Manassas Park Elementary School Holds Open House

Manassas Park Elementary was riddled with activity Wednesday evening as families roamed the halls, finding schedules and meeting with teachers. Many new students and their parents sat in the office waiting on placement tests and room assignments and a personal welcome from Principal Stacey Mamon.

While teachers, students and their parents already have many goals in place for the upcoming year,  Mamon said her main focus is getting students to be as successful as possible.

“We have an outstanding group of educators to make sure that it happens,” Mamon said.

Although Manassas Park Elementary failed to make an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year and the year before, most parents aren’t worried,  Mamon said.  “The community is very supportive,” she said. “All the conversations I’ve had within the community show support [for the school].”

Parents like Heather Gunstin, who’s son Ben will start the fourth grade on Tuesday said,  “I’m aware of the AYP ...  but look at our SOL (Standards of Learning) scores.” The scores are high, Gunstin said. 

She added that a number of other schools in local jurisdictions also  received failing grades on AYP . “No Child Left Behind is not working,” Gunstin said.  She wouldn’t transfer her students out of the school because she believes in the teachers and the quality education, she added.

“I just hope teachers get a raise this year,” Gunstin said. “[The cost of] everything else is going up, but their wages haven’t increased in three years,” she added.

Chris Omari’s excited for the new school year. His three children will be starting Kindergarten, first and third grades when school resumes. He didn’t know about the AYP scores or that parents may transfer students out of the underperforming school, but said he would definitely consider transferring his kids next year if the school didn’t do better.

Principal Mamon said she and her staff are focused on improving math and reading scores and they will offer additional assistance to students to help them improve in these subjects.

The school has additional opportunities for students that are already performing well, she said.  A brand new program at the school is the Lego League. It is a sister program to the robotics league offered at the middle school. Mamon said that this summer, 10 MPES students participated in a Lego League summer camp at the school and would act as ambassadors to the program.

“We have many successes to celebrate and we’re only getting better. It’s going to be a fantastic year,” Mamon said.

Reading specialist Jessica Hibbard is also excited about the upcoming year.  Her main goal is to get students reading at higher levels, she said.  Many come to her reading below their grade level, but with a mix of intense instruction, guided reading and small working groups she hopes to push her students to become better readers without turning them off from reading, Hibbard said.

“Every year as a teacher, my goals are to make sure that I’m able to meet the needs of my students,” Cristin Bowman, a Manassas Park special education teacher said. 

Bowman said seeing her students faces light up as they learn is one of the things she’s looking forward to the most. “Watching them get excited to learn makes me excited to teach them,” she said.