Bellair Elementary School opened in 1982 and has served the Bellair neighborhood and surrounding community for 38 #Extraordinary years. In August, Bellair begins a new chapter as The Traditional Academy at Bellair. Over the years, land development and economics played a vital role in changing Bellair’s enrollment -- both in size and diversity.

In this Tribute to Bellair Elementary, we take a look at Bellair Elementary School's #Extraordinary history.

Bellair is a special place. Many of our parents also attended Bellair when they were children. In addition, extended family members are a part of the fabric of Bellair. Students and their cousins attended school together. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles volunteered their time and could be seen daily on campus. During my eight years at Bellair, we re-established ourselves as “your neighborhood school” with an emphasis on building community. We became a true ohana (family).

No matter where you lived, when you came to Bellair – as a student, parent, staff member, volunteer, or even business partner – you became a member of the Bellair Family where caring and collaboration were at the core of what we did.

I am truly grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of this great community. I am proud of the staff who believed in all of our students. We accomplished a great deal. I will truly miss the families and each and every staff member.

--Principal Jackie Dettorre

We are grateful for our teacher’s patience and support with "Home Learning" as they taught students during the last quarter of the 2019-20 school year.

If you haven’t yet taken the Home Learning Survey, please do so NOW by clicking HERE!

We would like to know how we can improve Home Learning in case we need to use it again in the future. This survey will close at the end of the day on Friday, May 22.

Dr. Finch had an ambitious goal for DVUSD this year -- to implement the PLC process with dedicated release time most Fridays. Through the hard work of many stakeholders, and a little patience, we were able to accomplish this vision. The district PLC Guiding Coalition uses 2 goals to measure our work in the area of PLCs.

• 100% of both District and school based leaders can appropriately define the PLC Process, as measured by a rating of Developing or above on the Professional Learning Communities at Work™ Continuum: Implementing the PLC Process Districtwide.

• 100% of school-based leaders and teachers will be ready to implement the framework as measured by a rating of Developing or above on the Building a Collaborative Culture through High-Performing Teams rubric.

Survey results show us that 80% of school leaders and 76% of district leaders rate DVUSD as Developing or above on the first goal. School leaders and teachers were surveyed for the second goal relating to High-Performing Teams. This survey contains two parts, the first part of the survey focuses on how teams are organized, the use of protocols and processes and the positive impact the team has on student achievement. Eighty percent of school leaders and 63% of teachers rated DVUSD as Developing or above on the first part of the second goal.

The second half of the rubric focuses on collective commitments and how teams reflect on those commitments during meetings and throughout the year. Sixty-seven percent of school leaders and teachers rated DVUSD as Developing or above on this part of the second goal.

While we know there is room for growth, we want to acknowledge all of the teachers, school leaders, and district leaders who have worked hard this year to set us on the right track. We have over 50 mutli-school collaborative teams, allowing teachers to work with peers in the same content area or area of expertise.

This year, sixty Model PLC Teacher Leaders came together to strengthen their practice and build leadership capacity at the school level. In two weeks, over 200 teacher leaders will be trained in Teacher Clarity. And, the PLC Training Team Curriculum Specialists, New Teacher Mentors, and Principal Supervisors, have provided over 800 hours of support in the Collaborative Team Process. Together, we are #Extraordinary. Let’s keep moving forward as we learn and grow with one another.

Each year DVUSD creates an #Extraordinary Achievements publication with all of the amazing honors that our students, staff, and schools receive during the school year.

Submit your good news, awards, grants, recognitions, honors, etc. from the link under Quick Find on the Portal homepage or by clicking this link: Submit Good News. Make sure your deserving students and colleagues aren’t left out of this #Extraordinary publication!

Submit your Good News by May 20 to ensure your good news will make this year's publication.

Events:

May 25 – Memorial Day

May 26 - Board Meeting - You may watch the board meeting live @ 7PM or recorded by going to DVUSD on Livestream. Within 24 hours of the meeting, click here to View Agenda.

May is:

National Better Hearing and Speech Month

National Physical Fitness and Sports Month

See you August 3, 2020 for the 1st day of school!

Due to the school closures, DVUSD K-8 and Middle Schools will be celebrating 8th grade students who are promoting to 9th grade a bit differently! Each school created an inspirational video to share with students and families as we honor and recognize their unique contributions.

To commemorate the event, 8th grade students will receive their program and personalized promotion certificate. Students will receive a link to the special video presentation which can be shared with friends and family. Thank you to our #extraordinary 8th grade staff members for supporting our 8th graders over the entire year and especially during the past two months!

A sweet story from Teacher Stacy Brosius

"Our third grade students at West Wing School read a story about the Statue of Liberty this week. We talked about how the statue is a type of monument and discussed how monuments are built to honor events or people. The students were then tasked with creating a monument to honor heroes of the pandemic."

"The picture (to the right) is from one of my sweet, sweet students who is so very quiet, and she made my eyes leak! This was a lot of work for my student who is on an IEP. She is truly one of kindest students I have ever had."

We agree with Stacy's student - Our teachers are heroes of this pandemic!