William Wirt Welcomes Parents at Back-To-School Night

It was standing room only in the William Wirt Middle School multipurpose room as Principal Prentice Christian welcomed parents and students to back-to-school night Thursday evening.

"This is an excellent turnout," Christian said, adding that other teachers also thought it was one of the largest turnouts for back-to-school night in years.

Christian started off by highlighting some of the school's successes from the previous year, such as the school's Communication, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Team (or CSTEM team) placing 5th in the country last year; the band gaining superior ratings at a band festival, and a record number of honor roll and perfect attendance students.

"The goal [of this night] is to provide parents opportunities to view the students curriculum and meet the teachers," he said.

Wanda Isaac, whose son Jaylon is starting his first year at William Wirt as a 7th grader seemed to enjoy it.

"It was informative to get out and meet the teachers," Isaac said.

Rhonda Ventura's son was also excited about changing classes now that he was in the 7th grade. This is her son's first year at William Wirt having just moved to Prince George's County from Washington, D.C.

"I really like it," Ventura said, adding she also liked getting to know the teachers.

The teachers feel the same way about meeting the parents.

"I think they see evidence that it is planned with parents in mind," said Rashieda Addison, part of the leadership team for language arts. "Allowing [parents] to not just meet teachers, but see the classrooms and to hear expectations first hand."

After teaching at William Wirt for 20 years, 7th grade social studies teacher Carolyn Haggins said getting to meet the parents and showing the kids the connection between parents and teachers is what she likes best about the event.

Aside from the meet and greet portion of the night, teachers also walked parents through textbooks, grading criteria and assignments for the coming year. Christian said they are focused on providing a rigorous curriculum, to get the students thinking about college early.

"The goal is to increase student performance, continue to build teacher capacity and increase rigor in curriculum," he said. These are just a few of the goals for the year ahead.

Sheree Savoy, the school's data coach and school test coordinator, said their data driven culture helps them determine how to adjust the curriculum as they approach each quarter to tailor it to the areas students need the most.

"Every decision for curriculum, after school programs, different things we teach all are based on how the students perform on their assessments," Savoy said. "We can see growth of the students and teachers together."

Technology has also helped integrate science and music. The school is suppose to be getting a computer lab with Apple computers soon, through Title 1 funding that music and choral teacher Sarah Alexander said will make that integration a lot easier.

"They are learning science but they don't even realize it," Alexander said.

She said students learn about sound waves and how they create unique sounds for different instruments. With the addition of the new computer lab, Alexander hopes to use a program called GarageBand that shows how the science applies directly to something they are interested in while composing their own music.

With a busy year ahead for the students of William Wirt, Christian and the other school administrators encouraged the crowd of parents to stay involved in the coming school year by coming to school events and participating as much as possible.