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Meet Laura Giaquinto

Concord Int. Student Success Coach

7:00 am

At around 7:00 am I arrive at Concord International Elementary School, giant iced coffee and breakfast sandwich in hand. Inside the school, I enter our small, but cozy ��ɫ��Ƶ office. Chatting with my team members, I review my preparations for the day a final time.

7:30 am

A few minutes before 7:30 am, my ��ɫ��Ƶ team of six heads downstairs to the school’s entrances for morning greeting.

Most of the students walk to school, some take the school bus, and some are dropped off by their parents. Much of morning greeting consists of ushering students to the cafeteria for breakfast, answering their questions about what they will be doing that day (they will be doing what they always do at school), and chatting about their still half-asleep thoughts. Letting the students know that we are excited they are here, hearing about their weekends, and joking around with them helps set a positive tone for the whole day.

At 7:50 am the bell rings letting students know to line up as their teacher comes outside to collect them. Every single morning my students have the amusing routine of looking up to see the teacher walking towards them, and with surprised expressions yelling at each other “the teacher’s coming, the teacher’s coming!” as they hurriedly complete the challenge of forming a straight line to go inside.

7:55 am

The students start each morning by writing in their social-emotional learning journals how they feel, and why they feel that way. I make rounds around the classroom reading that the students feel excited because they have gym later or feel tired because they stayed up late watching a movie. On the days we have ��ɫ��Ƶ Afterschool Programming, many of our students write that they feel excited because they have Afterschool, and it always excites me to see that they are excited.

Next, the students have a whole group math lesson, and I sit on the rug next to the students who need extra support – whether that be support with solving the math problems or the students just focus better when sitting next to a consistent adult. Then, we break into math small groups where I usually work with the same three to six students.

9:45 am

At 9:45 am we take the students out to morning recess. As ��ɫ��Ƶ Student Success Coaches our job is to play games with students. Students usually play tag, some play football, and some play basketball against the ��ɫ��Ƶs.

10:10 am

After morning recess, we bring the students inside for their reading and writing lesson. Sometimes this is a whole group lesson, or independent reading time for students, or independent writing time. Depending on the day, I may sit in and help support specific students during the whole group lesson, work 1:1 with students on their writing, or work in small reading and writing groups.

10:40 am

At 10:40 am, my homeroom class transitions to their afternoon class, and our afternoon students come to our class. Concord is a dual language school; students whose families opt them into the dual language program are in English class (math and english) for half the day and Spanish class (science, social studies, and spanish) for the other half of the day. While most of our students are bilingual, they are all at different levels in their English and Spanish speaking and writing. I enjoy seeing how my partner teacher designs her lessons specifically to support and include students at all levels of their English comprehension. I feel very lucky to have a group of students who are eager to help each other, and myself and my partner teacher, neither of whom speak Spanish, in communicating.

11:10 am

At 11:10 am we shuffle the students down to the cafeteria for lunch. The role of ��ɫ��Ƶs is not to supervise students during lunch and recess, but to sit with and engage with students. I make my way through the cafeteria chatting with students about whatever’s on their mind. It is really nice to have time outside the classroom with students. Many of my conversations with students at lunch center around the off-topic thoughts I asked them to save for lunch during class.

We then take the students out for recess, where a rotating group of ��ɫ��Ƶ Student Success Coaches facilitate whole group games such as shark and minnows, red light green light, and foursquare. The rest of the ��ɫ��Ƶ team spend time playing and talking with the students at recess, and sometimes mediating student conflicts.

12:00 pm

After the students’ lunch and recess their teacher and I take them to their specials – either gym or stem/art. Then, I head back to the ��ɫ��Ƶ office to eat my lunch.

12:30 pm

After my lunch, the teacher and I pick the students up from specials and the afternoon class begins, math and english. These lessons go similarly to the morning class lessons, with the teacher making adjustments based on differing needs between our morning and afternoon classes. Sometimes the afternoon class picks up a topic quicker and we move on faster, and other days we spend more time on a topic in the afternoon than we did in the morning. I support the whole class lesson and small groups similarly to the morning.

2:25 pm

At 2:25 pm the school day ends and my partner teacher and I shuffle students out the door reminding them to bring their homework, backpacks, jackets, and all. Depending on the day of the week we may have a team meeting, prep time, or ��ɫ��Ƶ Afterschool Club with a group of about thirty students.

2:35 pm

Twice a week, ��ɫ��Ƶ Afterschool starts with snack time and attendance. Our afterschool program is entirely run by ��ɫ��Ƶ Student Success Coaches. With support from our Program Manager it is up to us to plan, organize, and execute our afterschool time. While at first daunting, it has been really exciting to implement what we have learned from our past experiences, partner teachers, and team to create a program the students look forward to each week.

After snack, we quickly review behavior and homework expectations with the students, and then take them out to recess. Again, we are playing with the students: playing foursquare, racing the students (a student favorite), playing ball tag (my favorite), or joining their game of soccer.

Next, we take the students inside for them to begin homework/academic support time. Luckily for me my students really enjoy math, so I typically bring math worksheets for them to practice. While some students practice math, I work with small groups of students or work 1:1 with students who I noticed need a little extra support during class.

Finally, the students have club time; we have art club, writing club, and theater club. Another Student Success Coach and I lead the writing club; currently the students are making comic books. I love having the writing club because our students have fun making up stories, drawing their pictures, and using their creativity all while practicing writing and objectives from their classes.

4:30 pm

As the sun starts to set, we lead our students outside to dismissal. Usually our team informally debriefs Afterschool, before grabbing our own backpacks and jackets to head home.