading is
planned for the council’s
Oct. 9 meeting.
“This is one of the key
pieces in moving the schools
up onto the new property,”
former superintendent and
member of the district’s
construction oversight com-
mittee Doug Dougherty said
in August. “This is a major
step.”
Should the council pass
the third reading as expect-
ed, Dunzer said he intends to
file an appeal of the decision
with the state’s Land Use
Board of Appeals.
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