Principal’s Message 

Welcome to Garfield Elementary School, home of the Gators!  It is an honor and a privilege to serve as your principal.  I’m proud to share that our school community serves nearly 350 students in grades TK-5 and their families, with the goal of promoting excellence in every student in an inclusive and responsive environment where all means all.  Our Gators excel by demonstrating values of “Be Safe, Be Kind”, and are supported by a network of dedicated staff members throughout their Elementary school journey!

My goal as principal is to ensure that all students will be successful and that all families feel connected and supported by our Garfield team.  Elementary school is a time of many changes, opportunities, and new experiences and we are committed to working together so that every student can flourish! Together, we are committed to utilizing a multi-tiered system of support model to promote academic excellence and effective social-emotional learning for every student at every level.  We invite students and families to get connected and stay involved throughout the year.

On behalf of the Garfield community, we look forward to a positive school year filled with many opportunities for learning and growth!  Together, we can accomplish anything!

Sincerely,

Anna Malki-Koch

Principal

Garfield Elementary

Programs and Partners
With a focus on the Common Core State Standards, the Garfield staff is committed to providing an educational program in which the school’s instructional practices, resources, and services are effectively coordinated to meet the assets of all students learning styles. Within our school program, we offer a strand of English Instructed classes Tk-5th grade, in addition to our Spanish biliteracy strand for our 1st-5th grade students in a Transitional Bilingual Model that is converting into a Dual Language Immersion strand beginning with our current Kindergarten class. All programs provide students with explicit direct instruction lessons and project-based learning (PBL) opportunities that are combined with blended learning opportunities in our 1:1 (1st-5th grades) and 2:1 (TK/Kindergarten) digital learning environments. In addition, students receive instruction in Music, Art, and Physical Education and have full access to the school library and multimedia resources.

To ensure that our students can reach their highest potential as learners, the Garfield staff has committed to the following:

• Implement Culturally Responsive teaching and learning strategies to decrease the achievement gap through targeted staff development.
• Using arts integration as a vehicle for greater student engagement.
• Regularly utilizing curriculum guides, adopted materials, and other resources.
• Integrating writing across the curriculum.
• Exploring and implementing ways to allow all students access to the curriculum.
• Regularly analyzing student work and planning curricula with other teachers of their grade level.