The person filling that post, Waterman Elementary School Principal Jeremy Weaver, will have a big job ahead.

In January, Weaver will become the first executive director of elementary education for the division, coordinating instruction among five schools and a new one in the making.

“The needs of our school division have grown significantly,” Superintendent Scott Kizner said.

The division has more than 2,200 students from kindergarten to fourth grade enrolled this year and predicts having more than 3,000 students for those grades within three years. That’s according to estimates by the architectural firm VMDO, which the division hired to plan for a new elementary school.

Kizner said that Weaver, who has been principal of Waterman since 2010, was the perfect candidate for the new position because of his background in elementary instruction.

Before working for HCPS, Weaver was an elementary school principal and assistant principal in Waynesboro for six years.

“It’s just a great opportunity to kind of coordinate our instructional efforts between all the elementary schools,” he said.

As of Monday, Weaver is still the principal of Waterman and said he plans to help Jill Hart, assistant principal and his successor, interview candidates for her replacement.

“Being by yourself in a building of [543] students is not easy to do,” he said.

He will discuss his transition with administrators on Thursday, but in the meantime he will be moving between the division’s central office on Court Square and the school on Chicago Avenue.

As executive director of elementary education, Weaver said he will work with federal and state education accountability measures for the division. He added that he is looking forward to becoming better versed in the division’s dual-language immersion programs, which were added to kindergarten classes at Waterman this year.

Thirty-eight students in two classes spend half their class day speaking Spanish at the school, Weaver said.

Prior to creating the new position, Harrisonburg City Public Schools consolidated some central office roles, Kizner said.

The language arts and Title I coordinator positions combined into one role, while the career and technical education coordinator combined with the foreign language position. Meanwhile, Sandi Thorpe became director for special programs and no assistant director was hired, Kizner said.

Weaver will have a few years in the role before the division adds a sixth elementary education campus.

Construction on the school for as many as 750 students is expected to begin in 2017 on Garbers Church Road. The building will have an adjacent pre-K facility for up to 250 students.

“Having one person who’s kind of in charge of that many buildings is very helpful in terms of helping the division move forward,” Weaver said.

He does not expect to have a role in designing the new buildings but as their openings approach, he plans to help hire staff for the schools.

Courtesy of the Daily News Record, Dec. 16, 2104

They enthusiastically repeat descriptions of storybook creatures Pandolfi displays: caballo azul (blue horse), rana verde (green frog), gato morado (purple cat).

English is the second language for 48 percent of Waterman’s students, says Principal Jeremy Weaver. Most of the non-native English speakers here use Spanish as their first language, but some speak Kurdish, Russian and Arabic, plus a smattering of other languages. Yet after five weeks, Pandolfi – teaching almost entirely in her native Spanish — has this entire group responding confidently.

“Levántate“ (stand up), she requests, turning on a recording. Children sway to the catchy drum beat, singing with the song about colors. Later, waving as the class ends, the energetic group sings “Adiós, hasta la próxima vez” (Good-bye until next time.)

Pandolfi is the school’s resource teacher for its one-year-old Foreign Language in Elementary Schools program, meaning she sees every student in kindergarten through grade 3 for one hour every six days. “Parents know this is a great age to begin building language skills in their children,” says Jeremy Aldrich, Harrisonburg schools’ foreign language coordinator and Pandolfi’s supervisor.

Pandolfi named “best and brightest of Virginia’s beginning teachers” in 2012

As a student teacher prior to graduating in the spring of 2012, Pandolfi was cited as a Teacher of Promise, “an award given to the best and brightest of Virginia’s beginning teachers,” according to , chair at Pandolfi’s alma mater, 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ).

Pandolfi discovered early in her college career that she had a gift for teaching, under 91����Ƶ’s policy of sending its education majors into local schools as early as their fourth week of classwork. Having completed practicums (involving mostly observation with some teaching) with secondary-level students beginning her freshman year, Pandolfi first worked with elementary children the summer after her junior year. Following a fall semester’s study in her native Uruguay, she did her student teaching this spring at , with its dual-immersion program, while serving as an English as a Second Language resource person.

Pandolfi calls student teaching – in which the student, supervised, undertakes full teaching duties – her most formative 91����Ƶ education experience.

After finishing her education degree, she was hired to work in a different Spanish-language program at another elementary school, Waterman.

Reflecting on her own move from Uruguay to the United States at age 12, Pandolfi says, “My English was limited to simple words and phrases. Through my experience of learning English as a foreign language, I was exposed to good and not-so-good methods of language teaching.”

Aldrich recalls teaching Pandolfi English in middle school. “Camila is a great example of home-grown talent for ,” he says. “I have been so pleased to see her become the poised, enthusiastic teacher she is. She is a natural with students.”

Though Pandolfi’s teaching may look “natural,” she explains she is constantly refining her work, reflecting 91����Ƶ’s emphasis on developing “reflective practitioners.”

Erb explains that being such a practitioner entails reflecting on the teaching experience “to collect data, analyze the evidence, and plan for and implement change in teaching that will enhance student learning.”

Pandolfi agrees. “91����Ƶ instilled that value in me. I revise my lessons constantly. It has made me want to never be ‘at rest’ and mediocre with the lessons I teach.”

Principal Weaver – a 1995 91����Ƶ education graduate – calls Pandolfi “a phenomenal addition” to his school, adding that another recent 91����Ƶ grad, Maria J. Yoder (2011) teaches second grade.

91����Ƶ is one of only five private colleges in Virginia to be certified by the .