Excelon-Atlantic City Electric Grant Supports School Planning

Our Lady Star of the Sea School’s administration and school leadership team spent considerable time during the statewide COVID shutdown of schools preparing to assume a leadership role in how schools might reopen safely. In mid-March, OLSS leadership began to draft professional development plans for staff in anticipation of a smooth start to the new school year. Funds from Excelon - Atlantic City Electric, along with other donors, helped the school’s planning team map out scheduling, curriculum and facilities plans as they built for the future.

In August, Our Lady Star of the Sea (OLSS) staff and administrators met for a day-long series of training workshops. These workshops helped teachers and staff unpack the new school year’s academic scope and sequence, curriculum, and classroom management techniques. This work was amplified with another day-long professional development workshop in early October. These sessions gave teachers the opportunity to reflect on the first four weeks of school, identify areas for improvement and refine approaches to maintaining consistency in classroom management throughout the OLSS community.

OLSS is also actively pursuing funding to break ground for its new STEAM/MakerSpace Lab. A growing network of collaborative partners have joined with the school in this effort. OLSS looks forward to having Excelon and Atlantic City Electric managers, and employees visit the school. This kind of interaction would include a tour of the school and its campus grounds. Meeting with our students would be a terrific way to make sure that students understand that our local utility company and its related corporate family have been front and center in helping us regain our footing as a small school community during these challenging times.