Shawsheen Elementary School
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| Grades 1-3 |
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| Principal: Ms. Lisa King |
| 298 Shawsheen Avenue |
| Wilmington, MA 01887 |
| 978.694.6030 |
| School Hours: 8:40 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. |
| Early Dismissal Time: 12:00 p.m. |
The Shawsheen Elementary School houses students in grades one through three. There are 18 general education classrooms and three special education classrooms. We house 3 reading specialists servicing general education students within each grade level and supporting the implementation of reader’s workshop. In addition, we have a part time general tutor who supports students who need interventions in specific areas for short periods of time. We also have 3 special education teachers who service students on Individualized Education Plans and one special education aide who works within the classrooms to support student’s inclusion times. Our 3 sub-separate classrooms service students with social/emotional disabilities, language based disabilities and students who require discrete trials and who fall on the Autism spectrum. This year we were able to follow our regular school schedule without having remote or hybrid learning. The classrooms were able to be utilized in the same manner we have in the past. We did have several specialists go into classrooms for music, art & health due to our Kindergarten students attending ¾ of the way through the year. We were very thankful that we were able to house 3 kindergarten classrooms & one program room at the Shawsheen this year due to the closing of Wildwood. We also housed many of their staff members throughout the week.
We have continued our PBIS approaches in school to display the 3 R’s of PBIS which included respect, responsibility & resilience. Students continued to earn paws for displaying one of the 3 R’s. They get a recognition paw to send home & their names get entered into a weekly raffle to earn a book for their classroom. In addition, all the specialists continue to give out stars & one class is picked weekly for the golden awards. If the class is picked they get an actual golden award to have in their room for the week & recognition. Teachers & staff went above & beyond to make sure students were making the best of some of the changes & challenges that we all faced. This year we also added through a WEF grant the bookworm vending machine. Students get one token on their birthday & can a token for going above & beyond in the 3 R’s during the school day & in the community. Guardians are welcome to send in an email & we will give a token out & it will be announced in the weekly announcements. We have had students give their birthday money to a charity or make & fill shoeboxes for Ukraine. The variety of accomplishments has made for a great connection between home & school. We have also had many fun events such as visiting author day, enrichment programs both online & in person, grade 3 student leaders continued & much more. We also continued with the Monday Morning announcement which is virtual & zoomed into each classroom on Monday mornings. It included highlights for the week, birthdays, & fun facts. It was also a time to share our positive experiences and good citizenship.
Social curriculum is also taught within the classroom and is very much connected to mindfulness. We continued on with our Safe & Supportive School Grant. This is a 10,000 dollar grant that allows for materials on responsive classrooms, which is a great morning meeting approach for students. It also included professional development for staff on inclusion & social equity. In addition, we were able to fund the author's visit, books, workshops for parents & much more. Also, this past year the staff have been trained in Panorama, a tool that has lessons & strategies for all areas of SEL & self regulation. It goes along with the survey that staff do on all students & helps the school with data to support students in a variety of ways. We are also fortunate to have a family engagement staff member who is able to work with families who need support outside of school as well as work with students in school. In addition to the safe & supportive school grant we received a grant from the Wilmington Education Foundation for a bookworm vending machine which is incorporated into our PBIS 3 R’s, community involvement & birthday books! In addition we have the MARC curriculum which is a bullying curriculum that the staff are trained in & have implemented over the past year. This will continue & includes a series of lessons developmentally appropriate for students in each grade level. This is a district curriculum so all students regardless of where they attend in Wilmington will receive the same lessons.
