Two senior journalism students take time from the high school to go to Salisbury Elementary School to spend a day shadowing a second grade class. This is how the elementary school has changed since we’ve been there.

“Oh, yeah, there’s definitely been a lot of changes here at SES since you, as seniors, have been in elementary school.” says Principal James Montanari.
As an Salisbury Elementary School alumni, one will remember circle time, the opening desks, running around in the field or on the ‘hot top’ during recess time, and the round tables at lunch time. And yes, those are all still things happening at SES, but so much has changed.
Starting the day as a second grader in 2018 means getting up and being ready and excited to learn. Students seem more involved in class and have much more energy than your average highschool student. This may be due to a few things such as a later school start time, more energy at a younger age or the different ways the teachers interact with the students through activities and physical interactment.
As observed, the students attention spans will be kept by doing things such as coming up to the front of the class to write an answer resulting in a ticket for a prize or learning how to spell by writing the word out in the air.
The students are able to use a cool but simple new technology being a Gel Board which uses magnets to write things down. These boards kind of mimic a basic whiteboard but is more interesting to the students. It is definitely something that was not in elementary school 10 years ago.
The elementary schools also have updated to chromebooks, which are used in highschool, but were not there in the past.
Youngs kids of course have a lot of energy, but with that comes a lot of disciplinary issues. Elementary schools are known to have kids with behavioral challenges.
“I think the culture has changed a lot positively,” says Montanari. “10 years ago, we probably had about 750 office referrals. It was out of control.”
This means that when we were in elementary school, there were about 750 different situations where a kid was being written up to go to the office a year. Now, Montanari says that there are very minimal referrals, they don’t even have to be recorded.
This drastic drop in office visits could potentially come from new systems such as the one used in Deborah Dennehy’s second grade class called the point system.
This point system is color coded into six different sections: (from highest to lowest) Role Model, Ready to Learn, Oops!, Make Better Choices, Consequences and Yikes!
Every kid has a clothespin that starts in the “Ready to Learn” section. If the kid does something above and beyond for the class, they get moved to the “Role Model” section. If they make a mistake, they go down to the “Oops!” section and will keep going down if they continue to be bad. They start getting consequences such as office visits, time-out, and the worst of call: a call to their parent or guardian.
The kids are also rewarded with things that high school students would never think would be classified as a “reward”.
“When you’re good and go above and beyond, you get to go get a smelly spot,” says second grader Tennly. “A smelly spot is when you wipe chapstick on ur hand and it smells good.”
In the beginning of the school year each kid gets classified into groups determined by the speed of their learning ability. Around the middle of the school day, the second graders get split into their respective groups.
The majority of kids who learn at a regular pace will go to the computer lab and do an activity together. The kids who learn a bit slower go with Title One teachers who will work with these students to help them better their learning at the correct pace.
“The kids seem to have trouble with their foundations in learning from what they know from at their house and with their family,” says Title One teacher, Kara Balkus. “I work with the kids on their area of need.”
Unlike how lunch is here at Triton, the kids at SES eat their lunches by being split into their grades. One of the lunch ladies at SES explains how difficult it is to only have a brief five minute period in between each lunch, causing the kitchen to be constantly moving from the time the pre-schoolers eat, until the 6th graders are finished.
“It’s a lot of work to keep up with all of the dirty trays, because we do re use-them. There are 7 different lunches a day and there is barely any time for us lunch workers to take a minute to breathe.” says lunch lady Tammy Soulther.
The school nurse is also one to deal with a lot while working in the elementary school.
“Some kids come in and it’s obvious that they are hurt, but other times kids just come in to get out of class or because they have stuff going on in their personal lives.” says nurse Terry Arsentault.
Everyday the students have specials that they attend. They are similar to what is was 10 years ago, but the library and computer special is put into one subject. With only gym, art, music, and library/computers, but with 5 days in a week the school decided to make a special called “Unified Arts”. This had to be done due to budget cuts.
“The whole grade comes and they mix together all 4 specials and do an activity combining all of the specials.” said Linda Gangemi, the SES gym teacher.
Education is different as a child, and definitely different from the way it used to be 10 years ago.
“Some days are harder than others,” says second grade teacher Deborah Dennehy.
“It’s not just a teaching job, it’s being a psychologist. You have to be a little bit of a nurse, a little bit of counselor, and a little bit of disciplinarian… sometimes they’ll even call you mom.”