Streifer: Bristol schools good, but aiming for better

Though school officials they’re doing a good job of educating students, they’re aiming to do better.
The goal is for Bristol’s school system to be among the top third in the state, said Superintendent Philip Streifer, in as many categories as possible.
He called the current level of achievement “adequate,” but called for focusing greater attention on what’s happening in the classroom.
In talking about his goals for the coming year, Streifer said that Bristol’s educational system is improving.
He said that “the glass is 50 or 60 percent full now.”
It was “a lot less full” five or six years ago, the superintendent added.
Trend lines for student performance in math, reading, writing and science are up, Streifer said, but “there’s a lot more work to do.”
Streifer said he doesn’t expect to need a lot more money for the schools even though Bristol lags well behind most communities in the amount of spending per student.
The superintendent said he would also like to see more of Bristol’s graduates go on to college.
“We shouldn’t be locking them out of these opportunities,” Streifer said.
Last year, 81 percent of Bristol’s graduating seniors went on to pursue higher education. That’s up 3 percent from the previous year.
Streifer said he’s also aiming to build the two new kindergarten through eighth grade schools that the Board of Education proposed last year, one in Forestville and the other in the western section of the city.
The big challenges are dealing with rising numbers of children from poor families, who tend to have a harder time learning, and the shuffling around between schools that many students do when they have to move mid-year, officials said.
In addition, the standards required to meet the No Child Left Behind legislation are rising annually, making it ever harder for city schools to meet them.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com