While students enjoy their last week of vacation, administrators, teachers, and other staff members at Samuel Staples Elementary School are working overtime to prepare for the 2024-25 school year. Principal Kimberly Fox Santora is overseeing preparations, including the addition of a new assistant principal, new teachers, other new staff, renovations and curricula development.
The biggest news is that when students arrive for their first day of school on Aug. 28, they will meet their new assistant principal, Christina Ulreich-Kean. Before joining Staples, Ulreich-Kean was the assistant principal at Ox Ridge Elementary School in Darien for 10 years.
“I am passionate about keeping kids healthy and safe while helping them to feel at home,” said Ulreich-Kean. She is dedicated to being approached by parents and students and ensuring parents, students and teachers recognize that they are partners in the student’s education, she said.
The hiring process included input from Fox Santora, an Easton Board of Education member, general and special education teachers, parents and main office personnel.
“One thing that impressed me was the interview process,” she said. “I found the questions that the hiring committee asked refreshing. They demonstrated care for the students.”
She has a deep background in Easton. Her grandparents lived here, and her brother attended Staples. Although she was not applying for new positions, she said her desire to relocate to the Easton area and the school’s reputation appealed to her.
Ulreich-Kean will not be the only new face that students encounter this school year. Meg Ryan will join Staples as a pre-K teacher. McKenna Stablein will be a new grade 3 teacher, and Nikki Sheehan will be a new grade 4 teacher. Susan Poisson will be the new art teacher, and Sydney Delfino will be a new special education teacher. Finally, Isabella Dolce will be a full-time music teacher. Staples is still recruiting for a part-time music teacher.
Numerous additional professionals are joining Staples along with the certified teachers. Olesya Friedman is a new speech and language pathologist, and Noel McNamara will be the school’s new psychologist. Donna Barbosa, a new junior bridge, will coordinate between the special education teachers and the general education teachers to bridge the student’s special education needs with classroom expectations.
The school building has had a few security upgrades. Cameras, access controls and gates have been added. Teachers are using and improving on their research-based programs to further develop the school’s curriculum. It is in year two of its three-year Core Knowledge Language Arts reading program for K-3. The teachers will incorporate instructional refinements this school year to enhance student engagement and increase opportunities for small-group learning, tailored to individual student needs.
Fourth- and fifth-grade teachers will pilot the new American Reading Company’s core reading program. This new reading pilot has students reading and discussing a wide variety of books in small groups. Both programs are designed to engage students in the pillars of the science of reading research.
Staples teachers are in their second year of using Exemplars, an additional problem-solving resource to support the enVision math program.
“This is a rigorous and rich collection of problem-solving tasks,” according to Fox Santora. Teachers will instruct students using the problem-solving practices they learned from “Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics,” the best-selling book by Peter Liljedahl. After reading Liljdahl’s book last year, teachers will have a full day of training in building thinking classrooms this fall.
With students and teachers having just days left to enjoy their summer, time will fly by. The first day of school is Wednesday, Aug. 28. Also, parents should mark their calendars for back-to-school night with pre-K to grade 2 on Sept. 11 and grades 3-5 on Sept. 12.
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