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First Week Class Rotation Helps Teachers Place Kindergartners

What started as a brainstorm in one Rockville, Md., elementary school has proven exceptionally helpful to students and teachers, and is catching on at schools throughout the region.

by Alex Samuels

Pre-K teacher Josefina Pineda teaches her students the concept of "push" by having them join hands and push back and forth in her classroom at the Dallas Independent School District elementary school Cesar Chavez Learning Center in 2013.
Credit: Robert W. Hart

What started as a brainstorm in one Rockville, Md., elementary school has proven exceptionally helpful to students and teachers, and is catching on at schools throughout the region. Rather than arbitrarily assign first-time students to kindergarten classrooms, Fallsmead Elementary has developed a system of rotation that lets teachers get to know their new charges over the course of the first week of school. (Ed Week)

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Alex Samuels’s staff photo