Wellington Warriors dedicated to a safe school

By Submitted by
Carbon School District

Wellington Elementary has lofty goals this year, but none more important than making sure their students feel emotionally and physically safe at school.
“Each year a stakeholders survey is conducted in the spring (teachers, parents, students, etc.) and it goes over everything we do here,” said Wellington’s principal Stacy Basinger. “From the feedback, we found our students did not agree as much as we thought they would that problems get solved without fighting, or that students are free from bullying at our school. Our staff came together before school started, and we examined the procedures in our school to be sure that as a staff we have common understanding of what it all looks and sounds like and what consistent practices we have concerning safety.”
The school motto is Wellington Warriors united in Safety, Literacy, and Learning through Respect, Responsibility, and Integrity. Basinger says that the staff want students to understand what that full motto means and how it relates to them feeling safe at school.
“Do our kids know what these words really mean?” she asked. “We are trying to show our kids how to handle conflict respectfully and responsibly. They may be evaluating every little conflict as a fight. So our focus is making sure they know exactly how and why they are safe at school. We want kids to have resources to understand the situation(s) they are in, as well as how they can change or avoid a situation that is making them uncomfortable. We want them to be proud of being Wellington Warriors, and we want them to understand how they contribute to each other and our school’s success. We want them to realize that we are unique, and we are an outstanding school. Developing that sense of pride will support our character focus with our school motto, which in turn supports them in understanding they are safe.”
Academically the school’s staff has taken on a big challenge, and the students will be feeling the impact of what the teachers are doing outside the classroom, in the classroom.
“Our teachers have committed to taking an online course titled ‘How to Learn Math for Teachers and Parents.’” said Basinger. “The course has a focus on conceptual learning and mindsets as well as helping kids work through mistakes and developing perseverance. We know that through this course, we will not only improve our instructional methods, but more importantly our students’ understanding.”
“How to Learn Math for Teachers and Parents” is a professional development course offered though Stanford University. Through the course, teachers will be able to immediately implement strategies in classrooms, including the use of high quality math tasks, the best practices for assessment and grading, insights from educational leaders on motivating kids and new strategies for increasing students’ math motivation and achievement. Wellington now has a comprehensive math program in Ready Math, which gives the teachers more common tools to use with students and lets them work together collaboratively.
“We know we can better support our students learning by using the same lingo in the building, similar structures in learning activities and practices, which over time will become familiar to the students and help them build their knowledge in math,” said the principal. “The goal is to help our teachers feel more competent in their instruction.”
The elementary schools in the district have adopted a new reading basal this year. That is a challenge in getting implemented effectively. Basinger says that challenges are good, largely because of the way teachers as a whole think.
“The thing I love about our teachers is that even when they are tired and stressed, they still want to do a great job for our students. They want to know how to best meet our students needs, and they extend themselves even more,” she said.
“We are not only working hard at the school level, but also at district level in the area of collaboration too. The collaboration is another great thing because we have never had such structure and district-wide cooperation. Teachers look forward to being able to bounce ideas off of teachers at other schools and to learn from it. We are excited about where the reading program is going to go.”