Polson students return to reconfigured schools

By Ethan Smith

Leader Staff

"Ready or not, here I come!"

While that phrase is often heard on the playground during a game of hide-and-seek, it's also been the motivation behind lots of long hours Polson elementary teachers and staff have put in over the past month to prepare for all-day kindergarten and an overall reorganization taking place at both schools.

Earlier this summer, Polson board members voted to reconfigure both Linderman and Cherry Valley, with kindergarten and first grade being held at Cherry Valley, and the older elementary students now attending Linderman. The idea was to synchronize the learning environment at both schools so that staff at each one could specialize in more defined age groups.

Not only has that meant shuffling the curriculums a little — including developing an all-day kindergarten curriculum — but it's also meant some physical changes at each school, including revamping classrooms for new age groups and aligning resources such as library books, chairs and desks for each respective building. And that meant a lot of hard work in August for staffs at both schools. While all teachers spend much of August preparing their classrooms for the new year, this year's schedule was a lot more hectic, given the changes they had to make, both principals said.

"We had to completely outfit two kindergarten classrooms because we were adding them, but we also had to look at the curriculum. Because we used to have a primary classroom, combining first and second grades, we had to redevelop a first-grade curriculum, in addition to developing a full-time kindergarten curriculum," Cherry Valley principal Elaine Meeks said.

But, after several weeks of hard work, school administrators say they're ready, and they welcomed their students on Tuesday for the start of a new year, and in many cases, a new school for many of them. At Cherry Valley, about 75 percent of the students are new to the school, while at Linderman, about 50 percent are new, due to the switches taking place in the grades taught at each school.

Both Linderman and Cherry Valley underwent physical changes to accommodate the new set-up.

"We had to rearrange some storage areas because we need that room for classroom space, and we moved the modular building outside of Cherry Valley to Linderman to help us with spacing issues, too," Linderman principal Steve York said. "We also had to move our computer lab, but those were the major structural changes."

Although classrooms were shifted, it was the "little things" that took up most of the time. Dozens of chairs and desks had to be switched between each school, to fit bigger and smaller students, as well as library books, curriculum books and other teaching materials.

"We had to move a lot of in-class materials from Linderman to Cherry Valley and vice versa. That's quite a process to get packing and set up, and it took teachers on average three or four days to pack and then unpack all their materials," York said.

"We had to do a lot of shifting, with smaller chairs coming over here (to Cherry Valley) and larger ones going to Linderman, and we had to send all our teaching materials for grades 2-4 over there," Meeks noted.

The custodial staff at both schools were instrumental in making all this happen, both principals noted.

"It's amazing what our custodial staff did. They are remarkable. I'm proud of what the teachers did, too," York said.

In an effort to help the transition, Cherry Valley hosted an open house last week. Although normally just for kindergarten students and their parents, it was open to all parents and students this year, due to the changes taking place throughout the school, Meeks said.

"We had a huge turnout, with lots and lots of parents. We wanted to relieve the 'first day of school' anxiety for both the parents and the students, since so many were new to the school this year," she said.

Linderman staff hosted an ice cream social, as well, while Cherry Valley is hosting one next Tuesday, Sept. 11, starting at 6 p.m. Classrooms will be open for tours after families have a chance at enjoying some treats and getting to know each other.

Linderman staff will host an open house on Sept. 25 to showcase the new classrooms and other changes, York said, and everyone is welcome.

All in all, things are going smoothly, given the amount of transition, both principals said.

"Everyone pitched in, and we've worked really hard to make this transition a success. We're ready for the start of the new year, and things are looking good for the months ahead," Meeks said.