Onamia elementary is gaining students and finalizing staffing

Onamia schools PreK-8 Principal Amy Herfindahl gave her report to the school board at Monday, Sept. 16 regular meeting. “We are so thrilled to have the kids back in the building, there is life and energy in the building now and it’s been a busy few weeks,” she said.

She noted that 84% of families from the K-8 class showed up to the open house they had prior to the new school year. “It was consistently busy and was a great number to see on a voluntary basis.”

Herfindahl said, “We continue to work on setting up a structure and procedure for the necessary safety drills as required by MDE.” Onamia had their first fire drill on Tuesday of last week and will try to schedule another during Fire Prevention Week in October.

Onamia’s Universal Screener for kindergarten through 6th grade is going to be the FastBridge reading and math screeners. “As of this board meeting, we have almost the entire student body screened. I am working with our Title I interventionists to determine potential goals and will bring them to our Leadership Team at their next meeting, and then present them to you all during the October meeting,” she said.

Onamia elementary’s PBIS Team is going to meet the week of the 16th. “The year has started off well with the vast majority of our students regarding behaviors. There are a few incidents that have popped up that we have reacted to, including lots of communication with adults.” She said they are working to address some learned behaviors that need reteaching, “including some of our intermediate students and their procedures moving through the school building.”

Herfindahl said class sizes have not changed much, “however we did get four new students from Nay Ay Shing today.” But with that, the elementary’s staffing hasn’t changed either. “We are still working on filling open positions.” Superintendent Vold gave the green light to offer a position to a potential candidate. She said the applicant has verbally accepted and is currently working with the administration.

Herfindahl said she is hoping to create a flexible schedule for them that includes team teaching in the 5th grade and potentially 3rd grade classrooms “to help lighten the day to day load.” This person will also assist with supervision and possibly act as a building sub, “so all students can continue to receive their specialist time.”

Vold added they also have a teacher coming over from the academy as well to fill in, “and that should help. Hopefully this will help keep current staff in their routine instead of pulling them to fill in somewhere else.”

Herfindahl concluded that she and Darla Peterson are working really hard with Deb and Melissa on tightening up some of the policies and procedures that they work with in the elementary school. “Our goal is to allow the families to have deep, authentic two way communication with us, while lessening the workload for our building teachers and staff. We’re working towards getting tools to families so they have information at their fingertips all month long.”