My daughter came home from school last week with a paper that sounded like Richmond Public Schools was going to try something new — plan its curriculum around its students and balance the SOL (Standards of Learning) testing with a other needs of the students. It sounded remarkably fresh. And surprisingly, it sounded like it might actually happen.

The letter wasn’t signed, which seemed sort of strange to me. And actually, the timing seemed sort of strange too. I was sort of waiting to see if Mayor Doug Wilder was going to come and veto it and say to the superintendent and the school board, “You can’t do that!” But so far, it seems no one is really talking much about The New Direction letter.

“Developing the whole person” or student sounds good to me. I’ve hated the SOL tests for a long time because they take so much freedom away from teachers and actually can suck the life out of good ones. Now that I’ve seen them work their magic (like at G.W. Carver, where my husband teaches) I’m not totally opposed to them, but certainly feel like there needs to be more balance. We don’t want all the kids walking around like zombies spouting information but not truly grasping it. We want well rounded kids who also just happen to love learning. And, I’m hoping that is what the New Direction can bring.

I’m sure like any program, there will be drawbacks, but it seems like RPS genuinely wants what is best for the kids. And, amazingly enough it looks like the school system is agile enough to change the way they’ve done things if it will make the schools better and help the kids. Currently, they are looking for input from parents.

The last public forum, looking for input from parents is this Thursday night, Nov. 28th at George Wythe High School from 6 to 8 p.m.

RPS is showing that it has moved into the 21st century. Folks who can’t attend the meeting, can do a Survey Monkey survey online at their convenience.

It looks like they are going in the right direction, emphasizing community partnerships and technology, but still, I worry that this will add yet more work on the teachers and that they won’t properly support and fund the program so the teachers and the students can be successful. Having an individualized education program for EACH student will be alot of work. I hope that they are planning on hiring lots of folks to help or make class sizes smaller so that they don’t just expect all of the already taxed teachers to do more.