At DECS we offer a varied, rigorous, and personalized approach in our programming that provides our students opportunities to explore and learn about a wide variety of content areas and topics.  We believe in putting the student first and teaching to the whole student.  Some highlights of our 1st through 5th grade programming at our schools are:

  • Robust Specialist Program – Students get 80 minutes of specialist classes each day.  At our elementary levels we offer:
    • Music
    • Physical Education
    • Art
    • STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math)
    • Outdoor Education
    • Spanish
    • American Sign Language
    • Choir
    • Band
  • Outdoor Education – students have the opportunity to explore and learn in the outdoors.
  • Small Group/Personalized instruction – We take the time to get to know all of our students and plan instruction to target the skills and concepts that they are needing.  Teachers work with small groups of students or 1:1 with students to deliver student focused instruction.
  • Playbased Learning – Play is a critical component of learning for our younger students.  We have time to play built into the day for our primary grade students.
  • Focus on the whole child – In addition to our academic offerings, we also use:
    • Second Step to teach our students valuable skills to help them build and develop social – emotional skills and strategies.  
    • Core Values – We focus on our 8 core values and what it means to be a person of character and how to live out these values both inside and outside of school
  • Restorative Practices – Our Restorative Practices are rooted in mutual concern, respect, and dignity.  We believe that when students feel included, feel like they belong, are a part of community, feel seen and heard, then all of our great instruction and teaching can happen.  Restorative Practices focus on:
    • Building Community/Relationships – All classrooms start their day with a morning community building circle.  This allows all students to be included and share, building relationships, connections, trust, and establishing a classroom community.
    • Repairing Harm – We teach students that mistakes happen and are a part of the learning process.  When a mistake happens and harm is caused, we believe that is a teachable moment instead of a time to punish.  We teach students to own their mistake and do the work to fix it and repair any harm that was caused; teaching students to be accountable to their community for their actions or choices.