The Delaware City Schools Board of Education heard a presentation about Schultz Elementary School and approved staffing changes during its meeting Monday.
Schultz Elementary School Principal Travis Woodworth, Assistant Principal Mary Krell, and the school’s fifth grade social media team spoke during the meeting about building leadership roles at Schultz.
“Tonight, we brought our house leaders,” Woodworth said. “Each building in the district is going through different houses to really make smaller our larger buildings, to build those relationships, and to really make sure everyone has an exciting connectedness through the buildings as they go through elementary.”
Woodworth said the fifth grade student leaders are responsible for leading kindergartners to classes and other responsibilities, and the role provides them with leadership skills.
“Being a house leader is really great, because you have these certain kids that you get to lead and they are really cute, first of all,”said Leighton Sessor, a fifth grade leader at Schultz. “I think a leader at Schultz means you can be a part of all these groups and help out, and be a leader for these little kids that don’t quite know what to do yet in Schultz. I’ve been at Schultz from kindergarten to now, and I’ve loved it.”
Woodworth said another new thing at Schultz this year is the fifth grade social media team, which has taken over the @SchultzPacers Twitter account. Woodworth said the school did a survey of students last year to see how many students are involved in social media and learned that the vast majority of students, especially older students, are engaged in several social media apps or sites.
“It was shocking and eye-opening for me,” Woodworth said. “A lot of times a harmless way to stay in touch, other times they lead to some other issues and opens us up to a lot of things that we were never opened up to at their age.”
He said a team was created among fifth graders at Schultz to document what goes on at the school by posting various news items on Twitter, after they are approved first. Woodworth said the students even get press badges that they can use to walk around the school to cover happenings and stories.
“It’s getting them to build interest in the schools,” Woodworth said. “They are taking the pictures, they are sending those out and getting their classmates involved. They are getting some of their classmates and other kids involved in what’s happening, so we can really emphasize the positive things that are happening at the school.”
Krell said the social media team also promotes literacy skills that fifth graders need.
“We’re teaching them the skills of listening, asking questions, and summarizing what they’ve learned, and putting that into a tweet we can post,” Krell said.
In other business, the board approved several staffing changes, including the resignations of Jennifer Barrett, a School-Aged-Child-Care (SACC) program assistant at Schultz; Megan Brooks, a SACC assistant site manager at Woodward Elementary School; and Victoria Young, a SACC program assistant for the district.
The board also approved the employments of Miranda Ranker, a fifth-grade ELA instructor at Schultz; Suzanne Hike, an administrative assistant at Hayes High School; and Nga Phan, a cook/cashier at Smith Elementary School.
