Kimmel Farm gains attention at 2012 ASCD National Conference

Kimmel Farm Elementary had a strong presence at the 2012 ASCD conference, held this past weekend in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the school's Technology Facilitator I have to say thank-you ASCD for a wonderful learning experience. Steven Anderson and I presented on the ongoing project we started at Kimmel Farm when it first opened as we talked about the need for a way to teach administrators, teachers, and students alike about the ethical and responsible use of social media. We approached that through school improvement and in collaboration with our district's school attorney, Allison Tomberlin, who graciously guided us on our way and in concert with existing school district policies.

ASCD is not a conference primarily concerned with technology, but has a history (since 1943) of helping with supervision and curriculum development. It just so happens that these two are merging more and more every day as we teach digital-age learners.

Our presentation was selected to be a featured presentation and was webcast all over the world this past Monday at 8 AM. It will be archived until September on the ASCD website for members. With hundreds of sessions to choose from over four days it was a real honor to be one of a handful of sessions to be chosen for the ASCD Virtual Conference.

Follow up articles on the ASCD website and in eSchool News were released today about our session. On April 11, WSFCS District Instructional Technologist Steven Anderson blogged about the experience on Edutopia.  Kimmel Farm truly is a wonderful place to be, and the faculty here is open-minded and progressive which makes teaching digital age learners - our students - truly a challenging but engaging experience. We all learn together - and that's what social media is all about! Logo from

Social Media - An Educator's Perspective (Produced for the ASCD 2012 National Conference) Philadelphia, PA

Our ASCD Presentation

Renzulli Fair 2012

On Thursday, February 16 Kimmel Farm hosted its first Renzulli Fair! The fair was a purely voluntary, self-directed project that students and classes got to share with friends, teachers, parents and the Kimmel Farm community and was completed by using the Renzulli Learning System, to which all our students and staff and even parents have access.
Renzulli Learning grew out of the University of Connecticut where providing a computer-generated profile of each student’s academic strengths, interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression. A search engine matches internet resources to the student’s profile by subject area, grade level, state standards, and degree of complexity. A management system called the Wizard Project Maker guides students in the application of knowledge to teacher or student selected assignments, independent research studies, or creative projects. Students can conduct a self-assessment of what they have learned.
At Kimmel Farm we believe every student is gifted and Renzulli Learning helps us identify student interests and learning styles and tailor instruction to meet each child where they can be excited about learning and successful.
Our Renzulli Fair allowed students to make video presentations, create art, create posters, perform the role of a famous person from history, and make displays about their self-chosen area of interest. At our February 16 PTA Meeting we highlighted the projects and the students who created them by allowing them a chance to share.
Take a look and see what wonderful things our students can do when they are engaged and using a learning platform that allows us to differentiate instruction like Renzulli Learning! Thanks to Mrs. Butler, one of our Renzulli Coodinators, for organizing this learning adventure.

Our Teacher and Classified Employees of the Year!

Teacher of the Year – Sonja D’Souza: Mrs. D’Souza teaches third grade at Kimmel Farm and is a member of the inaugural staff. She graduated from UNC-Greensboro with a B.A. in Education and later received a Masters in Education with an emphasis in language and literacy at Salem College.

Mrs. D’Souza was born in a small town in Austria near the Swiss and German border adorned by beautiful lake "Lake Constance" or "Bodensee" in German. She met her husband here in North Carolina and is the mother of two sons, Kevin and Sean. Mrs. D’Souza loves to cook along with her husband, Vincent, who is originally from India, and she enjoys reading and tending to “my little Monarch Butterfly garden.”

Classified Employee of the Year – Beth Krivsky: Mrs. Krivsky is in her second year at Kimmel Farm but is serving in her first year as our school’s science specialist. Mrs. Krivsky has a B.S. in Biology from Virginia Tech and worked in the Environmental Science fields following her undergraduate work, and at Broward College in Florida. She is married to Pastor John Krivsky, and the couple has three children, ages, 11, 14, and 16.

She works very hard to enhance science education in addition to what students learn in their regular classrooms. Her philosophy is to make science fun and fascinating. She uses many hands-on activities to bring to life science concepts that can only be learned well through problem-based learning methodology.