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Guidance
Teachers and Classroom
A comprehensive Guidance program is in place at JMES. Beginning in grade 1, and progressing through grade 4, students receive instruction in many areas. From making friends, making choice and making decisions to problem-solving, conflict resolution and team building, students are exposed to strategies and skills to help them as they grow. Teacher consultation for many classroom issues is frequently used and can include strategies, behavior plans, reward plans, class lessons, individual or small group work, parent-teacher meetings and crisis management.
Students and Parents
From friendship issues to divorce or loss of a loved one. From school anxiety to separation anxiety and everything in between, Mastricola Guidance offers individual as well as small group counseling. Kids bring a friend, or a few. We have lunch or snack, build a trust to facilitate dialogue and then we get to work. Teaching kids how to be independent problem solvers is the best gift a parent can receive. Teaching kids to communicate with their parents is even better!
Parenting is the “toughest job you’ll ever love!” Sometimes it just helps to bounce ideas off of another parent. Sometimes it helps to validate that what you do is ok. Sometimes it helps to have a resource for another way of approaching things. Sometimes a resource would be helpful. Please feel free to call anytime. The guidance office can assist you as well!
Schoolwide
Our School wide Behavior Skill program and our school incentive, or “GOTCHA” is facilitated through the Guidance Office. We act as a liaison between community resources and parents, students and teachers. The Guidance office coordinates the fall statewide testing, 504 accommodation plans and Child Study team meetings. The Bus Buddy program, so popular in the fall, is an area of support implemented after parent concern for student safety arose. Lots of goings on happen in impromptu ways. Become familiar with the guidance office and see how I can assist you and your child!
Literacy Services
“Kids not only need to read a lot, but they also need lots of books they can read accurately, fluently, and with comprehension right at their fingertips.”
-Richard Allington (2006)
The Merrimack School District has established a daily 90 minute block of uninterrupted reading instruction. Each grade level at Mastricola has been assigned a daily block of time when students will be involved in direct instruction, guided practice, and independent application of reading strategies. During this block, instruction matched to student needs will be delivered individually, in small, flexible groups, or as a whole class. Teachers use a variety of reading materials to teach the curriculum goals. Students and teachers are both surprised by how quickly this block of time goes by. Research shows that when students are in classrooms where they are expected to be successful readers and writers, who read, write, and talk daily; they outperform students in classrooms where these tasks are less prevalent. Mastricola Elementary School students see themselves as readers and writers who contribute to our literacy community.Guided Work Time
Support Services
Welcome to James Mastricola Elementary School (JMES) Support Services Web Page!
Below you will find a list of support service staff and positions. A full spectrum of supports is highlighted from services for our regular education students to individualized interventions for children with academic and/or behavioral challenges.
Regular education students have an array of supports, including the following: remedial academic instruction (Title I Reading and Math), enrichment (Gateway Program), school wide classroom guidance program and behavior curriculum, social skills groups, diagnostic screenings/observations and interventions, fluency skill boosts, kindergarten instructional aides(KIA), literacy volunteers and instruction for English language learners (ESL).
Students with special needs receive individualized and small group instruction from special education teachers and paraprofessionals familiar with the grade level curriculum and student needs. Speech/language, occupational & physical therapies, and counseling are available to children who need support in those areas. JMES houses the district elementary level Program for Academic and Social Success (PASS) which supports inclusion of behaviorally challenged students in the regular education classroom.
JMES is a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Demonstration Site for the south central region of New Hampshire. The PBIS (www.pbis.org) Green, Yellow and Red school-based teams provide behavioral supports to the general, at-risk, and behaviorally challenged populations by teaching and rewarding expected behaviors.
