I welcome you to the York Schools. We are very proud of the traditions, accomplishments, and successes of our students and our schools. York School Department provides a strong educational program to 2100 students in four schools. Village Elementary School provides services to students in grade Kindergarten - 2, Coastal Ridge Elementary School serves students in grades 2-4, our Middle School serves students in grades 5-8 and York High School provides educational experiences to students in grades 9-12. Full services of Special Education and programming to provide a challenging academic program for our highly achieving students are provided. The York School Department also makes available adult and community educational opportunities to all York residents.

The governance structure of the York School Department is comprised of a five member elected School Committee. The School Committee meets at 7:00 PM on the first and third Wednesday of each month at the town library. All School Committee meetings are televised on the local community access cable channel. Information outlining the School Committee's work and public participation is available in all schools and at the Superintendent's Office.

I want to share some of the major York School Department goals. Professional development of staff and long-term planning and development of our Comprehensive Local Assessment System remain the priorities for our ongoing work. The Educational Strategic Plan provides the foundation upon which our educational decisions are made. We have completed system-wide action steps for the current year based on the implementation of our Educational Strategic Plan. The action steps define the specific steps we will take this year to implement our educational plan.

We continue to focus on K-12 curriculum alignment. Our staff has done considerable work toward attainment of K-12 curriculum documents. We have made the commitment to develop curriculum based on a continuous flow across all grade levels. The school committee has approved the K-12 curriculum in Mathematics, English/Language Arts, and Health, Physical Education, Social Studies, Science and Technology, Visual and Performing Arts, and Career Preparation. The development of Modern and Classical Languages curriculum for grades 7-12 is currently in progress and will be completed in accordance with our Educational Strategic Plan.

We have been responding to the requirements of the No Child Left Behind federal legislation. This law requires schools to have in place a variety of components to promote the success of every child. We continue to address these requirements within the context of our educational plan.

We are working diligently to bring quality educational programming to the students of York . We remain firm in our commitment to York students that they will have challenging experiences, enabling them to be successful learners. Our community partnership remains strong and we will continue to collectively work toward supporting the youth in York .

Sincerely,