Winona Area Public SchoolsHello Ríos families -
On behalf of the Jefferson team, we hope you are having a wonderful summer! We are getting ready for the school year, and we want to share a few updates regarding the Ríos program with you.
As you may have seen in another message, we are working to finalize our class lists for the upcoming school year. We look forward to greeting all of our students and families soon. As in the past, we are committed to providing an excellent and diverse learning experience for our students in the Ríos program. It is so exciting to see how quickly students build bilingual skills within our immersion program.
We do have a few updates for this year. As we communicated last year, there will be three classroom sections in first and second grades. We’ll offer a first grade classroom, a second grade classroom and a combined first and second grade multi-age classroom as well.
Erin Siemback, an experienced Ríos teacher, will be the multi-age classroom teacher.
We are also excited to welcome two new teachers to Rios — an international duo — in David Cano Sanchez and Susana Montes Camara! David and Susana come to us from Spain where they have several years of teaching experience. Susana will be our first grade teacher, while David will teach second grade.
There are many benefits to a multi-age classroom, but we also understand there may be questions or concerns that you may have as well. Please reach out to me at jay.woller@winona.k12.mn.us or by calling 507-494-2001. We’re always happy to chat about the program.
Other members of the Ríos team at Jefferson include Elsa Prigge in kindergarten, Maria Lopez in third grade and Amanda Indra in fourth grade. In addition to our stellar teaching team, we also are fortunate to have two international Amity Interns who will support students and classrooms this year as well. Exciting stuff!
Once class lists for all sections are finalized, all families will be able to schedule a 20-minute conference with their child’s classroom teacher before the school year begins. Back to School Conferences will be held on Friday, Sept. 6 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 9 from 7:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Instructions about how to sign up for those conferences will be sent in our school-wide email next week. As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the upcoming school year.
We are looking forward to meeting and greeting all of our students and families soon!
Jay Woller
Principal
Jefferson Elementary