RIS Hosts New Teacher Orientation

By susan Coney

New educators to Newtown Public Schools were welcomed by Alice Jackson and introduced to the school system with a five-day orientation held last week at Reed Intermediate School. Reed’s media center was the meeting place where the majority of the orientation took place.

The purpose of the orientation was to help the new employees gain a sense of the community, meet new people, and learn about the support systems that are in place to assist them in their new venture. Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson, who headed up the weeklong orientation, greeted the newcomers by saying, “Newtown school system is an absolute joy to work for. It is a very professional community. We are all learners in this community. If you are here as a first-year teacher you are super and did a wonderful job at the interview.”

As part of the orientation process, teachers spent time acquainting themselves with the layout of the building in which they would be teaching, meeting with mentors and principals, and receiving keys, supplies, books, and resource information. The orientation sessions also served in providing transitional support through structured workshops on subjects such as classroom management strategies, developing professional goals, conferencing skills, and an overview of the of the curriculum they would be responsible for teaching.

During the weeklong orientation, new teachers lunched with several key school leaders such as Kevin O’Sullivan, high school math teacher and president of the teacher’s union, the principals, and board members. Toward the end of the week the new teachers had the opportunity to work in their respective schools, preparing for the onset of students who will arrive all too soon on Tuesday, August 30.

New Reed Intermediate instructors Karen Schreiber and Trisha Pull said that they had both moved to the Newtown area due to relocations made by their spouses. Ms Schreiber will teach physical education at Reed. She previously taught in Wyoming and Colorado and said that she was eager to start working in such a beautiful building. “I’ve heard nothing but great things about Newtown and this new building is wonderful,” she commented.

Ms Pull agreed that Reed was certainly a wonderful facility and she too was anxious to start teaching in Newtown. Ms Pull will be a part-time music instructor at Reed. She grew up in Nebraska and has one year of previous teaching experience in the Philippines. Ms Pull and her husband moved to Connecticut so that he could attend Yale University as a law student.

As part of the orientation session Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson motivated the new teachers by encouraging them to recite cheers and chants intended to incite enthusiasm in the group. One piece of encouraging advice she related to those entering as new teachers this fall was, “If you give energy in your classroom it comes back to you through your students.”