Douglas Elementary

Click here for the Douglas Elementary website

The current Douglas Elementary School has eighteen general education classrooms. The building also contains a cafetorium, a gymnasium, a library, and additional rooms/offices/spaces that offer the school support services. Douglas enrolls approximately 400 students in grades K-6 in class sizes ranging from 18 to 25. We are looking forward to moving to the new Boardwalk Campus in the fall of 2022.

For more information about the new building, please click here.

We strive to create experiences that empower students to do amazing things that make a difference in the world. We meet children where they are and build skills so they become creative, innovative, and upstanding citizens of the global world. We understand that students prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates, accommodates, and nurtures their academic and individual diversity. Instruction is provided in small and large groups and on an individual basis. The collaborative faculty’s teaching methods and approaches include structured literacy programs, direct instruction, cooperative learning, team teaching, partnered cross-grade learning, active inquiry-based learning, field trips, and thematic teaching. Students apply skills, concepts, and content in exhibitions of learning.

Our reading instruction follows a structured literacy approach and includes a variety of curricula such as; Fundations (K-3), Heggerty (K-1), and Words Their Way (3-6). Literacy instruction happens in whole group, small group, and at times one on one. We have access to Read Live and we employ the SRSD writing program grades 3 - 6. For STEAM instruction we use a math program entitled Illustrative Math; science units from TERC, as well as other investigations, experiments, and nature walks. Social studies units are derived from primary sources as well as literature, textbooks, research endeavors, and community resources. We also have 1:1 devices for students k-6. Students are active and resourceful learners who immerse themselves in meaningful, engaging, and integrated curriculum work.

Art, music, and physical education collaborate with language arts, math, science, and social studies curricula. Grade level jobs include Radio Douglas, recycling, the school store, a school post office, and community service. Douglas staff spent the last year working to enhance the Douglas community by studying children’s moral development and focusing on writing instruction while fostering a respectful environment of belonging and safety for all students, staff, and parents. We have also studied and practiced Responsive Classroom, an approach to education based on the belief that integrating academic and social emotional skills creates an environment where students can do their best learning.

Douglas attracts an international population. We take every opportunity to learn from and celebrate our diversity, including our 27% global student population representing 22 different countries. Douglas practices collaborative problem solving and strives to teach children to be caring and intellectually reflective citizens; who can recognize problems both locally and globally and realize that they can affect change.

Over 200 parent volunteers are an active part of the Douglas Community. Our Parent Teacher Organization meets monthly to participate in programs and to discuss ways to support our school. The P.T.O. also organizes our cultural enrichment programs and funds our sixth grade plays produced by each class. In a typical year parents help students operate a school store, a school-wide letter writing endeavor, classroom science lessons, and nature walks. The School Council formulates our School Improvement Plan, serves as an advisory body, and is a forum to discuss the day’s issues.

We have before and after school programs run by Community Education, entitled “Douglas at Dawn/Dusk,” “The Breakfast Club,” and “Work and Play” to meet the interests and needs of our students. The Douglas community has articulated our academic, social, and personal goals for students. We have developed “expected behavioral priorities” addressing health and safety, respect, pride, responsibility and trust. Students learn about human commonalities amidst their differences. Once a month, the school assembles in a Community Meeting to discuss and reinforce our values, enjoy our talents and interests, engage in challenges that build community, and sing together.