Getting to Know Roderick School Principal Stephen Grenham

This week, Principal Stephen Grenham took some time to sit down with Wrentham Patch to talk about the upcoming school year and some things you may not know about him. Going into his seventh year as principal of the Roderick School,  Principal Grenham has been hard at work preparing for another year at the grade 4-6 school. Over the next few days we’ll be getting you ready for school with interviews with members of the school faculty and giving you the information you need.

Q: 1. How has the lead up been to the new school year?

Grenham: We’ve had a great summer. We’ve had a lot of teachers as we always do that have spent numerous amount of hours in the classroom getting it ready, but also a lot of teachers that have been taking some classes trying to better themselves as teachers which fits in with one of our core values of continuous growth and learning.

The maintenance department and the custodians have really tried to make the school look even more appealing if we can and they’ve done a great job of that as well.

It’s been a busy summer, which leads it to be a quick summer, but it’s been productive summer.

2. It seems like everyone at the school from top to bottom has a goal to improve.

Everybody here no matter what their job title is, is always looking to get better. They’re always trying to grow and improve and it doesn’t matter who you are. You could be the building principal, you could be a teacher, you could be a paraprofessional, any of those people are working hard to get better.

 3. Any new changes for the school year?

This will be the first year that we have full implementation of a new reading series called Reading Street. Reading Street really seemed like it was meeting the needs of the individual learners very well so for the last couple of years we have been piloting it. This year is going to be full implementation of it.

Along with that this is the first year of what is called the Common Core. 45 states have adopted the common core so that means all the different states are going to have one common curriculum in math, English/language arts that they follow. So we’ve been doing a lot of work on the math side of it to start to make sure we’re aligning all the materials that we have so that are children are able to access that curriculum to the best of their ability.

4. How long have you been a part of the Wrentham School District?

16 years.

5. What is your favorite movie?

Remember the Tiants but unforturnenlty I don’t get to see any movies. I have four children so most of the movies that I see are more are the Ice Age: Continetal Drifts. Most of my movie time is seeing those types of movies with the kids.

6. Favorite song?

Brillant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen.

7. Favorite book? 

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I love the book because it’s a real life story about how to handle obsticles in your life.  

8. What is something about you that may be considered interesting?  

I don’t know if everyone knows if I have four children, all boys and that my wife Kelly is a first grade teacher in Wapole.