News from the Nest

Issue #5: September 22nd, 2023

Hello Elm Street School Families and Friends,

After a drippy dreary start to our week on Monday we finished this week strong in the sunshine! With another full week of school in our rear view mirror we are ready for a weekend to rest and reflect to come back recharged for next week.

Today (Friday 9/22) we had our first Early Release of this school year. Our Essentialists and Specialists engaged in department meetings with colleagues from across the district. Our grades 2-5 educators attended a district wide literacy meeting focused on improving instructional practices around vocabulary acquisition while our K-2 educators attended a district wide math meeting focused on launching and supporting ST Math in kindergarten through grade 2.

This week our staff meeting on Monday focused on transition conversations. Grade level teams met with each other to share strengths and strategies for students in each class helping to support building and deepening relationships to provide a solid foundation for a year filled with growth and achievement for all.

At our first PAC meeting of the school year on Thursday (9/21) we welcomed many families in person and virtually. We had an engaging evening of introductions and learning about all the incredible work our PAC does to support our community and host events and activities that are designed to foster connections. I hope everyone is able to volunteer and connect with PAC in some way this year as building community is truly a team effort!

We were certainly busy here at the Nest and are looking forward to recharging over the weekend and coming back ready for a new week of connection and growth on Monday!

Jen

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Elm Street School Open House/Curriculum Night

We are looking forward to welcoming adult caregivers to Elm Street School's Open House on Tuesday, September 26th. Our educators will be sharing curriculum expectations along with information specific to the classroom. Adult caregivers will also have time to ask general questions. Any questions specific to your child(ren) should be reserved for a more confidential setting such as upcoming educator/caregiver conferences or at a separately scheduled time.

The Open Houses/Curriculum Nights at all of the Walpole Elementary Schools are for adult caregivers only. Students, other family members, and guests should not attend. Thank you for your understanding.

Schedule:

6:00 - 6:30p Families with Last Name Beginning with A-L*

6:45 - 7:15p Families with Last Name Beginning with M-Z*

*If you have more than one child, email the teacher for an exception to the assigned times.

Spotlight: Social Emotional Learning at Elm

Developing and supporting the whole child is integral to our work here at Elm Street School. Not only do we hold high academic expectations and work to support all students in growing and achieving in this year, we also focus on nurturing students' social emotional development.

In addition to the work that our classroom educators do day in and day out to incorporate opportunities to teach explicit skills and practice those skills, our counselors visit your child(ren)'s classroom once every other week for a 30 minute SEL (Social Emotional Learning) lesson. Through the use of literature, developmentally appropriate interactive discussions & activities, students at Elm will engage in the below monthly themes and topics. We will also anchor most of our monthly school assemblies around these themes and topics.

These lessons and activities map on to the CASEL SEL Standards. CASEL (The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) is a nationally recognized nonprofit nonpartisan organization that supports educators and clinicians across the country in incorporating evidence-based SEL practices in schools.

In addition to this comprehensive information our counselors also send out a monthly newsletter that goes into further depth about the lessons and activities in each grade level that they will be leading in classrooms like the one below. I encourage everyone in the Elm community to read through these communications for additional information.

Meet the Specialists and Coaches

More Tea and Talk Times Added

This summer during the first wave of Tea and Talks, I had a chance to meet many family members of the Elm Street School community as I began my transition. As I continue to learn more about Elm and what makes it so special, I've set aside some more time at the end of this month, October, and November for anyone to drop by Elm or set up a phone call for us to connect.

You can use this online scheduling tool to book a time that works best for your schedule.

If you don't see a time that works for you, please don't hesitate to reach out to me (jbuller@walpole.k12.ma.us) to set up something outside these windows of time.