Our Staff
Tabs
Principal
Dear Parents and Families,
Welcome to Peters Elementary School. It is with great pleasure that I serve the students, staff, and community as Principal of Peters Elementary School. This is my 24th year in public school education. I spent my first 18 years teaching K-12 music in schools in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This will be my 6th year as the Principal of Peters. I am excited to begin the 2024-2025 school and to lead a staff that is dedicated to creating a supportive environment for your children to learn and grow.
We had an amazing opportunity this summer to help our newest kindergarten students prepare for school with the KinderQuest program. I am so proud that 77 students participated in this program at the beginning of August. The feedback from parents was amazing, and the program was overwhelmingly supported by those whose children attended. I’d like to give special thanks to the staff who worked our program!
It is an exciting year for our school as we implement a new ELA curriculum called CKLA: Amplify. We spent last school year examining programs that would meet our goals: 1. Aligning with the Science of Reading, 2. Provide excellent education in all five pillars of early literacy: Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, and 3. Be sustainable long term. Implementing a new curriculum is HARD WORK, but I am confident that we will look back on this school year as a turning point for our reading instruction.
I believe that it “Takes a Village to Raise a Child”. Your child’s teachers and the staff at our school are an important part of that village, but we recognize that parents and guardians are vital to a child’s development. Mr. Breiner and I are looking forward to holding our monthly Family Engagement Meetings, where we hope to bring the entire “village” together. This year, we will be rotating the times to attempt to accommodate the busy schedules of our families. We will be rotating between a 5:00 p.m. start time and a 10:00 a.m. start time. I hope you will be able to join us, along with our district partner from the Center for Humanistic Change as they will be providing some programming that we hope will be beneficial to families.
I am so proud to be the principal of Peters Elementary School. As a district, our motto is: Living, Learning, and Leading to make every story better. If there is ever a need to discuss a matter related to your child’s education, don’t hesitate to reach out to me, or your child’s teachers.
I’m looking forward to an amazing 2024-2025 school year!
Respectfully,
James Schnyderite