As parents may remember, our budding student gardeners last year were both fascinated and frustrated by our resident ground hog. They found that he seemed to be quite content to boldly roam around the back of the Lower School. Students had found his/her(?) healthy scat and signs everywhere that he or she had gotten to our vegetables just as they were ripening. Students had found both entrances to the groundhog's den, and there was speculation that there might be a father and a mother, and maybe even babies!
How might we ever raise vegetables? Of course everyone was reluctant to hurt our neighbor in any way, so the school sprang for an Havahart trap. All last spring, student tried a variety of enticements. Succulent vegetables, peanut butter, even rabbit food did not seem to do the trick.
When students returned to school this year, it was clear that the ground hog had been busy, as we had very few vegetables to harvest. So without too much hope, the students began again to set the trap. Then, on the third day of school, fourth graders Max and Donald noticed that something looked different. Sure enough, the ground hog was in the trap, and not too happy.
After several classes had had a chance to observe our prisoner and to talk about how happy they were that we might be able to harvest vegetables in the future and to worry for the safety of a relocated ground hog, especially if it were a she and she had babies, it was time for the relocation program to begin!
In the end our prisoner was released about two miles from here, in the middle of a forest, but alas, with no garden near by.
Since then, no one has spotted any groundhogs in our area. Baby squirrels, yes. Ground hogs, no - at least not yet...
First through fifth graders joined Middle and 
Upper School students and faculty last Thursday in
the main 
gym to celebrate the opening of school together. Dr. De Jarnett hosted and themed the assembly around the first three words of the school's mission statement - "As a community..." Lower School students watched pictures of themselves and students from the other two divisions in a variety of settings over the summer break. There were upper school jugglers, who introduced themselves and spoke about their varied academic and other interests. There were faculty members and students who spoke about their passions outside of school. Fourth grader Bea sang, Dwight, the school's bulldog mascot joined in, an Upper School string ensemble and the Upper School Jazz Rock group wowed the audience, all while the concept of what "community" means was explored from different perspectives. The consensus from Lower School faculty was that it was a terrific way to begin the year and everyone left with greater appreciation of our wonderful community. Our next all school assembly will be just before Thanksgiving. By then our preschool and kindergartners will attend with their fifth grade buddies.With Back-to-School nights and grade-level breakfasts completed, it is now fair to say that the Lower School is off to a very smooth start. Our colorful new hallway carpet and freshly painted classrooms set the tone for what promises to be a very good year.
Collapsing our aging computer lab into a fourth rolling cart of tablets not only enhanced our access to technology, but also allowed us to respond to an unusual number of well qualified fourth grade applicants by creating a third class of fourth graders taught by new teacher, Ronda Sowa.
Of our four new hires, three are males, Barry Ostrer (5th grade math), Zachary Linnert (first grade) and Tim Coyne (shared assistant teacher in kindergarten). We have also added a male recess aide, Mr. Faye.
We have two major academic areas of professional development that we will be concentrating on this year. In the area of language arts, we will be working for a third year with an outside consultant. After two years of focus on our vertical writing program, this year we begin similar work on the teaching of reading. Cecily Gottling, in her second year as our mathematics specialist, will continue to help us make progress developing our vertical curriculum, choosing consistent curricular materials, learning to use supplemental on-line instructional materials for grades three through five, offering after-school math enrichment programs and appropriate mathematical opportunities for our most talented math students, and coordinating closely with our Middle School teachers and curriculum.
We will also continue to use the services of Jean Schreiber as our early childhood consultant. Additionally, as is the goal for the entire school, we will have updated all of unit descriptions in all Lower School curricular areas in our on-line curriculum database by the end of school in June.
In the affective realm, the goals that the Lower School teachers set for ourselves are to be mindful of how we use our words to set expectations and define boundaries for our students, based on our shared reading of The Power of Our Words, by Paula Denton from the Northeast Foundation for Children (NEFC), the parent organization of Responsive Classroom. In Dr. Denton’s acknowledgements, she mentions that she “would like to thank Ruth Charney first of all. This book builds directly on her thinking about teacher language as she shared it in Teaching Children to Care…” Although retired from her work at the NEFC, we are very fortunate indeed to have Ruth Charney help us again this year over two days, as we work on articulating and implementing our shared expectations for our students.
