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CCISD services promote high-quality learning, teaching

It is September, and all of our school districts have the excitement of starting a new year. There are many eager faces walking into our local buildings and around 600 hardworking teachers, support staff and administrators to greet them and to help each student reach their potential.

Every August, the Copper Country Intermediate School District (CCISD) sets goals for the year. Our overarching goal is that all children receive a top notch education that will allow them to succeed at whatever they aspire to do. In order to achieve this, the CCISD will provide leadership, dedication and high-quality professional learning opportunities. We will utilize data, along with research and evidence-based practices, to guide the services provided to all local buildings and districts.

To achieve this overarching goal, CCISD provides several different types of services. One example is providing a comprehensive and sustained professional learning opportunities for teachers in the first three years of their career. This series helps districts meet the Michigan Mentoring Mandate as required by the school code.

The CCISD also provides leadership and support to districts as they develop school improvement plans and implement the school improvement process. Staff will work with districts on implementation as they adopt new assessment tools and learn to utilize the data from the new devices.

The Copper Country ISD has been awarded a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) center and with that comes great responsibility. The STEM center will provide student and teacher programs to engage students in content and skills in STEM.

Two years ago, Michigan passed a new third-grade reading law, so an important goal for the CCISD is to support districts in their efforts to implement multi-tiered systems of support in buildings, and work to strengthen literacy instruction, specifically at the K-3 level.

The CCISD has a literacy coach who has worked with local districts to identify literacy leaders in each elementary school. These leaders work to improve reading instruction within their buildings.

A major responsibility for an ISD is to act as a liaison between the local districts and the Michigan Department of Education in a variety of areas, including teacher certification, school improvement, assessment and accountability, pupil accounting, content-area related efforts and other mandates as needed.

The CCISD hosts monthly Copper Country-wide superintendents meetings, where local superintendents receive updates from various department heads at the CCISD and have time to ask questions.

It is important to know that Copper Country schools strive to provide the best education possible. Statewide test results indicate Copper Country schools do very well. This is, in part, due to the collaboration across the region.

Not only do local superintendents meet monthly, but the local high school principals, elementary principals, as well as the local counselors, also have their own meetings. These groups share information, ideas and problem-solve together.

The Copper Country ISD is a support organization. We are here to support our local schools in any way we can. In fact, our moto is “Supporting a Lifetime of Learning.”

We are excited to start a new school year, to collaborate with all the local schools, and to be a resource that they can depend on.

George Stockero Jr. is superintendent of the Copper Country Intermediate School District.

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