EXETER \u2013 Wyoming Area Secondary students will see significant changes to their curriculum and school- day schedules next year, district officials have announced.<\/p>\n
At its meeting last week, the Wyoming Area Board of Education ratified a new program of studies for the Wyoming Area Secondary Center for the 2026-27 school year. Wyoming Area Superintendent Jon Pollard said the district will be releasing more information to parents about the changes in the near future. He said the district may also hold an open house in the future to discuss the changes if the district feels such a forum is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, there\u2019s going to be some significant ones,\u201d\u00a0 Pollard said at the school board meeting Wednesday when asked whether \u201cany major changes\u201d will be included in the new program. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a pretty big information dump coming to parents here in the next several weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pollard said the new program will include several alterations to academic programs and routines at the school. He said changes will be made to what electives are offered to students and the number of periods in a school day, though there will be no change to the school day\u2019s overall length. Explaining the rationale changes, Pollard said he was trying to orient the curriculum more towards giving students more preparation for post-secondary education or careers, while also bringing up standardized test scores.<\/p>\n
(Wyoming Area has seen overall declines in student performance on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams, standardized tests administered to students in third through eighth grade, particularly when comparing performance before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every school district based in Luzerne County has seen declines<\/a> over the same time period, as have school districts generally statewide.)<\/p>\n \u201c(We are) just trying to revamp some things to make sure that we\u2019re better preparing our students, not only for life, but also to do better on our standardized tests,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n After the school board meeting, Pollard further detailed the district\u2019s motivations for the new changes. Pollard said he was specifically seeking to ensure students can \u201cpass their standardized tests and be able to walk into the world of work, walk into secondary education, the military, anything that they chose after here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c(The new program of study is) providing adequate time on instruction that\u2019s focused in on making sure the kids are leaving here with the concepts and competencies to be functional in society,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n Wyoming Area Board of Education President Mara Valenti praised the changes, thanking Pollard and Wyoming Area Secondary Principal Greg Riley for their work on designing the new schedule and curriculum.<\/p>\n \u201cI, for one, couldn\u2019t be prouder of what they came up with,\u201d Valenti said. \u201cAnd I think the future of Wyoming Area is very bright and the success of these students is going to be evident with some of these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n