Calendar & Summary of Board Meetings
Welcome
to the Bethel Public Schools
Gary M. Chesley, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
On behalf of the Board of Education and the staff of the Bethel Schools, I welcome your interest in the Bethel Public Schools. Educators and parents continually face new challenges in raising our children. The Bethel, we believe that our educational program is designed to make these challenges genuine opportunities for growth. We support a wide variety of services to children at all levels in an effort to meet their specific needs.
In the Bethel Public Schools, we simultaneously employ a strong K-12 and a 12-K instructional and curriculum orientation. We begin each child’s classroom experiences with a firm vision of the outcomes that we seek for our graduates. We are fully aware that those outcomes cannot be the same for each student. We know that all life-shaping experiences do not happen in a classroom or with a textbook in hand. Our purpose is to teach a rigorous, energetic, and creative curriculum that develops self-directed, critical thinkers who behave as responsible citizens capable of problem-solving real life issues. It is important that our students are taught to be curious, committed, and successful learners who can operate independently in a competitive environment. It is also important that our students are taught to take responsibility for their actions, to respect others, and to give something back to the community. As educators, we successfully balance our responsibility to carefully nurture our children while also stretching them to take intelligent risks and to perform as young adults.
We believe that children develop a personal and academic self-image at an early age. This self-image influences the decisions children make and the actions they take each day while at home and in school. Parents are the primary force in creating a child’s personal impression of himself when they demonstrate unconditional love and when they are actively involved in helping their child feel success. Parents help the child find a place and a role, ensure that children feel secure, and provide them with boundaries. Teachers nurture that self-image when they take children from a starting point and build the skills and confidence required to establish a purpose for life. This process begins at a very early age and requires a partnership between the school and the family.
Our teachers have earned the strong support of the community because they have proven that they are academically well grounded and because they consistently demonstrate a desire to do whatever is required to meet the needs of each child. Our students consistently make us proud of their achievements and their actions in representing this community. We are grateful for the support of this school system afforded to out school system by the community and we look forward to a bright future.
Gary M. Chesley, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools