SOUTH DEERFIELD — As the new school year begins, the town’s elementary school staff will focus on student-specific instruction as part of a few changes.
Opening day for the school was Wednesday.
According to a news release from Principal Jeanine Heil, “Last year, Deerfield elementary faculty worked with Mike Anderson, a nationally renowned educator who is supporting our work around differentiating instruction for students.”
Based on the school’s collaboration with Anderson, teachers this year will integrate new strategies, such as “using choice during instructional time with students” and “teaching the skills of self-reflection.”
The school has created a differential leadership team which has spearheaded new practices by “participating in a powerful professional development model where they have observed each other teaching lessons,” according to the news release.
From those observations, teachers have received constructive feedback which they will work to incorporate into their teaching this year.
The leadership team is not the only change in strategy — there is also a “social and emotional learning leadership team,” based on a three-tier system to help students succeed.
The news release described the first tier as including “school and classroom-wide systems of support for all students.” The second tier emotionally supports students who are struggling in school. Tier two also includes “specialized group instruction to target deficit areas.”
Students who need even more support fall under tier three, an intensive and “typically individualized system of interventions.”
The oversight team will be helping to integrate the program into curriculum using assessment tools, at each tier level.
And this the first year that Tina Gemme is serving as assistant principal of the school.