MONROE, CT — Blaze, Monroe Elementary School’s Tiger mascot, waved to children arriving on buses for their first day of school Thursday morning, then greeted many with high fives and hugs.
“The excitement, the energy is wild the first day. The teachers are excited to have the kids in the building,” Principal Kelly Svendsen said, adding her favorite things are, “the smiles on people’s faces and the optimism of a fresh new start.”
Music played outside Stepney Elementary School, where children were welcomed by Sparky, the Dalmatian mascot.
“Our theme is ‘dancing into the new year,'” said Stepney Principal Ashley Furnari. “We’re excited to welcome everybody back. The grounds look great, which is important for a first impression with kindergarteners and new families.”
Furnari praised Director of Maintenance Dan Krofssik and his crew for the work they did outside the school over the summer.
Balloons flew at Fawn Hollow Elementary’s entrance as teachers and administrators enthusiastically greeted students coming off the buses there.
“It’s like a holiday morning,” said Assistant Principal Kim Nelly. “There’s such an excitement around the building welcoming students back. Teachers had their classrooms ready. Their lessons ready. And the only thing missing was the kids. We’re so happy to have them back to fill the missing piece.”
Superintendent Joseph Kobza said Monroe’s three elementary schools will be implementing the Bookworms program this year as a resource for English Language Arts.
“We have a group of teachers who piloted it last year,” Kobza said. “It was really good for students. We had our teachers trained on it over the summer with outside experts brought in. It’s a reading resource to help kids with their fluency skills, increase their vocabulary and comprehension.”
Michelle Vanderheyden, a second grade teacher at Monroe Elementary School, said the main differences with the program is kids will be reading the same texts and collaborating more.
“It’s much more structured,” she said. “The skills are explicitly taught. The kids are also analyzing text more. The reading has been completely restructured this year in a great way.”
“The teachers have been digging in and learning more about the program,” Svendsen said of the initiative led by Kara Tanner, her school’s ELA instructional leader. “We have four teachers in our building, who piloted the program last year.”
“Kids and adults are going to be challenged to have a growth mindset this year and persevere when things get hard,” Svendsen said. “And we’re just going to do our best for kids every day.”
Furnari said Stepney’s theme is “one-percent better every day.” This and other upbeat Stepney lyrics came from the speakers as students and families arrived.
Masuk, Jockey Hollow, STEM
Early Thursday morning, cars were already filling up Masuk High School’s student parking lot well before the buses arrived, as upperclassmen seemed eager to start the new year.
“We’re excited about a new school year,” Kobza said, while standing outside the school entrance with other educators to greet incoming students. “Here, the big change is the block schedule. We’re moving to a hybrid block schedule.”
Last year, Masuk students attended four of their eight classes for 80-minute sessions on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday one week, then on Tuesday and Wednesday the next, while their other four classes met for three days.
This year, students will attend all eight of their classes three days a week and have two days of four classes, allowing for deeper dives into subjects, hands-on projects and to work collaboratively in groups.
“This way students see their teachers more frequently,” Kobza explained.
Masuk Principal Steve Swensen said his school had a regular block schedule for the past few years, before the change.
He estimates that the hybrid block schedule will lead to a 58 percent increase in the frequency a class meets and a 10 percent increase in instructional time.
“The hope is for more continuity of instruction,” Swensen said. “We always try to do things to improve and meet kids’ needs. While kids were thriving in the block schedule, some weren’t.”
Last year, Masuk started a new smartphone policy requiring students to turn in their phones before classes. Aside from the hybrid block schedule, another change this year is to the alternative education program, which administrators will monitor to see if tweaks are needed.
“There’s always an excitement with every new school year,” Swensen said. “I don’t sleep the night before. We have another 270-plus students and other students who will be a year older.”
Future Masuk students started their new years at Jockey Hollow Middle School and STEM Academy Thursday morning.
“We had a solid start at both campuses of JHMS today,” said Principal Julia Strong. “Our fine faculty welcomed students with care, and together we got lockers working, figured out class schedules and the lunchroom, and started getting to know each other.”
One change at the middle school level is encouraging students to be more vocal in their learning, according to Kobza.
“An important part of Jockey Hollow’s positive culture is student voice,” Strong said. “We are excited this year to be offering more student-led enrichment sessions and to see how our library media center improvements further empower students to take charge of their own learning.”
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