About Johnson Park Elementary

Daily, our staff members and parents, acting as partners on behalf of our students, seek to implement our school pledge. Within a nurturing setting, we seek to educate the whole student, teaching them to be literate readers and writers; competent mathematicians and scientists; artists, musicians, singers, and movers who perform with skill and appreciate grace, beauty, and style; critical and creative thinkers; knowledgeable and effective citizens; and positive, affirming agents in their local community and the larger world. We accomplish this through direct instruction and discovery learning, in four-walled classrooms and on our environmental trail, in cooperative groups and in one-on-one settings. Our pupils participate in unique experiences, such as drama residencies, broadcasts on our own TV station, an extensive field-trip program, environmental-education investigations, and a range of service-learning projects. We invite community members and visitors to join us in our educational enterprise; we welcome questions and suggestions. Please come to JP, where we care to learn and learn to care.  
Our staff and parents, in a positive ongoing partnership, offer Johnson Park's diverse pupil population educational experiences that are broad, deep, and integrated. In fact, our integrated approach to education, where we teach our students a range of subjects through their connections to rather than in isolation from one another, is a hallmark of our school and the means by which we meet the Core Curriculum State Standards. For example, several of our classes engage in arts residencies that our P.T.O. funds, residencies that link arts learnings to those in history and other disciplines. 
 

JP Kindergartners begin their JP experience with a brief orientation. Throughout the school year, they participate in classroom and field-trip experiences that help them become more independent while gaining greater social and interpersonal competence; they also learn beginning literacy and numeracy skills, typically taught from a multi-sensory perspective, and ponder scientific concepts that include a study of life cycles and changes in states of matter. 

First graders develop into readers, writers, mathematicians, and scientists. They publish their own work, use numbers and symbols to represent patterns and statements, and begin to learn about the wider world. Second graders extend their literacy and mathematical skills and go into depth in topics as varied as transportation, fairy tales, and insects. Instead of learning to read, our third graders transition to reading to learn and relive Princeton history via an extensive field-trip program; they also study astronomy and ocean habitats. Fourth graders learn about New Jersey history through traditional classroom activities and a visit to aLenape village. In conjunction with a science unit on geology, our fourth-grade pupils engage in a fossil dig at Poricy Park; in conjunction with an oceanography unit, they participate in activities at Island Beach State Park. Fifth graders assume appropriate leadership responsibilities at JP, such as lending support to Pennies for Peru to help build a dormitory for a girls' school in the Andes. They also help write, perform ,and tape an original video and travel to NYC's Broadway to view a professional dramatic production. 

All children participate in environmental-education activities that take place on our school?s Nature Trail and at the Stony Brook that runs adjacent to our property. Throughout the year, our P.T.O. sponsors a naturalist-in-residence program to guide our pupils?ecological learnings. We are fortunate, too, to have a science-support teacher to enhance our science program in our specially designed science classroom, where pupils in all grades undertake a Student Investigative Project wherein they examine real-life science questions. 

JP values literacy. In our media center and classrooms, we have collections of quality children?s literature reflecting the school?s commitment to multicultural values that celebrate people of both genders, of all races, religions, and ethnicities, and individuals with disabilities. 
 

We provide instruction in world languages beginning in second grade. As the NJEducation Department has designated our district's world-languages program as a model program throughout NJ, it's not unusual to have guests visiting our Spanish-language classes. We integrate children with special needs into our regular-education programs. Finally, we continue implementation of the Positive Behavior Support in Schools (P.B.S.I.S.) program, a school-wide project to affirm a school culture that overtly teaches and systematically fosters appropriate behavioral expectations among pupils and adults.

JP Pledge

MISSION

Johnson Park School provides a learning environment that nurtures all its pupils' emotional and physical health and safety, their intellect, their appreciation of the arts, nature, and the environment, and their responsibility to self and others while responding to the diverse needs of our school and larger community. Within that environment, we offer a coherent, child-centered curriculum, and instruction that respects a range of teaching and learning styles. 

We're  connected by our commitment to each child as a capable learner, to each parent as a significant partner, and to each colleague as a vital resource as we all grow and develop as individuals and as a learning community.  That commitment fosters and requires mutual respect, caring, and support among pupils, parents, and staff members.

Fast Facts

Curriculum:Art, Computers, Health,Language Arts,Library Skills, Mathematics, Music (vocal and instrumental), Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, World Languages (Spanish); Behavioral Expectations, Career Education, Conflict Resolution, Service Learning

Curriculum Enhancements: English asa Second Language, Accelerated-Intervention-Services Program, Special Education, Adapted Physical Education, Speech-and-Language Correction

Enrichment Programs:Environmental Education Programs; Fifth grade Film/Video Production; Community Service Projects

After-School Clubs: Music; Art; Chess; Athletics; Dance; Reader's Theater; Yoga; Board Games; Science; and Juggling

Special Programs:Hands-on Science Labs; Edible Gardens; Herb Gardens; Artist-in-Residence Programs; Environmental Education Student 

Enrollment:374

Student/Faculty Ratio:9:1