Dear Parents,
Welcome to the Chagrin Falls Intermediate School web site. I hope that by navigating through this web site, you will get to know our excellent school. This web site has been thoughtfully put together by our staff and is intended to provide you with pertinent and current information about our school.
The Intermediate School houses approximately 450 students in grades four through six. We have six and seven classes at each grade level. In fourth grade, each student has two teachers for all of their academic classes. In fifth and sixth grade, each student has three teachers for their academic classes. All teachers follow the same curriculum to provide our students with consistent educational experiences and expectations. Our curriculum guides can be found on the district web site listed below.
Our students have several opportunities for learning in their specials’ block, which lasts for ninety minutes each day. In fourth grade, students can take orchestra or the recorder in addition to general music. They also have Spanish, Chinese and French for a trimester. In fifth and sixth grade, our students have the choice of band or orchestra and have to choose between French and Spanish. Additionally, fifth and sixth graders take language arts labs and study halls. Sixth graders have a separate health class, which for sixteen weeks features GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training). GREAT is taught by our local law enforcement and focuses on providing life skills to students to help them avoid using delinquent behavior and violence to solve problems (see web site below). At all grade levels students take art, physical education, library and guidance. As you can see, students in our school benefit from rich and diverse educational experiences.
Our students benefit from opportunities after school as well. Currently we offer Student Council, PAWS, Rocket Club, Young Authors, Destination Imagination and Select Choir. Our Destination Imagination teams consistently finish at the top of their competitions and this year we have three teams moving on to the State Competition! There is information about some of these clubs in this web site. We also have an after-school tutoring class for five weeks before the Achievement Tests in math and reading. This class is by invitation only.
Technology is a huge part of our school. We have two computer labs and a third wireless lab in our building. Each classroom has three to five computers. We have a combination of Macs and PC's but we are in the process of converting to all PC's. We have seven SMART Boards (featured in a picture above) across the grade levels and three document cameras. We have also been enjoying the benefits of Electronic Field Trips this year. Our fifth graders have been "traveling" to Williamsburg without ever leaving the building. Teachers utilize technology to enhance learning in many ways. We view technology as a tool to help increase student achievement.
Speaking of student achievement, we are very proud of our State Report Card (see web site below). We are rated as an excellent school and have met all of our indicators on the State Report Card. Our passing rates for each State Achievement Test are consistently in the eighties and nineties. We were honored as a "Hall of Fame School" in 2005 by the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators. This year, we found out that we are a "Live It Top Ten School" which is a national contest put on by Coke. For the past three years, we have been honored as the "Governor's Buckeye Best Healthy School" Silver Award winner by the Ohio Department of Health. We have been able to achieve so much as a result of our students, staff and parents working together.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention our Responsive Classroom Program (see web site below). Our staff has been trained in Responsive Classroom by several of our own staff who have attended a week-long summer training workshop. We start everyday with a morning meeting, which is one of six components of the program. Morning meeting lasts about twenty minutes and the class does a greeting, sharing, group activity and news and announcements everyday. This is a great way to start the day on a positive note and help to build a family type atmosphere in each classroom.
I am very proud of our school and all that it offers to our students. We have an excellent staff that works very hard at differentiating instruction to meet the individual needs of each of our students. If you have any questions, please give me a call at 440-893-7693 or email me at the address below.
Sincerely,
Charles A. Murphy, Jr., Principal
Email Address: charles.murphy@chagrinschools.org
Helpful Web Sites Mentioned Above!