Principals all prepared for return of students

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

FREEHOLD — Youngsters will be swapping their video games for backpacks — at least from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. School is back in session.

Freehold Intermediate School Principal Nelson Ribon said many good things happened during his first year at the school and he is looking forward to more of that as he begins his second year at the Park Avenue building.

Ribon said administrators all have the same goal — to provide a safe, enjoyable environment where children will have a many opportunities to learn.

“It has been a great learning experience for me to be here. There have been so many positive experiences,” he said, noting that one of those things has been learning about Freehold Borough from his students.

Staggered class times for the Freehold Intermediate School and the Park Avenue Elementary School, which share a campus, are on tap this year. Students in the intermediate school will begin their day a 7:55 a.m. and end it at 2:20 p.m., while Park Avenue students will start school at 8:35 a.m. and end at 3:05 p.m. Pupils at the Freehold Learning Center elementary school, Dutch Lane Road, will be in class from 8:35 a.m. to 3:05 p.m.

Intermediate school class periods, which were previously 43 to 45 minutes long, will now be 40 minutes long and will generate enough time left over to include a full seventh period to offer supplemental courses including general education, full-time basic skills, reading, math or language arts, depending on a student’s needs.

Ribon will continue to integrate character education and will add this year’s theme, “generosity,” into the school curriculum.

The new year will also see the formation of a National Junior Honor Society for pupils in grades six, seven and eight to recognize the accomplishments of outstanding students.

According to Superintendent of Schools Philip J. Meara, administrators have been pushing to cut down on out-of-school suspensions. Many parents work and cannot stay home with children who have been suspended and that concerns Meara. He said a move will be made to more in-school suspensions which will be supervised by a retired teacher.

Administrators will be taking responsibility for the before- and after-school programs.

Previously, the YMCA of Western Monmouth County was in charge of supervising children in the programs. The YMCA will continue to provide after-school care for pupils in kindergarten through third grade. Students in fourth through eighth grade will be under the supervision of school officials in the after- school program which will be funded by the 21st Century Community Leaning Center grant. Breakfast will be provided for youngsters in the before-school program.

At the Park Avenue Elementary School, Joseph Jerabek is looking forward to starting his third year as a principal in the district.

Jerabek said the before-school program which will be held from 7:15-8:15 a.m. is important, especially this year, because there are parents who have children in the intermediate and elementary schools at the Park Avenue complex and the difference in start times may disrupt their schedules. Many intermediate school students walk their younger siblings to school and the before-school program will assure that the younger children are supervised while they wait for classes to start, he explained.

Jerabek said the school is starting to offer more inclusion classes for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders.

Calling this team teaching, the principal explained that the state is asking for more inclusion programs in which classroom teachers will work with a supplemental teacher who will support children with special needs. This allows the children with special needs to remain in a classroom and not be pulled out at different points during the day.

Jerabek said a special workshop facilitated by an outside consultant from the state was held at the school in July to prepare teachers for working in an inclusion setting. Children who need specialized individual attention will still attend a resource room.

Also new this year is “breaking down” standardized test results and assessing student scores. The goal will be to decide how to use those test results to “drive” education, according to Jerabek, and to allow children to see what they need to do to improve their test scores the next time.

According to Jerabek, a new program will bring reading coach Suzy Quiles, from the Office of Early Literacy, to the Park Avenue Elementary School. Jerabek said he, literacy specialist Ronnie Dougherty and Quiles will develop ways to improve students’ reading skills and how to involve parents in the children’s reading lessons whether they are reading in English or in Spanish.

Jerabek has also put a home connection in place to encourage parents to become more involved with their children’s school assignments. A carry home bag containing take-home readers, with books on tape and a cassette player will be sent home with children to bring children and parents together in a reading project. The youngsters and their parents will go through the materials and the child will bring back what they did together.

“The key is not how many pages the child reads alone, but how many pages the child reads with the adult. This program is for students in kindergarten through fifth grade,” the principal said.

Teachers and administrators at the Freehold Learning Center will be focusing on creating more homogenous groups of students for math and language arts classes, according to Principal Dennis Levinson.

According to Liz O’Connell, director of technology and the program for gifted and talented students, in the past, gifted and talented pupils were pulled out of their regular classes for special projects. These students will now be taught their academic subjects together as a group.

O’Connell said this program will enhance the academic instruction for these students. They will still be able to participate in projects such as Future Problem Solvers, Cognetics and “Marsville.” The teachers who will be working with these children have been trained to respond to high-end thinkers, she said.

The district had 1,359 students enrolled as of last week. More students may show up on opening day, Meara said.