School Overview

History

S.G. Reinertsen Elementary School, which opened in 2004, was named in honor of Steve “S.G.” Reinertsen, who served as superintendent of the Moorhead schools from 1926 to 1955. During his tenure as superintendent, six school facilities were built. A visionary leader, Reinertsen also helped establish the school lunch program.

SGR was designed to be efficient and economical, while educating more than 700 students daily. To maintain the efficiency of a larger school while creating a community feel, the building was designed around the neighborhood structure. When you visit SGR, you will notice five distinct "neighborhoods" that consist of six grade-level classrooms, several support classrooms and a team area. This design allows students to feel the connection of a smaller community while experiencing the opportunities of a larger campus.

Programs

physical activity

Physical Activity

All students have 30 minutes of daily Physical Education or Health/Fitness lessons. Many teachers utilize “Brain Breaks” and other methods of movement throughout the day because they know the importance of waking up the brain for learning through the use of movement.

emotional needs

Emotional Needs

We welcome every student at the front door with a smile and a hello because we want all students to feel emotionally attached and comfortable at our school. Our teachers also greet their students at the classroom door or in the locker bay, and start the school day with a morning meeting.

This helps to build community and relationships within the classroom, further strengthening the connection between students and our school community.

We also have a full-time counselor on staff who provides all classrooms with specific social and emotional learning (SEL) skills lessons, as well as the opportunity to work with small groups of students or individual students on unique needs.

Finally, we practice mindfulness, the ability to be aware of one’s feelings and senses, regularly at SGR. We teach or review mindfulness techniques and tips weekly with all of our students and classrooms on our morning principal videos in a segment we call “Mindfulness Monday.”

social

Social

Our staff is very purposeful in planning activities in which students have the opportunity to work in pairs or small groups because we recognize the importance of those connections. Additionally, all students have the opportunity to engage socially with each other in less structured settings, like recess, snack time, free-time Fridays or purposeful playtime in kindergarten.

academic

Academic

Finally, we constantly strive to refine our instructional programming to meet the academic needs of each individual student. Teachers work closely in teams to plan instruction that hits the benchmarks on our Minnesota standards at each grade level and in each content area, including music, art and Physical Education. Not only that, but our staff is data savvy, using common formative assessment results to check for student understanding and growth. We then use that data to guide planning and instruction, with a goal of providing each student instruction that meets their unique needs. Additionally, we have some instructional coaches on-site that offer coaching and support to all staff.