Elementary School Home

Principal’s Message

As we close this school year in the Elementary School, we have a lot to celebrate. We continue to perform at the top of the region in State assessments, we continue to build positive classroom environments in which the focus is on student growth, and our teachers showed another year of true commitment helping to guide students toward personal and academic success.

We continue to guide our work in the district’s strategic plan. This was a plan developed by stakeholders from across the district to help set a long-term plan for district growth. One goal was to increase the amount of college and career education across the district including the elementary level. We have partnered with the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce to provide our fifth graders with lessons on how businesses work and personal finance. These lessons culminate with an experience at the Kodak Center called Biz Town in which students put to active use what they learned to help the Biz Town business meet its goals. Our fourth graders have a career day where they can choose a career path and hear from presenters who work in the field. The presenters share information about their jobs and help show students the career path to work in their roles. Our second graders and third graders this year added a career day as well in which presenters from different fields shared their roles. One unique part of this experience is that students in our BOCES Vocational programs shared their experiences as they pursued their chosen field. We continue to build a strong basis for students to be aware of opportunities in the region and set goals to aim for those careers.

We also continue to strengthen our curricula within the school focusing on meeting the guidance of the collective research known as the Science of Reading. We have strengthened our phonics and writing approach through the implementation of the UFLI program in kindergarten and first grade. This systematic approach provides students with the building blocks to decode words to read and comprehend texts and the skills to build words to effectively communicate as writers. We have seen early success in our benchmark data with the new implementation and will continue to shape our instruction to meet the latest understanding of reading acquisition.

We have continued to expand the extracurricular offerings at the elementary school to provide students with ways to enrich and extend their learning. This year our sign language club continued to help students learn the basics of sign language and provided the opportunity to sign at some whole-school events. Our science club allowed students to explore more of the experimentation side of science that solidifies the concepts that they learn in class. We even have a gaming club to allow students to build connections through playing and learning together. These opportunities extend our school day in meaningful ways providing our students with fun ways to explore topics in more depth.

This year we are working to connect the 5th and 6th grade level teachers to help build a strong bridge of connection between the grade levels that make up the transfer from the Elementary School to the Middle/ High School. We have surveyed staff and students to see what is working and look for areas that need to be strengthened. We are having conversations in and between the grade levels to encourage more consistency and similar expectations. We are also analyzing the traditions that we have in place to support students to ensure that we are taking full advantage of opportunities to help our students feel successful as they mark this milestone of transition.

While we are proud of our success as a school and district, we are fully aware that success only remains in place if we continue to work hard to help focus on strategic growth. Our district continues to shift and evolve as we learn more about how students learn and how we can help them be more successful in our classrooms. We are excited to see that our hard work is paying off in terms of student success on assessments and in terms of students who enjoy learning and view learning as an important part of their future. Thank you for your continued support of our students.

Warm regards,
Casey Whittel
Phone: 346.4000 ext. 5001  |  Email