Many here at York High School know Dr. Ellen Kaschuluk, who previously held the position of Assistant Principal of YHS. While Kaschuluk may no longer work specifically at YHS, she still works within the York Schools system – just in a broader role. At the start of this school year, Kaschuluk took on a new role as Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. With this role comes exciting new projects and responsibilities pertaining to the management of curriculum throughout all York Schools. 

Planning the curriculum is a large part of Kaschuluk’s job. Curriculum development, as she explains, is important to look at through a district-wide lens. This examination of the effects of curriculum is what Kaschuluk says is her favorite part of her new position. “The most fun part about this job has definitely been learning how elementary students learn and how it all fits into this big picture of how we make sure that students are prepared for their post-secondary journey.” While she misses daily interactions with high school students and being part of the YHS building, Kaschuluk now gets to “meet so many new, amazing people and be inspired by them everyday.”

Another important part of Kaschuluk’s role is assessing student growth and making sure that students in York Schools are meeting state requirements for education. As many students may know, the State of Maine has recently stopped using the SAT as a measure of academic progress and is currently using the NWEA. Kaschuluk explains that it is difficult for the state to find accurate and efficient ways of measuring student capabilities, because “you’re trying to capture student knowledge authentically, but then you’re also trying to find relatively efficient ways to grade, report, and get that data back so that you can use it.” She explains that the switch from the SAT to the NWEA was made partly because the NWEA is an adaptive test, unlike the SAT. Even though Kaschuluk has just started her new position this year, she has already started and completed many different projects. 

One big project that Kaschuluk hopes to start in the near future is creating a video to showcase what the York School Department does. She explains that there are specific content areas that the state mandates students in Maine must cover. Kaschuluk wants to figure out a way for the meaning of those guidelines to be communicated effectively to parents and students. “I’m hopefully starting a video project where we can show a very specific strand of each content area and what it looks like over time” so that parents can see where their kids’ curriculum is coming from.

While all of us here at YHS miss having Kaschuluk in the building, her new position still has a very important role in the lives of YHS students. Through her new role, Kaschuluk is able to take a wider perspective of our education system and ensure that students throughout the district are receiving important and beneficial education.