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Responsive Classroom

Has your child ever come home talking about Morning Meeting?  The Snake Greeting? Mother Gooney Bird?  Or What's the News?  Some of these activities may sound a little funny at first, but they help to energize students and promote collaboration among them, and they are part of Murch's increased integration of Responsive Classroom (RC) techniques.

To enable optimal student learning, Murch follows the principles of RC throughout the school. Responsive Classroom is an approach to elementary teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. Responsive Classroom complements encourages students to see their school and classroom as a community of learners made up of unique individuals, each deserving respect.

Key RC principles include:

• Social curriculum is as critical as academic curriculum.
• Children need social skills, such as cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy and self-control, to succeed academically and socially.
• Social interaction is where the greatest cognitive growth takes place.
• Families are key partners in children's education.

Some of the specific RC practices are: Morning Meeting; Rule Creation; Positive Teacher Language; Logical consequences; Academic Choice; Working with Families; and Collaborative Problem Solving. Murch uses Responsive Classroom techniques across age groups -- from Pre-K to 5th grade. The involvement of parents and guardians is vital for reinforcing the behaviors and activities that are modeled through RC.

>> Learn more about Responsive Classroom. 

Schoolwide Applications Model (SAM)

Murch is one of 16 SAM schools in DC. The Schoolwide Applications Model (SAM) redistributes supports, services, and resources into the general education setting through enhanced staffing, intensive professional development in the summer, and technical assistance on integrated service delivery throughout the school year. The District assigns Academic Intervention Coaches to our school to help the administration and leadership team create a safe and orderly learning environment and increase academic achievement for all students. To accomplish this, we SAM is a "response to intervention" (RtI) model, which means using individual student achievement and behavior data to identify the supports students need to progress with grade level expectations. Frequent and on-going assessments help determine the instructional approaches best suited to meet each student's needs.

As a SAM school, we look to Responsive Classroom as our Positive Behavior Support to create a safe and orderly learning environment. If students start to struggle with grade-level expectations or with school behavior expectations; we design individual or small group interventions. Sometimes this may mean convening a Student Support Team (SST) to develop specific interventions targeted to meet individual student needs. We also our classroom assessment data, DIBELS data, DC-CAS data, and student behavior data to provide supports and services inside and outside of the classrooms.

Another goal of SAM schools is to take a second look at the assessments for our students who have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). We want to identify areas of strength and progress towards IEP goals so that integration strategies into classes with non-disabled peers can be planned and implemented with parent advice and support.

Being a SAM school means developing an even stronger partnership with parents and families in order to do the very best job we can for our students. Our promise is to keep parents informed of student progress. Please feel free to contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Murch's SAM coach, if you have questions about SAM and what it means for your child.