OXFORD – High academic achievement, quicker response to academic interventions and collaborative professional development will continue to be priorities as the Oxford Academy and Central School district looks ahead at the upcoming school year.

According to Superintendent Randall Squier, these goals do not represent a shift in focus for the district, but rather a continued emphasis on the guiding principles which have been driving decision making for the last few years.

“It’s the same work we’ve been doing, we just want to be better at it,” Squier explained.

The district has been using four questions to guide their actions. Those questions, according to Squier, are what does the district want students to learn, how does the district know they’ve learned, what does the district do if they haven’t learned and what does the district do if they have learned.

The first questions is answered, at least in part, by standards set by New York State, but also through essential outcomes set by teachers at each grade level.

The second, Oxford has been working to answer through the use of assessments and benchmarking, a process which Squier said he and his administrative team will continue to refine in the coming school year.

They will also work, he explained, to increase the speed and efficiency with which they provide assistance and intervention services to students who have been identified as not meeting those learning standards. And in answering the fourth question, they will strive to provide enrichment opportunities to keep students who have learned the core material engaged and challenged.

In an effort to “get better at answering” these questions, new programs will be initiated in each of the schools this year.

In the Primary School, according to building Principal Tim McDonald, that includes the addition of an extra after-school reading period for students who are struggling to meet their literacy goals. Transportation will be provided via the late bus run for those students to make it easier on parents.

“Within reason, we’ll provide whatever we need to help our students and their parents,” said McDonald, citing the success of interventions with students at the Kindergarten and first grade level last year.

Squier has also taken the initiative to meet one on one with parents of incoming Kindergarten students. These meetings, some of which have taken place in his office and others at the students’ homes, have given the parents a chance to ask questions and share their hopes and aspirations for their child, the superintendent explained. It is an also an opportunity to build relationships between residents and the district.

At the Middle School, the building’s administrators and faculty members are intent on creating a “no fail zone” with the Homework Assistance and Tutorial Classwork Help (HATCH) program, which has been modeled after a program already in place in the Walton Middle School.