Summer’s over for back-to-schoolers
Beach Elementary School will be opening its doors to another school year on Monday, Aug. 23. From first year kindergarten students to ‘seasoned’ fifth graders, students are expected to set lofty goals for a school which has recorded six consecutive “A” ratings.
Principal Larry Wood sees this year as no different.
“Our expectations are always fairly high,” said Wood. “We did very well again on the FCAT. We feel our kids are getting top quality education, and we’ll continue to give that.”
The Beach school will have an open house Thursday. Parents of kindergarten students through second grade should visit from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m., while parents of students in third, fourth and fifth grades should come from 5:15 through 6 p.m. During the first day of school, Wood said all parents of school children are invited for a free breakfast at 8 a.m. He also noted the Lee County School District is supplying a free breakfast for every child each day of the school year. School opens at 7:30 a.m.
Beach Elementary welcomes two new part-time teachers: Julie Hulslander in physical education and Holly Nichols in art. Nichols is the daughter of Judy Pizzano, who used to teach PE at the school.
While Reading was the focus last year, Writing training will be featured this year. SMILE is a writing program which uses consistent terminology for writing instruction for K-5 grades, according to Wood.
“When kids get to fourth grade and take the Writing FCAT, they should already know what they need to know,” he said. “We can continue to improve upon their skills as opposed to teaching them terminology. We’ll also focus on our new district-adopted Math series which some of our teachers have been trained to become trainers.”
The Beach school is also getting high-tech. All classes will feature Smart Board computer technologies with projectors mounted in the ceiling to be less obtrusive to the students’ view.
“The people are getting their money’s worth from the training out teachers are getting,” said Wood. “We’re utilizing the time and talents of our staff to keep improving education for our kids.”