Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I hope everybody had a healthy and enjoyable summer. It is with much excitement and anticipation that I look forward to the beginning of school. Coolidge is a wonderful place and my staff and I look forward to working with you to help each of our students reach his or her potential.

I hope you enjoy learning about our wonderful programs and the amazing accomplishments of our students. At Coolidge School, our goal is to “Create a Caring Community” every day. 

We are a school that is committed to academic excellence and places a strong emphasis on academic rigor, differentiation, assessment, and individualized instruction. We are proud of the warm and caring environment we provide for our children. A close supportive team effort and family-like atmosphere in which our staff provides a student-centered learning environment is the main characteristic of Coolidge School.

We are proud to say that we are a Responsive Classroom School. Responsive Classroom is a schoolwide approach that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. Our teachers are committed to applying this approach to their classroom practices and our school community. We intend to help our students foster cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. This research-based approach to education is associated with greater teacher effectiveness, higher student achievement, and improved school climate. Our teachers build competencies in four interrelated areas: engaging academics, effective management, positive community, and developmentally appropriate teaching. Daily Morning Meetings and monthly school-wide meetings help us grow as a learning community and build connections with each other.

Teachers, recognizing community demands for a high priority on excellence, provide an atmosphere for excellence in teaching and learning. They regularly participate in strong in-service programs to improve instructional skills in the areas of technology integration, language arts, inquiry-based math instruction, differentiation, bullying prevention, social-emotional learning, and much more. Our instructional coach regularly works with teachers to provide modeling and professional development, as well as to plan instructional approaches to meet the needs of all learners. Most importantly, however, Coolidge School teachers truly care about the academic and social well-being of their students, and make learning meaningful, engaging, and challenging.

There is a wide range of technology available for all students throughout our school. Computers in each classroom provide a variety of multimedia technology. Teachers consistently infuse technology into their daily lessons using Chromebooks, tablets/iPads, document cameras, Google Chromecasts, flat-screen TVs, and Promethean Boards to implement interactive lessons for their students. Students in grades 1-5 are given a Chromebook as part of our 1:1 initiative and each has their own Google Docs account to regularly collaborate and share. Students are provided opportunities to be creators, innovators, and designers. We believe this approach will prepare our students for future learning and the workplace. It is our goal to provide our 21st-century learners with the tools needed to be successful in their lives.

Outstanding parental involvement in our PTO allows us to present many programs and events in our school. We use the money raised by the PTO for cultural assemblies, field trips, science and art days, technology, media equipment, and campus beautification.

I look forward to our continued work together and collaboration.

Sincerely,

Robert Famularo, Ed. M., Principal

rfamularo@wyckoffschools.org

@wpscoolidge