DALMATIA - The third meeting to help students transition to new building alignments in the Line Mountain School District next year was held Thursday night in the Dalmatia Elementary School.
While the first two meetings set up what the district plans to do to help build a sense of unity while the district undergoes significant changes to the elementary levels, this meeting was held to start ironing out specific details on those activities planned in the last several months.
"I'm pleased," elementary principal Jeanne Menko said following the meeting of approximately 25 teachers and parents. "People are taking, there's openness. There's a true feeling of
working together and wanting what's best for the kids."
Elementary schools in Leck Kill and Dalmatia will close at the end of the school year, and all students in grades kindergarten through fourth will be housed at Trevorton, where an addition will be constructed this spring and summer. Also as part of the $3.4 million plan, an addition will be built to the seventh- and eighth-grade wing at the junior-senior high school in Mandata, which will also then house all of the district's fifth- and sixth-grade students.
Menko instructed the volunteers to plan activities during the scheduled events that would allow parents to walk away knowing their children were provided with a valuable transition tool.
The goal is to have the students in one elementary school get to know other students in other elementary schools, and look forward to meeting that person again next year, she said.
A field day will be held May 15 at the Trevorton Foundry/Recreation Area Complex that will involve all district elementary students.
For kindergarten through first grade, there will be 12 stations that will include three-legged races, hula hoops, balloon passes, bean bag toss and other games. An estimated 40 adults would be needed to volunteer.
For second through fourth grades, there will be three stations for activities, which include relay races, tug of war, three-legged races, guessing games and a dunk tank with Menko inside, and get-to-know-each-other stations under the pavilions.
Each of these grades also have different reading goals, and Menko will volunteer to be duct-taped to the wall if each student reaches these goals.
These students will also have pen pals with other students in different schools.
The fourth-grade students will have activities that will be up to the teachers when they tour their wing of the high school.
In other business, the movie night scheduled for tonight is expected to be canceled because of the snowstorm, and moved to March 22 at Trevorton Elementary School. The Minute To Win It game scheduled for March 1 will be moved to March 8 at Trevorton.
On March 15, a movie night will be held for second- and third-graders, who will do crafts afterward. On April 4, fourth-grade students will do puzzles after their movie. Both these events will be held at Trevorton.
Additional transitional meetings will be held March 6 and April 11 at the auditorium at Trevorton.