School Committee Springs For Lunch at OES

ORLEANS – On an in-service day for students at Orleans Elementary School last week, a table sat packed with sandwiches, salad, cookies, chips and drinks. Teachers came into the small staff room, grabbed a plate and helped themselves to the spread before them.

For the Orleans Elementary School committee, the lunch was a small token of appreciation for the great work that’s done at the school day in and day out.

In September, Orleans Elementary was recognized as one of the 66 highest performing elementary schools in the state by the Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education. Orleans made the list out of the approximately 1,700 elementary schools statewide, and was one of just three on the Cape to be recognized.

School committee members arranged, brought food and helped set up the lunch Dec. 6 in celebration of the achievement. The Land Ho!, the Beacon Room, the Corner Store and the Orleans Chamber of Commerce also chipped in by donating food for the feast.

“This is a great, great school,” said Gail Briere, who chairs the elementary school committee. “They’ve always done well.”

In its list, DESE took into account factors including schools’ Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, scores, as well as student absenteeism and graduation rates. OES achieved a “criterion-referenced target percentage” of 97 percent. The metric assesses schools’ ability to meet or exceed state education benchmarks.

OES Principal Elaine Pender said the state recognition was a surprise, and that she learned about it by email. The school also has a place on U.S. News and World Report’s list of the state’s best elementary schools.

Pender credits the recognition to her staff’s commitment to keeping the individual needs of students front and center, both in and out of the classroom.

“It was validating to see that by serving the student first and being present with the student and being responsive to their needs above all others, that that’s what wins the race,” she said prior to the lunch, which was held Dec. 6. “It’s what brings kids to where they need to be, and a lot of things in this world are kind of the opposite of that.”

For Briere, who served as the school’s principal from 1999 to 2007, the recognition was met with “a great sense of pride.” She said that student-first approach has also been a core tenet of the school’s educational philosophy.

“It’s really about ‘We want our kids to be successful,’” she said. “So we’ll do whatever we can to get them to that point.”

But it takes more than the teachers, staff and administrators to build a successful school community, Pender noted. She said Orleans residents and town officials have consistently supported the elementary school in a variety of ways. That includes a town meeting vote in 2021 to approve funding to introduce a pre-kindergarten program for the town’s future learners.

“It’s a real ‘Thank You’ to the community that we serve,” she said of the state recognition. “They’ve supported us to do what we know we need to do. Not all districts have that.”

School committee members added that there’s more to the school’s culture than its ability to meet and exceed state standards. Sassandra Roache lauded the school’s arts, music and Spanish language programs that she said further engages students beyond the school’s core subject offerings.

“All of that is making the whole child,” she said.

For Ian Mack of the school committee, OES’s successes lay an important foundation for students as they advance through the Nauset district.

“I think if you talk to the teachers at the middle school here and at the high school, they’d say that the kids coming from our school are very well prepared to excel academically and socially,” he said. “It’s wonderful to hear that feedback from the teachers at the higher level grades that our kids are really doing well.”

The demands placed on teachers and administrators are great, and they’ve only increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, Pender said. But while the state recognition is validating, she said staff and teachers aren’t about to rest on their laurels.

“This is a nice recognition, but the work doesn’t change.”

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com