Staff ready for opening bell

COUNTDOWN TO SCHOOL

By: Nick D’Amore
   Today, the halls of Deans School will be filled with the boisterous chatter and laughter of young students.
   But just two days earlier, on Tuesday, the halls were relatively quiet as a handful of teachers put the finishing touches on their classrooms. The teachers were arranging the furniture, covering the once barren walls and bulletin boards and generally doing a heavy-duty fall cleaning after a dormant summer.
   Second-grade teacher Cathy Krajcsovics said she was basically done with arranging her classroom, with only a few personalized stars to hang up. The stars have each student’s first name and a clothespin on the back to display their best work.
   "This is a working room," she said, pointing to her various bulletin boards that point out the rules of capitalization among other handy writing tips.
   Ms. Krajcsovics teaches all subjects to her second-graders and will be helped by student teacher, Dana McQuade, until December. Ms. Krajcsovics has been a teacher at Dayton/Deans for six years.
   It’s a sign of modern times that her duties in setting up the classroom now includes resetting the computers in the classroom and reloading all programs.
   "But, more traditionally, I also have to sharpen pencils," Ms. Krajcsovics said.
   Next door, fellow second-grade teacher, Christine Kaufman said she needed to get some more of her paperwork in order and organize the closets for her students.
   This summer had her doing more studying than usual, she said, because of some curriculum changes.
   "We have a new math series and a new spelling and phonics program called Words Their Way," she said.
   In addition to preparing to teach the new programs, Ms. Kaufman said she also had to do some long-range planning, mapping out the year and the science program, in particular, to get the experiments ready for her class.
   "We’re studying butterflies this year, so we had to go buy butterfly kits," she said.
   The second-grade teachers all meet with each other to "keep the students on the same track," she said.
   "We also do some things together, such as science experiments," said Ms. Kaufman.
   The second-graders also will go on a scavenger hunt to meet the three second-grade teachers.
   After two years as a third-grade teacher at Dayton School, Ms. Kaufman is beginning her third year of teaching second grade.
   One grade and floor lower, Vicki Porcelli was affixing her students’ names to birthday cakes with the month of their birthday on it.
   "It’s fun, starting fresh," she said.
   Ms. Porcelli said she spent the last two weeks working on her classroom, making name tags and getting the needed supplies and materials for the first day.
   Ms. Porcelli is also teaching first grade for the first time this year, after spending two years teaching kindergarten.
   "The other first-grade teachers have been helpful. Plus, I have about six or seven kids that I taught last year as kindergartners coming up to my class, I’ll have a rapport with them," she said.
   Second-year kindergarten teacher, Kelly Hunt, said she will be going about some things differently than in her rookie year.
   "Some things that didn’t work last year will hopefully work this year," she said. "I’m going to start things off on the right foot."
   Among her improvements this year, Ms. Hunt said she will be focusing more on her "centers."
   "The centers are the free time at the end of the day, where the kids can interact with each other in the writing, math or computer centers in the room," she said. "I want to organize it more in-depth at the start of the year."