Dr. Lois DaSilva-Knapton, Superintendent of Schools
lknapton@canterburypublicschools.org
860-546-6950
Mrs. Dottie Horn, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent
dhorn@canterburypublicschools.org
860-546-6950
Superintendent’s Message
CPS Mission Statement:
In collaboration with our community, the Canterbury Public Schools will develop, foster, and cultivate all students to their highest potential, through rigorous academics within a safe, nurturing, and respectful environment.
Superintendent’s Message by Dr. Lois DaSilva-Knapton
Welcome to our newly designed web site. We hope you find it user friendly and full of information. We will strive to keep this website updated in a timely fashion and we will use this website to communicate all school events. We’ve had a very busy summer at the district level. We’ve redesigned the parking lot at the BMS to ensure more parking spaces are available for the public at the far end of the building. If you have ever accessed the tennis courts behind the school building, you’ll find they’re no longer there. Due safety concerns, we had to take them down. After two years of preparation and engineering, the solar panels at Canterbury Elementary School have been installed. We hope to start seeing a savings during the Fall of 2016.
We are nearing the end of our three-year strategic plan which runs from 2014-2017. This year, we will be reconvening the committee to review and revise our current plan and look forward another thee years. If you would like to be part of that planning, please contact my office.
Our goals this year will focus on shifting from a rules-driven school culture to a values-driven school culture and finding creative ways to combine academic success with mental well- being.
“In traditional academic settings, power flows from individuals in positions of authority, including administrators and teachers. In self-governing classrooms, the primary source of power flows from a set of values-inspired ideas.” (Bowman, 2016). Therefore, the students have more ownership of the classroom.
Shifting from a rule-oriented to a values-driven school culture requires looking for the underlying principle in existing rules. For example, the don’t-put-your-feet-on-the-furniture rule is about a positive societal value – Respect our common spaces.
Here’s an elementary school sample of Values-inspired Rules :
– One’s words and hands should help others to do the right thing, not hurt them in any way.
– Treat others with respect and respect others’ things
– Take personal responsibility for each of your actions by asking, “Is this who I am?”
– Be a promise keeper.
Bowman believes there are only three ways to get students to do the right thing in classrooms: coercion, motivation, and inspiration.
Coercion and motivation depend on external punishments and rewards, these are “expensive” in terms of teacher time and effort, and tend to be unsustainable. Inspiration, on the other hand, is “internal, intrinsic, and enduring… there is an overarching sense of the mutuality, common purpose, and collective responsibility required for deep learning”
This type of environment encourages students to be reflective learners and ask themselves, “What am I doing” and “Why am I doing this”
I am encouraging us to choose inspiration.
Once again I thank the town for working so closely with the school system. As I enter my fourth year as Superintendent in Canterbury, I’m still glad to call this my home.
***“Why School Rules Fail: Causes and Consequences” by Richard Bowman in Kappa Delta Pi Record, July-September 2016 (Vol. 52, #3, p. 100-105), available for purchase at
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00228958.2016.1191891; Bowman can be reached at rbowman@winona.edu.
Below is a ten-minute video regarding Superintendent Knapton’s Educational Adventures Abroad
You can CLICK HERE to view the video
2016-17 Canterbury Public Schools Calendar
Archived Newsletters and Correspondence
Canterbury Public Schools Town Newsletter January 2014
Canterbury Public Schools Town Newsletter August 2014
Canterbury Public Schools Town Newsletter April 2015
Canterbury Public Schools Town Newsletter January 2016
Canterbury Public Schools Town Newsletter August 2016