This year, the ExcEL team at Elizabeth Shelton School has worked to roll out the welcome mat to EL’s and their families in new and different ways! From our discussions about ways in which our school as a whole can improve engagement and communication with EL families, we decided to start at the front door and work to refine how new students and families transition into our school at various times of the year from other parts of the country or other parts of the world. As a team, we created a welcome book for students showcasing the important places and faces of our school so that students can begin to familiarize themselves with their new home away from home. In addition to receiving the book, incoming students will receive a gift bag from the welcome wagon full of fun school supplies and trinkets as a way to foster a sense of belonging from day one. The team created a welcome resource book for parents as a way to communicate important information specific to our district and school. This book contains the inside “scoop" about such things as lunch payment, dress code, dismissal procedures, etc. At this time, our books are available in English and Spanish, but we aim to translate these resources into additional languages as a means to better connect to even more new families.
We wanted our building look to match our intentions. Our team members worked to diversify our surroundings as a way to welcome all people into our place of learning and for them to see themselves within and through our hallways. The team selected and purchased through grant funds a multilingual welcome banner to be displayed in the front of the building, multicultural posters to display throughout the school and multilingual classroom signage to highlight the countries and cultures represented at our school.
Our team is looking forward to strengthening the changes made this year and finding new ways to build relationships with ELs and their families as they join our school family!
We wanted our building look to match our intentions. Our team members worked to diversify our surroundings as a way to welcome all people into our place of learning and for them to see themselves within and through our hallways. The team selected and purchased through grant funds a multilingual welcome banner to be displayed in the front of the building, multicultural posters to display throughout the school and multilingual classroom signage to highlight the countries and cultures represented at our school.
Our team is looking forward to strengthening the changes made this year and finding new ways to build relationships with ELs and their families as they join our school family!
