Welcome to Manson Park School’s website. Manson Park houses three sessions of pre-kindergarten and four classes of kindergarten. This small building offers a special experience for students and staff. We have a classroom teaching staff of 7 with several support staff and a student enrollment of 137.
 
Manson Park’s preschool program focuses on the social, emotional and academic development of the young child. We utilize the Creative Curriculum program to monitor student progress and create our lessons. Students have the opportunity to explore literacy, math, social studies and science. They have the opportunity take part in a “family style” breakfast or lunch program depending on the half-day session they attend. Students attend school on Tuesday through Friday for three hours each day. Our staff is comprised of four district personnel, two teachers and two educational technicians. The teacher student ratio of 1:8 provides staff ample time to interact individually with each student and develop language skills.

Kindergarten students have access to Title I assistance in reading and math, along with Art, Music, Physical Education, and Library. Teacher/student ratio for 2011-2012 for our kindergarten students is approximately 1:19.

The reading program follows the Ohio State University Literacy Collaborative Framework, using the research of Fountas and Pinnell and Marie Clay. Students take part in Read Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Shared Writing, Interactive Writing, Writing Workshop, and Independent Writing. We work at ensuring that students have a variety of experiences with all the different components of reading including phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Student progress in reading is monitored throughout the year with reading assessments, writing prompts, letter/sound identification assessments, Concepts About Print, and running records. Goals for students are created based on their progress. DIBELS assessments are utilized to check students’ progress against nationally-normed standards and are also used to progress monitor students.

In Math, the district has adopted the Saxon Math Program to support our curriculum. It is a researched based program, which incorporates instruction, practice and assessment to provide success for students. Students develop a deeper understanding of concepts and how to apply them. The distributed approach ensures that students gain and retain critical thinking concepts and use them in real-world situations. We are also working at enhancing math vocabulary, fluency, computation and writing. This ensures that all students have the same core learning in all classrooms.

Science and Social Studies are integrated into reading and math and is thematic based. This year we will pilot some new units at each grade level using The Science Companion from the Chicago Educational Publishing Company. These thematic units provide students with a hands-on, problem-solving approach. They are inquiry based, student centered units.
Parent/Teacher conferences are held in November. Student Led Portfolio Shares occur in April providing students the opportunity to share with their parents the progress they have made throughout the year.

The Manson Park School is a wonderful learning community that puts the children’s needs first. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the school and we will be happy to speak with you.

Respectfully, Faye Anderson