NORWICH – It’s not often the Commissioner of Education makes time in his schedule to meet with a small city school. Yet, New York Education Commissioner David Steiner and two of his deputies did just that last week, spending more than an hour in video conference with administrators from the Norwich City School District.

According to Board Member Perry Owen, the district attracted the commissioner’s attention because of the strides it has made in using student achievement data and benchmarks to guide instruction and evaluate teacher performance.

Owen is credited with bringing Norwich’s achievements in this area to the attention of the SED when earlier this year he asked the executive director of the New York State School Boards Association to share a letter he had written on the topic with the commissioner.

The video-conference was initially slated to take place in June, but was rescheduled for Sept. 15 at the DCMO BOCES. Commissioner Steiner – who personally sat in on the conference along with Deputy Commissioners Dr. John King and Joseph Frey – had scheduled 30 minutes for the meeting, Owen reported. However, their interest in the topic was so great that “it went on for more than an hour.”

“I think they were very impressed,” reported Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan, who participated in the conference along with Owen, Director of Instruction and Staff Development Iraina Gerchman, Stanford Gibson Principal Dara Lewis, Perry Browne Principal Jen Post, Secondary Principal Lisa Schuchman, Middle School Interim Assistant Principal Kisten Giglio, District Technology Director Peter Somich and DCMO-BOCES Superintendent Bill Tammaro.