The Connection

Chesterbrook Elementary School was scheduled to kick off the 2007-08 school year with a visit from Fairfax County Public School Superintendent Jack Dale, Ph.D. Dale on Tuesday morning.

Looking at the year ahead, Chesterbrook principal Bob Fuqua is particularly excited about the school’s Gifted and Talented (GT) program.

“For the first time in the history of Chesterbrook, we will offer the Level IV services here,” said Fuqua. “We are looking forward for this curriculum and strategies to not only support the Level IV identified students, but it will also be used to enhance — when appropriate — the general enrichment for our entire school.”

Fuqua said Chesterbrook also plans to more fully incorporate the Renzulli Learning System at the school this year.

“We began last year with this fairly new educational tool for learning and enrichment within our school day,” said Fuqua. “In August we hosted over 80 children from our school in a week-long program using the Renzulli Learning System. This program is out of the University of Connecticut, and the site license which we purchased through the support of our PTA enables us to use this Web site here at school during the year.”

Through the Renzulli Learning System, special programs such as the REACH Week Summer Camp that Chesterbrook recently hosted can be created, and students and parents can also access the site from their homes.

“We look forward to finding new ways to fully use this self interest enrichment tool within our daily activities,” said Fuqua.

This year Chesterbrook also formed its own “Language Committee,” which was created by school staff and parent volunteers interested in promoting a second language at the school. Some elementary schools, such as Kent Gardens Elementary and Great Falls Elementary, have language immersion programs, but Chesterbrook does not participate in one.

“We will apply once again for the Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools (FLES) program, however, we as a community have already identified Spanish as the language we would like to teach, and a committee was formed to work on introducing words of the day and other culture activities to further the interest of our students having command of more than one language,” said Fuqua.

This year’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) president at Chesterbrook is Elizabeth Ende.

“I am excited to be serving as the president of the Chesterbrook PTA this year,” said Ende. “It is such a terrific school.”

Back to School night will be held at Chesterbrook on Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. In addition, there will be a welcome reception for new families on Thursday, Sept. 20, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.fcps.edu/ChesterbrookES/.