Milford Students Poised for New Year

With kindergarten in the rearview, 6-year-old Ryan Medvegy embarked on his first day of first-grade Wednesday in hopes of reuniting with some familiar faces.

“He was very happy to find three of his buddies in his new class,” says Ryan’s mother, Donna Bradbury.

Joining Ryan (pictured top left in the photo above) and thousands of Milford students on their first day of school Wednesday was Superintendent Elizabeth Feser.

“Things started very smoothly,” said Feser, adding that she was able to at least pop in to every school in the district.

Feser, who was hired as the head of Milford public schools in April 2011, said she saw a few anxious faces early in the morning but as the day progressed and kids got into the old routine it was business as usual.

“Kids who were new to a building were nervous,” she said. To better acclimate kindergarteners for the big step, Feser said the district invites parents and students in the summer to take a trial bus ride to the new school.

But it’s not just the youngest of Milford students who sometimes trip up on the first day. During a stop at Jonathan Law High School, Feser said Principal Francis Thompson told her many freshmen were at sixes and sevens trying to navigate the hall.

“But truthfully the kids were fine,” she said.

As to the goings-on inside the classroom, Feser said the district has been focused on implementing new teaching standards required by the state.

“We’ve been working for the last couple years to start to incorporate the Common Core State Standards,” she said. “Certainly we’re not complete with that but there is going to be some revised curriculum that will be introduced in middle and high school.”

Feser said more curriculum in such fields as social studies, world language, arts, music and even physical education, will begin to feature “common assessments” aimed at better tracking the growth of students as the year goes along.

The evaluations will be “a way to hold all kids to the same standard,” Feser said. The same assessment will span different classes on the same subject.

“In a lot of subjects we don’t have standardized tests so you have to create them internally,” said Feser, adding that the assessments coincide with the new teacher evaluation plan.

"It's something that we wanted to do anyways," said the superintendent. “Eventually we would want to have them in all classes."