Tag Archives: East Kelloggsville Elementary School

School News Network: Learning their way

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Second grader Eva Cavazos plays with ‘silly monster’ during break in the SWAS classroom. (School News Network)

By Bridie Bereza
School News Network

On any given day at East Kelloggsville Elementary, you’ll find teacher Jacky Hamann and a handful of students hard at work. Eleven students split their time between the traditional classroom and Hamann’s classroom. With Hamann, they do the same work their classmates are doing, but in a space dedicated to helping them cope with behavioral challenges.

Last week, second grader Eva Cavazos took a break from her math work, modeling two step word problems, to play with “silly monster”, a finger puppet reward she chose for a job well done. Eva is not shy about telling you why she’s come to SWAS.

“I’m here to do work,” she said.

Hamann’s classroom is known as a “school within a school” or “SWAS”, and for students like Cavazos and her SWAS peers, it’s been key to staying productive — and staying in school.

Kindergartners Payton Johnson and Daimyon Watson deposit tickets for a treat. (School News Network)

Suspending the Suspensions

The concept is simple: students struggling with behavior leave their classroom and work in SWAS, just down the hall. Some go at regularly-scheduled intervals — from 15 minutes to a half day — as determined by the classroom teacher and Hamann. Others drop in as needed, to cool down and refocus. The extra attention from Hamann, who is trained in emotional and cognitive impairments and learning disabilities, has proven effective. Just ask Anastasia Taggart, whose son Cardier Rogers was in the building’s SWAS room as a third-grader last spring.

Prior to the SWAS program, Taggart had been called so frequently to pick up Cardier from school that she lost her job. 

“We had to try something because he was getting kicked out of school all the time,” said Taggart.

Cardier was among the building’s first SWAS students when it started in the spring of 2018. It was a rough start, said Taggart, as students with behavioral challenges converged in one space. But the district worked with Taggart and Cardier to identify challenges, implement a 504 plan and strategically time his SWAS visits for the most impact — like during math, which had been a struggle for Cardier. He thought some of his classmates made fun of him for that reason.

Kindergartner Daimyon Watson does his math work. (School News Network)

In SWAS, Cardier’s suspensions plummeted. Math became his favorite subject.

“I made the right choices. It’s helped me to be here…and I got better at math,” he said. “It’s fun in here. I get to do a lot of math and now I know division and multiplication.”

One year after Cardier started SWAS, Taggart said she was able to go to her job without fearing the dreaded phone call from the office.

“Sending a kid home, especially at this age, does nothing – studies have shown suspensions really don’t do much good,” said Hamann. “It’s better to have them here, having conversations. Behavior is not a road you take alone. We are a team – I work with our behavior specialist, the classroom teacher, the principal, and the parents.”

Daimyon Watson answers the questions of the day in the SWAS classroom. (School News Network)

A Careful Process

Implementing SWAS is methodical. Before opening her classroom to students, Hamann spends a few weeks observing classrooms, gathering data, and determining which students can most benefit from her classroom.

“They identify themselves fairly quickly,” said Hamann, who shares her observations with classroom teachers. “Their behaviors are crying out for help in some way. It’s our job to figure out how.”

Students can exit SWAS as maturity increases and behaviors improve.

“This is a chance to remove them from where they’re being escalated and give them a chance to get their work done, get a break from classroom triggers, and keep them here at school,” said Beth Travis, who implemented the SWAS room as principal at East Kelloggsville. (Travis helped roll out the middle school SWAS program as assistant principal there, and has returned to the middle school as principal this year.)

Besides East Kelloggsville, SWAS rooms exist at Southeast Elementary and Kelloggsville Middle School.

For more stories on area schools, visit the School News Network website, schoolnewsnetwork.org.

Teacher Jacky Hamann reads to kindergartner Daimyon Watson and second graders Johuan Howland and Eva Cavazos. (School News Network)

School News Network: On fire for choir in Kelloggsville

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By Bridie Bereza
School News Network


“30…29…28…27…26…”

Susan Berce counted down as a group of 38 eager third-graders at East Kelloggsville Elementary scrambled to pitch their trash after lunch. While other students were heading to recess, this group stayed put and returned to their seats in this music room, where they eat lunch every Tuesday as members of the school’s newly formed choir.

Kimberly Mercado-Rodriguez, front, and Madison Kowtko raise their voices

They got into the rhythm with a little body percussion: Boom snap clap, ba-boom snap clap. Boom snap clap…Then they pulled out their sheet music and Berce accompanied and directed them through “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“These kids can sing and they love to sing,” said Berce, who teaches kindergarten through third grade music at East and West Kelloggsville elementary schools. She recently began extracurricular choirs at both schools. Participation is voluntary, and choir members need parental permission to join. Each student signed a contract commiting to sing during one lunch and one recess every week.

