It’s almost Christmas break for the schools in the Castle Country Area. Although the break is near, teachers, students and administrators across the Carbon School District are busier than ever. This is no different for Wellington Elementary, which is holding its annual spirit week and holiday classroom parties. To discuss this as well as reflect on the school year thus far, Principal Paulie Vogrinec stopped by the KOAL newsroom for this week’s Carbon School District update.
Starting, Vogrinec discussed the elementary’s ongoing spirit week,” Usually the week we get out for Christmas break, we try to get everybody in the Christmas spirit, so we have different activities during this week, and we have dress up days, so it’s fun to see the kids get in the Christmas spirit,” explained Vogrenic,” we’ve had green like the Grinch day, we’ve had hat day, where we saw lots of Santa hats, antler ears and stuff like that, and we have ugly sweater day and pajama day coming up so Spirit Week has been fun.”
In addition to spirit week, the different classes have had the opportunity to have a Christmas Movie Party with the Principal,” The kids have worked so hard between the beginning of the year and our middle of year. They’ve been doing a lot of midyear testing, so to reward them for doing such a great job, and working hard through all those tests, we’ve been having some Christmas movies and popcorn with the principal. The kids have got to come in, and we’ve eaten popcorn, watched a movie, and celebrated all their hard work for the first half of the school year.”
Switching gears to the academic side of things, Vogrenic walked us through what she’s been seeing at the school,” the kids are doing a great job, we just did our midyear testing, so looking at all of that. There have been a lot of really great gains with the kids. They’ve been working hard and their teachers are working hard. The teachers are using a new curriculum this year, so it’s been a learning curve for them and the kids are loving it,” stated the Principal,” The teachers are doing some activities that go along with the curriculum. We’ve had the Olympics, we’ve had mythology, and it’s been fun to see them get the kids involved with the curriculum. What, our biggest focus this year has been focusing on our math, and our state testing scores are looking good, so I’m excited we’ve been really focusing on math this year.”
Vogrenic also spoke on what the plans are heading into the second half of the school year,” I think the second half, it’s really just about looking at what information we received from our middle of year assessments, identifying some areas that we need to focus on and getting our students with those essential skills and everything that they need to move on to the next grade. That’s our biggest thing always is just getting them ready to move to the next grade and teaching them those skills and letting them learn and have a great time.”
Concluding our interview, Vogrenic left a parting message of,” We hope everybody gets to have a great holiday and stay safe and warm.”
To stay up to date with Wellington Elementary, you can follow the school on Facebook or visit their website here.