The Rockingham County Schools are making improvement with new technology and implementation of advanced concepts. School Improvement Teams met in May for training on McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) a premier program for improving schools by a balanced prescriptive content and context driven process approach. McREL uses the quality improvement cycle to analyze data, define improvement opportunities and determine root cause by root cause analysis.

We can applaud the superintendent and principals for making moves between schools for changes that will utilize individual principal’s strengths and skills to make our school system the best anywhere.

The school administration and board of education are considering the implementation of a federal drug detection program for the 2007/2008 school years. This program demonstrated to members of the High School and Middle School Administrators, Central Office Directors, Board of Education Members on 6/13/07 the application and success rate. This detection program utilizes atomized particulates to detect microscopic deposits of a multitude of controlled substances on any non-liquid surface. If a student has been in contact with a controlled substance it will be detected. It was suggested by the program director that the program be explained to the students at the beginning of the school year for their edification about the program and consequences. The goal is to get mind altering drugs out of Rockingham County Schools. Watch for news releases from the RCS administration about details of this program.