From the Elementary Principal
by Elementary Principal Jill Schulz
What a crazy fourth quarter!
The staff, students, parents, and community of Spencer need to be commended for all the hard work during the fourth quarter of school this year! The support from our students, parents, grandparents, and daycare providers to partner with us so that we could still provide rich educational opportunities was fantastic! The staff at Spencer Elementary School also expanded their teaching toolbox tremendously during virtual learning. As we ran into difficulties with virtual education our teachers searched for solutions and always put the needs of their students first. We learned much about Zoom, Class Dojo, Google Classroom, SeeSaw, etc … Our teachers still managed to “meet” with their full class, small groups, and individually to work with students.
It was amazing to see what could be done virtually – art projects, music lessons, workouts, reading challenges, dress-up days, Earth Day celebrations, birthday celebrations, lunches “together”, math challenges, to name just a few. As much as we were able to accomplish during this virtual time, we missed our students so much. We are in a people business and our people were taken away. With that said, we are very thankful that we could continue to educate the young people of our community albeit from a distance.
A highlight for our entire district was our staff parade throughout our district. Our parade of cars stretched over a mile and we covered over 20 miles during the 2-hour parade. I have been in the education business for 34 years and this was one of the highlights of my career! It was great to see our kids, their parents, and community members. The signs and banners that were made by our students meant the world to us. To be able to shout out “hello” and wave at our students was the boost we all needed. A huge thank you to middle school teacher Kayleigh Rogney for organizing this event. Also, thank you to the Spencer Police Department for providing an escort and making sure we were all able to safely cross all the intersections.
We do not know what school will look like as we move toward summer and then to fall. What we do know, we will move mountains to work with the young people of our district and support our community. Their mental health and education are our number one priority.
A couple reminders: a. If you have a child that will turn 4 on or before Sept. 1, please contact our elementary office to get signed up for our 4K program.
b. If you are new to our district, please also contact our office so that we can send you our registration materials.
Stay healthy.