Jonathan Jimenez sings his heart as choirmates Lyla Salgado and Han Pham concentrate on their parts

A Little Time, a Big Vision

Elementary school choir has long been a vision for Berce, who has spent her career in Kelloggsville. In the six years she has taught music, Berce hasn’t had time in her schedule to direct a choir until this year, when burgeoning enrollment allowed the district to add more staff. When asked what she might do with the little extra time in her day, she said she did not hesitate: she wanted to start a choir. Students didn’t hesitate, either: more than half of the roughly 70 third-graders at East Kelloggsville joined.

So why do it at lunch? Many districts with thriving choirs meet after school, but that wasn’t realistic for Berce if she wanted participants.

“(Parents) work hard, they have jobs that they have to be at — we don’t have that flexibility to keep kids after school,” said Berce. “Lunch seemed the obvious choice.

If the excitement on their faces and the passion in their voices are any indication, that choice is working out well.

“I prefer to sing than go outside and play,” said Kiana Chenh, who says she has been singing since she was 4. While she’s a little shy about solos, she has found her niche in choir: “I like to sing in a big group.”

For more local school news, visit schoolnewnsnetwork.org.

Choir members Brooklinh Tran, Laila White, and Lilyana Cano watch their director and teacher Susan Berce, for queues. 

School News Network: East Kelloggsville students practicing leadership on the playground

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Seventh-grader Malia Fields gets ready to play with first-graders Jayla Robertson and De’asia Church

By Erin Albanese

School News Network

 

When seventh-graders Malia Fields and Emily Monterrosas arrive at the East Kelloggsville Elementary School playground, there are instant hugs as first-graders Jayla Robertson and De’asia Church fling themselves into the older girls’ arms.

 

There’s just something cool about having middle-schoolers make the short trek from the adjacent schoolyard to lead recess games and serve as positive role models for kindergarten through third-grade students. Moments after the students, who are enrolled in Teen Leadership classes, arrive, games like “Duck, Duck, Goose,” “Spider in the Web” and “Red Light, Green Light” are on full display; pick-up basketball and soccer games begin, and the swings are in, well, full swing.

 

This school year, the sixth-through-eighth graders are using the skills they learn in the semester-long leadership class and paying them forward  helping out at the elementary school twice weekly to reinforce good behavior.

 

Seventh-grader De’nairo Paul leads elementary students to the fun

“We noticed on the playground we had an increase in some negative and mean behavior, and so what we wanted to do was have some older students come over and promote positive play,” said interim East Kelloggsville Principal Beth Travis, explaining that the leadership students seemed like the perfect fit. “It gives a chance for Teen Leadership kids to help other students problem-solve and be mentors.”

 

Malia said it’s been fun getting to know the elementary students. “I like being here with them because they are so energetic and fun to be around. They look up to us.”

 

For Emily, it’s been a two-way lesson in learning from peers of a different age. “These kids teach me that there’s more than just school or work in life. We can all have fun, make friends and be nice to each other.”

 

Third-grader Carissa Hulbert said the older students are helpful and teach good behavior. “When someone falls, they pick them back up,” she said. And if someone misbehaves? “They say, ‘no, we don’t do that.’”

 

Serving as Leaders in the Community, Right Next Door

Seventh-grader Makylah Powers gives kindergartner Eva Cavasos, her sister, a big hug

 

Teachers Kelly Hammontree and Keith Caterino teach Teen Leadership, which uses a curriculum developed by Flippen Group, creator of Capturing Kids’ Hearts.

 

Focuses for sixth- and seventh-graders are developing lifelong skills such as shaking hands, making eye contact, public speaking and being aware of body language. Eighth-graders concentrate on choices and reacting in uncomfortable situations concerning drugs and alcohol and relationships. Discussion centers on how choices, both positive and negative, impact one’s entire life, Caterino said.

 

Both classes also have a service-learning component, running the school’s recycling program.

 

Hammontree and Caterino see their students’ leadership skills come to life on the playground, where teaching positive play has given teens a sense of the power of mentorship.

 

“The elementary kids look up to them and get so excited to see them,” Hammontree said.

 

While learning about leadership, they are serving as leaders and hopefully inspiring younger peers to become them too.

 

“Ultimately, the goal is to pass it on,” Caterino said.

Seventh-grader De’nairo Paul gives directions for “Duck, Duck, Goose”