Education
Tokeneke School Flag 6-14-16

Transition Time at Darien Public Schools — Not Just High School Graduation

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Across the district this week, students will participate in Moving Up, Promotion, and Graduation exercises as they move on to middle or high school, and beyond. The week kicked off Monday at Tokeneke Elementary School where 5th grade students participated in their Moving Up ceremony. The ceremony included short music performances, presentation of awards, and the opportunity for the Grade 5 class to present their class gift — a new flag for the school (pictured above). Principal Mary Michelson and Assistant Principal Kathy Schulz presided over the day’s events. “As we get ready to say goodbye to our graduates, it is time to reflect upon their lives here at school.

Education
Maker Faire Ox Ridge 4-4-16

Ox Ridge ‘Maker Faire’ Gives Kids Experiences in Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, Math

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Blending play, imagination, and creativity, staff and students at Ox Ridge Elementary School launched the school’s first Maker Faire this month. During the week-long event, the school’s 461 students rotated through a variety of stations in the school’s library that allowed them to experiment and explore. Exhibits included opportunities to make instruments, create short movies, build an electric fishing rod, drive programmable cars, use a Makey Makey programmable circuit board, and direct the school’s Sphero robots. Students from Darien High School’s Independent Projects in Engineering course ran a few of the exhibits. There were even stations to construct paper airplanes, and build with Legos and cardboard.

Education
DPS Parent Workshops logo

School District Schedules Presentations for Elementary School Parents

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Darien Public Schools has scheduled these presentations throughout the school year for elementary school parents to learn about how their children are being taught reading, writing and mathematics and how they as parents can help their kids can do better. Here’s the district’s announcement (the list of workshops is attached in the image gallery, or you can see the entire announcement here on the district website):

Would you like to learn more about what your child is working on in school? Would you like tips for talking to your child about her books? Did you ever wonder what the math practices are? The District Curriculum Leaders and elementary [school] teachers will answer these questions, and many more, during a series of literacy and mathematics focused parent workshops over the course of the school year.

Education
Oval

School Starts Monday, Aug. 31, High School Freshmen Start Friday

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Darien High School freshmen will have an orientation day on Friday, Aug. 28, and the school district says it will be ready for all the rest the town’s students when they return to classes on Monday, Aug. 31. After the first five days of school, the Labor Day weekend starts, meaning schools will be closed the following Monday (Sept. 7).

Education
Darien Public Schools

High Number of Last-Minute Resignations in Darien Schools

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Darien Public Schools, in a trend going on elsewhere in lower Fairfield County, has seen a lot of employees leaving their jobs this summer, Superintendent of Schools Dan Brenner said Tuesday. Out of about 800 employees in the town’s school district (according to the town bond prospectus published in July), Brenner said that within a few weeks 64 will be people hired by the school district since the end of the last school year. That’s 8 percent. A number of resignations have come as a surprise just at the end of summer, he said. “I have never experienced this — where we have gotten so many last-minute resignations,” Brenner told the Board of Education on Tuesday night.