By Virginia Coleman-Prisco
Photo, of some of Botelle School’s new staffers this year (from left: Melissa Asselin, Winter Thorne-Kaunelis, Erin Dubecky, Lauren Montagna, Tyler Yelsits, Mary Krusch, Erica McCleary and Shana Bazelmans), by Virginia Coleman-Prisco

As summer winds down, Botelle Elementary School is already buzzing with activity in preparation for the new school year. The Botelle principal, Lauren Valentino, has been busy all summer filling vacant positions. In total, 10 staff members are joining Botelle, many with Norfolk connections.

Melissa Asselin, who was a substitute last year, will be the upper intermediate (grade 6) teacher. Lauren Montagna will be the early primary (grades pre-K/K) teacher. Erica McCleary will be the intermediate (grades 3/4) teacher. Norfolk resident Rene Ayers will be the nurse. A Botelle alumnus and previous summer employee, Tyler Yelsits, will be the evening custodian.

Another Botelle alumnus and a recent Eastern Connecticut State University graduate, Winter Thorne-Kaunelis, will be the physical education teacher. Edmund Livingstone will be joining the staff as an instructional assistant. Erin Dubecky will be the library/media specialist, and Mary Krusch will be the instrumental music teacher. Shana Bazelmans, a Botelle parent, will be the art teacher. Bazelmans says that she is pleased to be taking on this new role. “I’m excited to incorporate art history, local artists and different kinds of art into the classroom.”

Principal Valentino is confident in the staffing changes and is looking forward to working with staff, new and returning, this autumn. 

In addition to the new hires, Valentino and the staff have been planning new programs. The largest school-wide program being rolled out is a program from the  Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence called RULER. RULER stands for five skills of emotional intelligence: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing and regulating emotions. According to the center’s website, the RULER program “supports positive emotional climates and the development of these skills in both students and the adults in their lives. RULER begins with staff personal and professional learning, continues with classroom instruction and family engagement, and becomes embedded seamlessly into policies and practices school-wide.”

All Region 7 schools are implementing this program, and the middle and the high school are already midway through the process. Valentino and other Botelle staff have been training with other Region 7 elementary schools on introducing the program. This year, Botelle will start with three of the five skills and then incorporate the other two next year. The RULER program will give the entire school community a common language and set of skills that help to produce a connection between families and the school. To find out more, please visit ei.yale.edu/ruler. 

Another new program that will begin this year is enrichment clusters. Enrichment clusters are groups of students and teachers who share common interests and who meet together to explore those interests. The effort that students and teachers put into the cluster is focused on completing a product or delivering a service. The plan at Botelle includes professional development for staff during the beginning of the year; the eight-week clusters will start in the winter. During the autumn, students will be polled on interests and then later on specific topics. Clusters will be determined based on these topics. Examples of topics that could be explored in clusters are language, chess, rocketry, music technology and musical instruments. 

These new programs will be implemented in tandem with other new curriculum changes. The multiage and English Language Arts curricula will be expanded this year as the staff at Botelle continues the curriculum development process of writing, implementing, assessing, and revising.

Principal Valentino and the new and returning staff at Botelle are looking forward to the kids coming back to school. Although it means the summer is over, they hope the kids are looking forward to it too.