01/30/2008 - Wright Elementary School Announces Open Houses, Application Period for 2008/2009 School Year
Parents and prospective students will have opportunities next month to explore Paul T. Wright Elementary School, a partnership school of DeKalb District 428 and Northern Illinois University. Wright Elementary is a “school of choice.” Families must apply to enroll their children at Wright.
Two open houses are set for 1:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on February 12th. Wright School is at 5068 State Road 38 in Malta. Gina Greenwald, principal at Wright, and Sharon Smaldino, COE Partnership Director, will be on hand to explain the school’s unique features, assist with the application process and answer questions.
Wright students are admitted through a fair and open application process. Application forms will be available at the Education Center, 901 S. 4th Street, all district elementary schools, online and at the open houses. Completed forms will be accepted February 4-Feb. 29, with decisions to parents by the week of March 31.
For the 2008/2009 school year, the district anticipates 46 openings in Wright’s all-day kindergarten program, though many of those will be filled with siblings of current students. There is the possibility of additional openings in grades first through fifth. In the interests of keeping siblings together, district policy gives priority to applicants with siblings currently attending Wright.
NIU and the DeKalb school system formalized the partnership that created Wright in October 2003. The partnership aims to improve academic performance throughout the district with proven strategies to raise student achievement, including all-day kindergarten, integration of arts and technology across the curriculum, and instruction tailored to the learning needs of individuals.
Students at Wright come from all over the district, bringing a diverse mix of academic preparedness and ethnic backgrounds similar to the district as a whole. The school budget, teaching staff and other resources from District 428 match those of other schools in the district.
There are three major differences between Wright and other district schools – arts and technology integration, individualized instruction through the use of Sternberg’s triarchic theory, and the involvement of NIU faculty, students and staff. Wright’s pilot all-day kindergarten program has been expanded to several other district schools based on their success. NIU faculty are at Wright daily, using a dedicated classroom to teach two courses to 20 NIU student interns each semester. The NIU students spend the rest of each day working with students and teachers in the classrooms.
For education students and faculty at NIU, the partnership school is a living classroom where innovative teaching techniques can be studied and mastered. For District 428, the partnership school provides a way to “fast-track” new ideas that benefit the whole district.
“Wright is a great example of continuous learning,” Greenwald said. “Our students, the NIU interns, and our teachers are continually involved in learning new skills and taking educational risks in a safe environment. The interns provide us with the ability to work more closely with individual students, which is always a benefit, and they get a very realistic taste of the elementary setting.”
“The partnership is also a ‘win’ for NIU’s teacher education programs,” echoes NIU professor Sharon Smaldino, who directs the university’s partnerships with school systems. “The partnership enables us to provide our students with first-rate, real-world settings for clinical observations and classroom practice, and our faculty can research and develop new approaches to teacher education.”
If the number of applications to Wright exceeds the number of upcoming student vacancies, NIU will assist District 428 with an impartial lottery to help select students.
For more information on Wright, please visit www.partnershipschool.niu.edu or www.dist428.org/wright.
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