Plainfield School
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Principal's Page
Plainfield Elementary School Vision Statement
PES is a community school that is committed to student growth and achievement through a rigorous education that reflects the New England values of sustainability, integrity, ingenuity, collaborative spirit and stewardship of the natural environment.
Dear Students & Caregivers,
“Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We couldn’t be more excited for the 2022-23 school year! This year we will pursue a schoolwide theme chosen by the class of 2023. Last spring, our rising 8th graders met and decided the PES community should explore ways to “Connect through Kindness.” I am so proud of our students. In a world where the news seems to focus almost solely on division and the ways we as humans harm one another, our students recognize an opportunity to focus instead on what can bring us together. And they get that it starts with kindness!
Our entire school community is eager to embrace this theme throughout our curriculum and programs. Teachers are already working on ways to help students explore and live into this theme during our morning meeting and advisory programming, class projects, and schoolwide activities. I look forward to the ways our students will forge Connections through Kindness with one another and with the wider community throughout the year. We will celebrate and explore the theme as a full-school community monthly via a schoolwide assembly.
I will continue to do a weekly update letter this year and will send important reminders and updates via Alma. We will no longer publish a weekly “newsletter”. Instead, we will be posting news and upcoming events to our website - www.plainfieldschool.org - as the information becomes available. You will find the following:
“News” - for more in-depth information about programs and recognitions.
“Live Feed” - quick timely blurbs and reminders
“Events” - Upcoming events at the school.
There are also links to the school calendar, lunch information, handbooks, athletic info, bus routes, and much more. Please be sure to download the App (which can be found in the footer of the webpage) so you will get push notifications of upcoming events. Also, as we continue to learn and grow into this new website, we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to Lisa Gradijan - lgradijan@plainfieldschool.org - with any feedback or questions.
After reviewing previous goals and our progress on the District’s Strategic Plan, the PES Leadership Team identified three main focus areas to pursue for the 2022-23 school year as follows:
GOAL 1: Students in all grade levels will be more engaged in learning and in the school community as evidenced by a 75% increase in observed instances of sustained commitment (on task) and agency (students asking questions and making verbal or written remarks demonstrating a connection to and ownership of) class and co-curricular learning activities. These will be compared to the annual student, staff, and parent survey data.
FOCUS ON CULTURE & CLIMATE: Strategic Initiative 1: Foster an environment that encourages thoughtful exploration, trial, and error, tenacity, risk-taking, and reflection.
FOCUS ON GROWTH - Strategic Initiative 4: Foster a middle school environment that supports individual student self-worth, agency, confidence, and maturity.
Action Plan:
Design and conduct a building-wide self-assessment/inventory of student engagement and administer it twice annually.
Continue to engage in training opportunities and implement more practices related to Universal Design for Learning
Peer Observations will focus on feedback related to instructional practices that improve engagement
Recommit to Big Sibs and Partner Up classroom activities
Adoption of a schoolwide theme (Connected through Kindness) including monthly school-wide assemblies
Bringing back K to 4 Sing, the 6th-grade trip, and other PES traditions while exploring new opportunities.
Resume drama productions and pursue other opportunities for co-curricular engagement.
Offer additional support as well as choice and voice explorations during the newly redesigned Flex and Social Emotional Learning Blocks
GOAL 2: 100% of students will acquire critical skills and mindsets for success as evidenced by improvement on at least 50% of the Habits of Learning skills.
FOCUS ON GROWTH: Strategic Initiative 3: Develop, articulate and implement a comprehensive program to support the social-emotional growth of every student.
FOCUS ON GROWTH - Strategic Initiative 4: Foster a middle school environment that supports individual student self-worth, agency, confidence, and maturity.
Action Plan:
Use a common language - K to 8 - to guide student behavior and decision-making (Respect, Responsibility, and Safety.)
Implement updated behavior rubrics in the 5th through 8th-grade classrooms
Develop and implement an advisory program committed to both community building AND executive skills development for our pre-teen students.
Revise the Library/Tech & H3 Curricula in grades 3 to 8:
Work with classroom teachers to support critical research and technology skills
Design project-based units that help students develop mindsets and behaviors related to student success (learning about the brain; personal interest and values exploration; career and college research; etc.)
Contract with Playworks to redesign our recess protocols to improve social-emotional learning in a “play-based” environment.
Implement the “Tools of the Mind” approach using play-based instructional and classroom strategies to develop children’s self-regulation and executive function in Kindergarten.
GOAL 3: Students and staff will use data to close the Covid learning gap through a commitment to student growth that results in Plainfield School achieving the same or higher percentages of “on grade level” scores on both iReady and the SAS.
FOCUS ON GROWTH: Strategic Initiative 2: Implement a flexible instructional model that supports the academic needs of every student.
FOCUS ON GROWTH - Strategic Initiative 4: Foster a middle school environment that supports individual student self-worth, agency, confidence, and maturity.
FOCUS ON CULTURE & CLIMATE: Strategic Initiative 1: Foster an environment that encourages thoughtful exploration, trial, and error, tenacity, risk-taking, and reflection.
ACTION PLAN:
Combined Guidance - Library/Media classes focusing on helping students connect with their “why”
Student Goal Setting
Digital Portfolios
Work shared with classroom teachers/advisors (5 to 8)
Continued focus on improved feedback
Online report cards via Alma
Habits of Learning incorporated in new online report cards
Student-led conferences
A new approach to the Multi-Tiered System of Supports referral process will engage educators in collaboration to identify early supports/interventions and will engage parents as partners in the process.
Branching Minds will house data to track student progress, identify supports, document intervention plans, and track communication regarding student progress.
Availability of timely support for students who might need additional help.
Math specialist, reading specialist, and reading interventionist.
Flex Block is scheduled to serve more opportunities for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions.
Data-driven focus for team meetings
Once a month “Team Initiatives” meeting focused on innovation and developing/refining practice to help us achieve our goals. Intentionally undefined to encourage and reward trial and error (and reflection)
Once a month “Student Data PLCs” collaborate on possible strategies to support specific students.
Update the Professional Development Master Plan
Pilot a new approach to Mentoring that allows mentor and mentee teachers to learn and grow together (TeachUNITED) as they explore the TeachUNITED framework which focuses on supporting teachers to develop best practices related to fostering student Growth and Engagement through Personalization of Learning and a Focus on Student Data. These align so perfectly with our District and Strategic plan and we believe that using it as a mentoring program in the first year to two of a teacher’s Plainfield Career will help to sustain and grow our efforts in these areas.