The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. [154], No. [96], Ed. 1 Saturday, January 26, 2008 Page: 2 of 15
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w Saturday, January 26,2008
Vftt Bastrop Udocrtiscr ★ Page 3A
Smithville principals raise concerns with CSCOPE
By Jacqueline Davis
Staff Writer
— board about their concerns with
CSCOPE, an online program that
sets teachers" curriculum on a set
! ' timeline and ensures the same les-
The four principals of Smithville sons are taught in each classroom.
ISD took the chance Tuesday night The program's advocates have
to talk to the Smithville school touted CSCOPE as a means of
improving students" scores on the
Texas Assessment of Knowledge
and Skills (TAKS) by ensuring
teachers cover every topic the test
does. Fall 2007 marked the first
semester Smithville ISD used the
program.
However, as with other Texas
school districts, new teachers
are latching on to the program,
while experienced teachers are
hesitant to change their tried
and true methods to incorpo-
rate something new. Cheryl
Bums, the district's curriculum
and instruction director, said
that veteran teachers might feel
CSCOPE has assumed one of
their roles.
"What we're saving to the
teachers is, 'You are respon-
sible for teaching, and we are
responsible for curriculum,'"
Burns said. "In the past,
they've been able to interpret
our objectives themselves, and
we've taken that interpretation
away from them. This often
makes it more difficult for our
tenured teachers because it's a
different swing of the pendu-
lum."
Bums suggested that the
The Bastrop Advertiser photos/Terry Hagerty
Street work continues
A worker with Mickie Services of Houston installs an insertion
valve at the corner of Main and Spring Streets. The valve allows
workers to isolate sections of pipe in order to change out the
water supply line. The project, taking longer than first estimated,
is due to wrap up in four to five weeks, city officials said.
district's principals talk to trustees
about how teachers were "buying
in" to CSCOPE.
Smithville Junior High Principal
David Edwards said CSCOPE
was 100 percent
implemented in
math, even if
some teachers
were struggling
with the pace.
However, social
studies was a dif-
ferent story.
"The social
studies teach-
ers have less
embraced it,"
Edwards said.
"They're telling
me that students
don't bring enough background
knowledge with them...the teach-
ers say they can't afford to move
forward with CSCOPE because
the kids can't grasp it. They don't
have the background knowledge
that CSCOPE expects them to
have."
Smithville High School Principal
Jason Hewitt said his teachers
had different levels of liking for
CSCOPE. Hewitt said he had been
'The social studies
teachers have less
embraced it."
-David Edwards,
Smithville Junior
High Principal
giving his veteran teachers more
leeway with the program to take the
good from it, but supplement their
own teaching styles where they felt
it might be lacking. He also said
CSCOPE was a
' big commitment
by the teachers in
outside-the-class-
room preparation
time.
"Teachers are
the heart and soul
of this district,
and they bring a
lot to the table, so
you can't just lay
something at their
feet and expect
them to ran with
it," Hewitt said.
Afterward Trustee Mike Morgan
expressed concern that CSCOPE
might be taking the creativity out
of teaching by outlining what
should be taught, but Bums took a
different stance.
"We don't want to take the cre-
ativity away," Bums said. "This is
just to set the non-negotiables in
place for this year so that next year,
(the students) start (where they left
off.)"
Lowe s on way to Bastrop
By Jacqueline Davis
Staff Writer
The Burleson
Crossing Shopping
Center had its offi-
cial groundbreaking
Tuesday afternoon at
its 60-acre site north
of Texas 71 at Texas
304.
By then, site prepa-
ration and dirt work
were well underway to
ready the area for its
anchor store, a Lowe's
home improvement
store, which will have
117,000 square feet of
retail sales space and
offer 40,000 products.
The store is expect-
ed to open in the first
quarter of 2009 and
create up to 175 new
jobs.
The Lowe's will
have an additional
31,000 square feet
for its garden center,
which will offer flow-
ers, bushes, trees and
garden supplies select-
ed for a Texas climate.
The Burleson
Crossing project will
entail a new rear
entrance road called
Blakely Boulevard,
which will connect to
FM 969. The develop-
ers will pay for the con-
struction of about $9
million worth of new
roads up front and be
reimbursed with half
of the development's
sales taxes over the
years, according to Joe
Newman, executive
director of the Bastrop
Economic Development
Corporation.
"'The Burleson
Crossing development
is a welcome addition
to our community,"
Newman said, "As
Bastrop continues to
grow and prosper, busi-
nesses will not only
originally identified
15 pad sites of varying
sizes, said Stacy Snell,
Bastrop planning direc-
tor, but the final num-
ber of retail sites will
depend on negotiations
with retailers, which
are still ongoing.
Snell said that each
pad site could contain
up to four or five sepa-
rate businesses, but that
one larger anchor store
enhance our quality of is expected to take up
life, but provide new an entire pad site simi-
jobs for our citizens.
As for the other
pad sites in the
development, only
an IBC bank is
slated as a defi-
nite. The project's
developers had
lar to Lowe's.
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McAuley, Davis. The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. [154], No. [96], Ed. 1 Saturday, January 26, 2008, newspaper, January 26, 2008; Bastrop, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth252415/m1/2/: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Bastrop Public Library.