By Lauren Valentino, Principal
Celebrating All—Creating Community is a Botelle Elementary School theme. Our staff celebrates our students, their strengths and interests and strives to create a community of learners who soar to new heights. Teaching the children of Norfolk their ABC’s and 123’s is our focus. However, it’s also important to teach children about their larger community because there is much to celebrate: beautiful natural resources, rich history and a commitment to the arts, not to mention the gifts and talents of the people who live here.

To accomplish this, our staff set a community engagement goal to connect our students with the community and connect the community to our school. Many new traditions were born of this goal. For example, on Mountain Day, our students hike Dennis Hill, in collaboration with the Norfolk Land Trust and the HUB. Earth Day is another. Educators from Great Mountain Forest Northwestern Regional students and Norfolk Library staff visited last year, engaging students in hands-on learning activities. Our recent Veterans’ Day Assembly, a long-standing tradition, is another example of the theme, Celebrating All—Creating Community.

This year our community engagement goal is connected to our School Charter, created our students, families and staff. It identifies how we want to feel at school and says: at Botelle School, we deserve to feel…Happy, Safe, Welcomed, Confident, Excited and Loved!

Each month or so, you’ll hear from our students, as they share how the Botelle School community helps them feel the emotions expressed in our charter. At the beginning of the year, students shared what makes them happy about being back in school. This month we asked questions about feeling safe at school. Their answers build on RULER, an approach to social and emotional learning developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

RULER defines safe as “feeling protected from anything bad or scary.” In response to the questions, “Do you feel safe at school?” and “Can you think of one thing that makes you feel safe?” our students said:

* Elana H. “Yes. When you greet me in the morning.”

* Abby B. “Yes, I feel safe sharing something personal with a friend.”

* Charlie K. “Yes. My teacher is here to protect me.”

* Rowan R. “Yes. I feel safe when we practice if something goes wrong. Like an emergency.”

* Charlie T. “Yes. I feel safe when my friends are with me.”

You can learn more about our students and school by visiting the Botelle Elementary School Facebook and Instagram pages. Not a fan of social media? That’s okay! Shana Bazelmans, Botelle art teacher and Norfolk resident, made posters, featuring our students. You can see them in the library, the bank, the post office, the HUB and the Berkshire Store. 

Feeling safe at school is the foundation for learning. It’s one factor that contributed to Botelle School being named a School of Distinction by the state Department of Education. Now that’s something to celebrate!