Principal: proposed building would help collaboration

The principal said the district’s plan for a pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade facility will assist in coordinating his teachers.

The principal of a pair of Oberlin City Schools buildings said the district’s plan for a pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade facility will assist in coordinating his teachers.

Jim Eibel is the newlyminted principal of Prospect Elementary and Eastwood Elementary.

Eibel said the proposed combination building would streamline the process.

“The possibility of joining elementary staffs into one is exciting,” he said. “It is difficult to have daily collaboration on pre-kindergarten through five elementary curriculum in two different locations.”

Eibel said the combined building would allow him to have team planning and vertical meetings on a daily basis.

“If the third-grade team wants to talk to the second-grade team, which is difficult to happen when they’re two miles apart, can happen across the hall,” he said. “Those educational discussions that take place every day in the hallways between teachers of professional conversations are important and they don’t always work best over email.”

Eibel said that combining the staffs and the policies of both schools, along with the others in the district, would simplify.

The divide between his schools are even more pronounced because they are still considered one unit in the International Baccalaureate Primary

“The possibility of joining elementary staffs into one is exciting.”

— Jim Eibel, principal of Prospect Elementary and Eastwood Elementary

Years Program, which is a framework for how the schools deliver instruction.

Oberlin Schools was the first district in Ohio to be certified to offer the program from pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade.

“So, the curriculum and the units that are taught at Eastwood are carried up into Prospect, and we spend time every year planning that aligns and the scope and sequence follows up through,” he said. “A big portion of the framework revolves around team collaboration and reflection and the opportunity for grade level teaching teams to plan together and reflect on what has been taught and bring together activities.”

The district is seeking a 4.8 mill bond issue on the Nov. 6 ballot which would raise $17.8 million which would finance the construction of a pre-kindergarten through grade 5 elementary school as the first phase of its pre-kindergarten through 12thgrade master plan.

Construction could begin in November 2019 and the new elementary building could be occupied by January 2022, according to administrators.