January 16, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • Page 7 Waldwick Waldwick parents will soon be able to get up to speed on technology through the school district’s new Parent Academy, an off-shoot of the very successful Waldwick Professional Development Academy (WPDA). Three technology courses will be offered this winter/spring; each one will have an 8:30 a.m. session or a 6:30 p.m. session to enable more parents to attend. As the time approaches, parents will be notified via email, the high school blog, Twitter, and at the elementary level, in the Friday Parent folder. When Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patricia Raupers arrived in Waldwick two years ago, she found that while the district had invested in sending teachers to professional Parents to get expertise through new Parent Academy development workshops in the past and some professional development was being done in some of the schools, there was no overall, coordinated district initiative. With support from the board, she worked with the members of the Professional Development Committee to address the need for relevant, district-wide, job-embedded on-site professional development. District teachers were polled about what they needed or wanted to know more about to do their jobs well, and then the committee set about finding staff members with specific expertise in those areas who were willing to facilitate training sessions for their peers. “For example, several of the teachers have great exper- tise in using “SMART Board” technology, and they conducted training sessions for those who wanted to know more about the use of that technology; I conducted sessions in the latest research on what constitutes ‘best practices’ in education and on the topics of ‘Brain Research’ and ‘Learning Styles’ research; Mr. Carroll ran a series of sessions on the use of Google documents,” Dr. Raupers explained. “I am extremely proud of the work of the Professional Development Committee and of the faculty members who have agreed to conduct the sessions. If we get a good parent response, we will look to expand our offerings in the future,” Dr. Raupers said. Registration for the Waldwick Lacrosse Association’s spring season is under way. This competitive program is open to boys and girls in grades three through eight, and will run from April 1 through mid-June. The cost for the program is $110 and does not include equipment. Children in kindergarten through grade two are invited to participate in Fiddlestix. This instructional session Lacrosse Association registration open focuses on the basics of the game: throwing, catching, and scooping. Fiddlestix is a six-week program held on the Waldwick High School turf field. The cost is $50 and includes a stick, ball and T-shirt. Registration for LAX programs may be completed online at www.wlax.net. For more information, e-mail John Wanamaker at jonmeg@optonline.net.