Schools

Teachers and Principals Prepare to Bring Kindergartners to Sligo Middle School

Oakland Terrace's kindergarten classes will be held in Sligo Middle School for two years.

On the first day of school, kindergartners at Oakland Terrace Elementary School will walk by a banner welcoming them to school, artwork from older students and blue lockers twice their height.

For two years, Oakland Terrace's kindergartners will attend school in the lower level of Sligo Middle School to relieve some of the overcrowding at their regular elementary school, which is currently operating at double its capacity. The satellite campus, with 10 teachers and several dedicated administrative staff members, will be Oakland Terrace's temporary home until the McKenney Hills site reopens as an elementary school in 2012.

Principal Cheryl Pulliam is optimistic, even excited, for the next year, even though she'll be moving back and forth between the two locations. Janet Higgins, the new assistant school administrator for Oakland Terrace, will spend most of her time at the Sligo campus, while assistant principal Debbie Ryan and Pulliam herself will spend time at both schools.

Find out what's happening in Wheatonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The 10 kindergarten teachers are busily working to set up their classrooms before the school's open house on Thursday. Two science labs have been converted into art and music rooms, with bookshelves bolted into the lab space and rubber bumpers placed on the sharp lab table corners.

On the Friday before the open house, the hallways were filled with materials, plastic stacking bins and desks. Pulliam and Higgins were trying to figure out where to put a poster of the famed essay by Robert Fulghum, "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."

Find out what's happening in Wheatonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Pulliam said that they wished that all the materials did not come at the same time, but they would manage. The highlight of the deliveries was the arrival of 10 new Promethean interactive white boards, one for each classroom.

When the announcement was made last January that the kindergarten would be the class relocated from Oakland Terrace, parents were initially worried about how 5-year-olds would fit into the middle-school environment.

Dana Tofig, public information officer for Montgomery County Schools, said multiple options were considered, but kindergarden was chosen when principals realized there was an opportunity for the middle-schoolers to help the younger students and that the building that the kindergartners will be in has a separate entrance.

"Kids in elementary school wait to be fifth-graders, because they get certain privileges," Tofig said, adding that putting the fifth-graders at Sligo would have removed that privilege.

The Oakland Terrace satellite location at Sligo is independent of the rest of the school, but kindergartners will still use the cafeteria in the upper levels, as well as participate in fire drills and other emergency events.

"We very much want it to be two schools within the same space," said Jeff Rhodes, principal of Sligo Middle School.

Kim Schmidt, one of the kindergarten teachers, feels that she has more room this year.

"For me it's not been a difficult transition," she said. "I've been in portables; this is a piece of cake."

On the current schedule, some of the incoming kindergartners this year could attend school in three different buildings in three years: first at Sligo, then back at Oakland Terrace for first grade and then to the reopened McKenney Hills for second grade in 2012, if their address falls within the new school's boundaries.

Pulliam understands that this could be seen as a negative, but she doesn't necessarily think that students will be at a disadvantage.

"It's the instructional program that makes all the difference," she said.

A comment by Dana Tofig about the option to move fifth graders was clarified to reflect MCPS's process.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here