Graduate-level courses for teachers this summer; training in how to better incorporate computer technology in the classroom; new math-intervention specialists to help struggling students; an updated and redesigned courtyard—these were among the plans for improving the elementary school in a list of eight goals presented last week by Principal Mary Beth Banios at the School Committee meeting. Four of the goals devised by the principal and School Council relate to teaching, two address problems in the physical plant, and two deal with community-building efforts.

The teaching goals call for improving math, language arts, and social studies instruction, and for further integrating computers and technology into classroom teaching. Banios explained that the school plans to work on four areas to boost the learning of all its pupils. First, teachers and curriculum coordinators will review exactly what students should learn at each grade level in these subjects. After that, they will refine their assessments of how students are learning the material. Then the school wants to beef up support services for students who have not learned the grade-level curriculum. And finally, the school needs to decide how to deal with students “who walk through the door already knowing” the material for that grade level, Banios said.

For example, the first goal calls for implementing an intervention program for students struggling in math, and for helping teachers figure out how to provide appropriate teaching to students who are ahead or behind in math. The school is hiring three new math intervention specialists to help lagging students, who will be chosen for the program by their classroom assessments and MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) test scores, Banios noted. The applicants for these positions “are very highly qualified candidates,” she told the school board.

The school will also provide money so that fourth- and fifth-grade teachers can do extra work over the summer to develop their math curricula and come up with ways for classroom teachers to handle students who are well ahead or behind in learning math.

In addition, the school will host two weeklong graduate-level courses this summer, one in elementary math and one in language arts, for teachers both inside and outside the district. The courses will provide instruction on how teachers can work to meet the needs of all learners. “Professional development is key … the fact that we have two grad-level courses offered here makes us the envy of other districts,” School Superintendent Tom Jefferson said. The courses are voluntary, but quite a few of the Harvard teachers have signed up, he told the board.

To reach its goal of strengthening reading and writing instruction, the school will also conduct extra teacher training to help match teachers’ instructional strategies with students’ learning needs, and will work to mentor new teachers. There are also efforts to increase the number of books in each classroom for students to read in their small reading groups.

To meet its third goal, which is to strengthen social studies teaching, the school will set up a cross-grade study group to compare the social studies curriculum with the state’s social studies learning standard. The study group will define areas where Harvard’s elementary curriculum is different from the state’s standards, and recommend changes to bring it into alignment, Banios said. She foresees that some money may be required in the fiscal year 2009 budget for new materials for an updated social studies curriculum.

The fourth goal calls for helping teachers learn new ways to use computers and technology to improve classroom learning. For this, Banios plans to have the computer specialist at the school offer a number of teacher workshops, covering topics such as using software including PowerPoint, Publisher, Windows Movie Maker, and Word in the classroom, and how to set up a classroom website.

Another goal calls for “redesigning and constructing a low-maintenance elementary school courtyard, while preserving items of historical significance.” The courtyard is in need of updating, Banios said, and she and the school council hope to identify some community resources to help in the redesign, and to provide donations of time and materials, once a plan has been developed and approved. There are some features of the current courtyard that the school wants to incorporate into the new design if possible, such as the nonfunctioning water fountain that was built by students in the early ’90s.

The school’s second infrastructure goal is to fix the mold problem in the kindergarten wing. The school will have a representative on the new facilities study committee and plans to keep communicating to residents the need to have a “long-term solution to this facility issue.”

Finally were the two goals that deal with community-building and school atmosphere. Banios and the school council would like to hire school greeters to welcome visitors to the school, through the town tax-relief program for senior citizens. The program allows Harvard seniors to reduce their property tax bills by working for the town. Banios said that the school has had such a great experience in hiring Robert Hughes, who has worked as a crossing guard, that it wants to hire more senior citizens through the program as greeters. Current visitors to the school have a difficult time finding help because the workers in the office are not easy to find and are often very busy with other work, she said. She envisions hiring several seniors, who would perhaps work in two-hour shifts.

The final goal, which Banios touched on only briefly, is to study how best to build a school community across all grade levels.