Principal's Page
Meg Fenech, Angell Principal
Welcome to James B. Angell Elementary School! We are excited that you are reading about a fabulous community of learners. Our school draws students from five Ann Arbor neighborhoods and over 40 countries of the world. We have an exceptional staff and are fortunate to have a distinct enrichment program for all students.
Our school was named after the longest serving president of the University of Michigan. He said that he wanted to “provide an uncommon education for the common man.” We try to fulfill that statement at Angell by challenging students to excel, develop skills for self-advocacy and problem-solving.
We celebrate mistakes. Learning essentially comes from the modeling of others and our errors. A feature of the school is the promotion of student autonomy. When students are given choices, they learn to make decisions for themselves and also learn that they must live with the consequences of their selections. We hope that each Angell graduate develops the capacity to be assertive and assume leadership when opportunities exist.
Life is a series of relationships. We take our responsibility to develop a warm, caring school environment very seriously. Attention is paid to both vertical relationships (between adults and students) and horizontal relationships (student to student and adult to adult). The culture of school will determine how students feel about coming to school each day. Our goal – happy, successful students.
A local software firm uses the outcomes of the Kindergarten report card for criteria when hiring new employees. We endorse them as well. They make perfect sense because they describe essential characteristics on how we are to live our lives with each other:
+ Attends to the task at hand
+ Listens attentively
+ Works cooperatively with others
+ Solves problems constructively
+ Complete tasks independently
+ Follows directions
+ Perseveres even when tasks are difficult