Dear DeSales Family,

Over the last decade, education has undergone many major changes: the spiraling amount of assessments given to students of all ages, the emphasis placed on those assessments for both students and teachers, and a comprehensive realignment of curriculum under the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) to name just a few.  To better put things in perspective, the curriculum that was in place when I entered kindergarten so many years ago our current three-year-old pre-kindergarten students are surpassing within the first few months of school.  As such, DeSales has engaged in a wide-ranging internal and external analysis of our curriculum and teacher strengths to determine if we are taking full advantage of what we have to offer our families.  What we discovered is that while we offer a very strong program that helps our students to excel, with a little tweaking, we can take our programs to a completely new level. 

Simply stated, DeSales will become the premier literacy program in Western New York with literacy defined as the braiding of reading, writing, and technological citizenship together to nurture the development of students that develop a lifetime love of learning, allowing them to excel in any venue.  With that in mind, our early elementary students, pre-kindergarten through second grade, will focus on the fundamentals of reading.  When a student leaves second grade they will have a solid foundation in reading.  From there, grades three through five will progress to the next logical step, writing.  These middle/late elementary grades will help students learn to effectively express their thoughts in a wide variety of genres.  Middle school will mark the culmination of these two fundamental curricular needs together.  Students will delve into more complex fiction and non-fiction texts, comparatively analyzing them from a variety of viewpoints.  Finally, with our introduction of an increasing number of tablets into the classrooms will allow our students to become comfortable in an ever-changing technological society. 

 With these thoughts in mind, we have fine-tuned the placement of some of our teachers to take better advantage of their academic strengths.  So, for the first time, I am pleased to present our 2015 ~ 2016-faculty list. 

Pre-Kindergarten Tues/Thurs and M/W/F	Mrs. Shipley
Pre-Kindergarten Full-Day and 5 Day Half-Day	Mrs. Chase
Pre-Kindergarten Aide	Mrs. Klee
Kindergarten	Mrs. Pellicano
Kindergarten	Mrs. Rosenberg
1St Grade	Miss Agostini
1st Grade	Mrs. Webster
2nd Grade	Mrs. Robinson
2nd Grade	Miss Trombitas
3rd Grade	Mrs. Gilbert
3rd Grade	Mrs. Kraatz
4th Grade	Mrs. Caldwell
4th Grade	Mr. Granchelli
5th Grade	Mrs. Sheehan
5th Grade	Mrs. Thompson
Middle School English Language Arts	Mrs. Merrill
Middle School Math	Mrs. Fraass
Middle School Religion/ Director of Religious Education	Mr. Schuster
Middle School Science	Mr. Welt
Middle School Social Studies	Mrs. Engel
Art	Mrs. Kruse
Library/Technology	Mrs. Rahill
Music	Miss Rarick
Physical Education/Health	Mr. Wilson
AIS Literacy K-4	Mrs. Crofts
AIS Literacy 5-8	Mrs. MacClaren
AIS Math ~ Middle School Math	Mrs. Kowalski
Special Education	Mrs. Wade
School Counselor	Mrs. Badura
Spanish	TBD

 

With this exceptional line-up of very talented teachers, please join me in registering for the 2015~2016 school year. 

In His Name,
Scott