8 March, 2011
As a former Hopkinton elementary school teacher, I am in favor of the Fruit Street School project.
I believe strongly in the power of modeling as a teaching tool. When I first started teaching at Elmwood, the building was shared by second, third and fourth grades. One of the fourth grade teachers and I teamed up to create reading buddies. Each month, her students would visit our classroom with a book they selected to read to their 2nd grade buddy. The fourth graders worked on their reading in a safe environment while the second graders were empowered to strengthen their reading skills to be just like their 4th grade buddy. Every time the buddies visited, I got goosebumps. It was so amazing to see the 4th graders mentor their 2nd grade friend.
The curriculum for each grade depends upon lessons taught previous to the current year. With only 2 grade levels in each building, it is hard for a teacher to see where students are coming from or where they are going. Teachers can be more effective when they are not teaching their lessons in isolation, but instead being exposed to lessons of previous and future years through staff meetings and informal interactions.
I am also excited for the collaboration possibilities a k-5 model will afford teachers. Lessons and units can be better linked across the grade levels and incorporated into whole school events. More resources will also be available for teachers and their varying levels of students.
In the current model, a great deal of educational time is lost to transitions. Each time a child moves to a new school, September is spent acclimating students to the new building. It takes the teacher time to get to know the students’ learning abilities. In a neighborhood school, these transitions are minimized. Each time the students move on to a new grade in that school, their confidence builds. They are familiar with the teachers having seen them in the halls, at school meetings, recess and through "buddy" programs. The teachers are also familiar with them. This familiarity is more beneficial to the student’s education than knowing the names of all 250+ students in their grade level.
Administrators and educators will create parity among the neighborhood schools. The curriculum will be the same. The textbooks and resources used will be equitable. Each student will have access to the same technology tools. Each school will have equitable educational and community building programs such as school meeting, Wee Deliver and Hopkinton Educational Foundation programs. All of these are the benefits I would like to see every student realize in the neighborhood school model.
Erin Graziano
Valentine Road
