Each week during the school year a representative from the Carbon County School District comes in to speak with Castle Country Radio about the latest news and happenings taking place within the district. Now that the summer is winding down it is time to present the weekly series again and it’s only appropriate that the first weekly update of the school year be with Superintendent Lance Hatch. He spoke about the reading scores from last year, baseball field construction and new technology courses coming to the high school.
Last year a huge emphasis was made district wide in regards to improving student’s reading skills. “We really focused on reading and changed our approach to how we go about helping students to improve their reading. We knew we needed to do something that would really accelerate their improvement rapidly and that is exactly what we saw. Just a couple of examples, in first grade the previous year they ended with 31 percent of the students reading at grade level and ended this last year with 66 percent,” stated Superintendent Hatch. That’s works out to be about 89 students who would have left not reading at the level they are now. The same emphasis on reading will be made again this year because it is the key to developing the minds of students.
The Carbon High baseball/softball field construction project has been underway for some time and is close to completion. “Just a little update, it’s been quite a project, the baseball field, you think, you know, slap down some grass and put up some fences and you’re good to go but it’s a lot more involved than that. We had water issues, we had to figure out how to deal with and literally had to basically move a mountain to get this done and we’re just excited to see it take place,” explained Superintendent Hatch. The sod is scheduled to be laid out this week and everything seems to be on schedule to allow for games to be played on the fields in the spring of next year.
The school district was recently awarded a $25,000.00 grant from the Utah Coal Country Strike Team to help fund high quality computer and information technology courses at the high school level. “The money is really going to help us a lot in order to get our teacher the right certifications, get the equipment that we need to get that really up and running quickly. The courses that kids will be able to take that will allow them to leave high school with an industry recognized certificate to be able to work on networks and computer repair – it’s a pretty exciting program,” said Superintendent Hatch. More updates on the program will come throughout the school year.
To watch this interview in its entirety please visit www.koalitv.com