Shelton High

Shelton High School was fortunate to have rolled out the Project ExcEL work before its official September 2019 date.  During our monthly meetings in March, April and May, team members gained an overview of the Project ExcEL grant work we will be doing. Participants learned about the challenges faced by ELs when a science lesson about sound was taught to them in Portuguese.  Through their experience, teachers gained valuable insight into the obstacles students encounter regularly in the classroom.   

Some strategies that were shared at the meetings include interactive word walls and flexible grouping. Technology tools such as Talking Points, Pear Deck for presentations, Quizlet, Kahoot, and TAT (Training for all Teachers, SCSU) were not only introduced as a means for student engagement, but also incorporated into the presentation to model them for the participants. Our culminating activity was a Bingo game of all the acronyms associated with the field of TESOL. Teachers are looking forward to a productive upcoming school year as they embark on their journey with Project ExcEL.

Shelton Public Schools is proud to have provided three sessions of Parent University in the 2017-2018 school year.  Established for parents of English learners enrolled in the district, the program was developed after our visit to the school district in Springdale, Arkansas in April 2017.  Springdale has a robust parent engagement program for parents of English learners, and we wanted to reproduce it in our own district.    

The Shelton Intermediate and High School students participated in a Parent University logo contest in May 2017.  Seungmin Lee, the winner of the contest, was honored at the first Parent University meeting the following November. The first session was an overview of the district and provided parents with tools to help their children at home.  Parents also registered for an account on Infinite Campus, the student information system, to help them keep track of their child’s progress in school.  Session two was held in March 2018 and covered literacy, testing strategies, and study skills.    

The highlight of Parent University was our Summer Reading Kickoff, which was held in June 2018.  Parents and children were invited to participate in various stations to encourage them to continue developing their literacy skills throughout the summer.  Our theme was based upon the state’s: Libraries Rock.  All of our literacy stations were tied to music, and the parents’ station was a Jeopardy-style game about summer slide and library basics.  At the end of the night, we held a raffle and sent the winners home with family literacy games for the younger students and book packs for the older students.