While Moore has spent most of the summer getting familiar with his staff and the community, the district will also be getting to know a new elementary school principal hired this year.
Ron Widman, a former elementary school principal in Dublin for 12 years, will work with elementary school students in Mechanicsburg this year, Moore said. Widman’s family still operates a farm near Bellevue, and Moore said he should be a good fit for the district.
“He was excited to get back to serving a rural school district,” Moore said.
In the meantime, Scott Wasserman, the district’s former elementary school principal, will serve as the high school principal, Moore said.
Moore also said he has been working throughout the summer to get to know his staff and meet community members. He also spent time at the Champaign County Fair this past week, meeting with local families.
“It hasn’t been slow at all and there’s a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
However, Moore said the district is also planning to begin a reading program this year that will focus on students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The idea, he said, is to create a more intensive reading program that provides more assessments of a student’s progress throughout the year.
“We want to match students to a more appropriate book so they can become more competent and skillful readers,” Moore said.
While the district was doing well overall, Moore said reading scores have slipped recently, and ideally the program will help boost those scores.
“There’s always room to improve reading scores,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0355 or msanctis@coxohio.com.
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