One of Mineola’s four elementary schools has a new principal, and she’s bringing her passion for young childhood, foundational literacy and dual language education to the role.
Amaris Melendez, a former kindergarten and elementary school teacher, early childhood administrator with New York City and principal at a Connecticut startup school, was named the new principal of Hampton Street School earlier this summer.
“I’ve spent so much of my time supporting children and developing teachers. It was such a blessing and an honor to be considered, and I’m really grateful to be sitting in the seat right now,” Melendez said. “Early childhood education has always been so close to my heart.”
Last year, Melendez served as an instructional leader in the Mineola district, offering professional learning to teachers, mentoring new teachers, supporting curriculum creation and ensuring learning ran smoothly. She said that experience helped prepare her to move into this new role.
“I joined the team and was supporting all of the buildings, but mostly Hampton, Meadow and Jackson,” Melendez said. “Mineola is a little bit different than other districts. We’re so innovative and center ourselves around the whole child…I think it was an advantage for me to know that stepping into the principal role.”
“I’m excited to continue supporting the great work that’s happening here and finding those opportunities to make it greater,” Melendez said.
She’s hitting the ground running, planning on supporting the school in rolling out new initiatives focused on student independent learning and executive functioning.
“We have a new initiative…where kids are a partner in their learning. It makes it so it’s not the teacher just grading and the kids not knowing what they’re responsible for, but the kids know exactly what they’re working towards,” Melendez said. “We also now have an initiative called Mini Mustangs, which is all about executive functioning skills explicitly taught within classrooms in class routines in their day.”
“It helps students understand that we are all learners, and learning is hard,” she said of the Mini Mustangs program. “We’re bringing this together to really help teachers understand how to support the executive functioning of young children: emotional control, response inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility.”
Melendez has worked in youth education for 21 years, starting in the New York City Department of Education in Brooklyn with kindergarten
She said she loves working in early childhood education because of the joy children bring into the classroom.
“It’s such a happy place. Kids say the most intriguing things; they bring such an innocence to the table,” Melendez said. “I think that living in their world reminds us that there’s so much to be grateful for.”
While working in the New York City DOE, she served as a dual language instructional coach, teaching students in both English and her first language, Spanish. She chose this path after going through the school system herself, needing dual language instruction as a child but finding it lacking.
“My first language was Spanish. My parents were both born and raised in Puerto Rico, so it was important for them to teach me Spanish so I would be able to communicate with my family,” Melendez said. “But when I went into school, I didn’t have English skills. I didn’t know the language, and so at that time, there were no dual language programs. It was really a sink or swim model.”
“Luckily…I was able to acquire the language successfully, and that has brought me here. But I knew that was a need in education. So, when I became a teacher, I decided to go into dual language teaching…I understood that the development of language doesn’t happen instantly. It takes time.”
Melendez said that that lesson is something that has translated over into other areas of her educational practice.
“That is something that I always bring with me. Learning is never on demand,” Melendez said. “Kids need a lot of experience in order to reach those levels of proficiency within the language. When we write curriculum, when we focus on tier one instruction and what makes for good learning in the classroom, we always think, ‘What visuals can we add in? How can we increase vocabulary learning for kids? What stories can we read? What songs can we sing? What fingerprints can we add in, in order to really help kids understand what we’re saying and what we’re teaching?’”
It continues to inform the curriculum writing and teaching she supports today.
“All of it transfers over into all areas, whether that child is an English language learner or not, because it’s a bank of good practices,” Melendez said. “When we do curriculum writing, we always consider our dual language classrooms. The materials have to be available in both languages. Teachers have to be resourced in both languages. The work always continues.”
After many years as a teacher and language specialist, she moved up through the city DOE, coordinating the city’s universal pre-k program rollout before working at a startup school in Connecticut as a director of early childhood education and later, a principal.
Melendez said she feels Mineola is a particularly good fit for her now.
“The school is doing such a fabulous job. Everybody here is such a hard and dedicated worker who genuinely loves what they do and values, nurtures and cares for kids. They really see learning as a whole childhood approach,” she said. “It’s not just about academics, it’s about everything.”
“I’m excited to keep that work moving forward…alongside preserving the joys of early childhood and making things fun, allowing kids to be curious, embracing that and letting them move and sing and just enjoy the space,” Melendez continued. “Learning should never be quiet. There should always be a productive hum happening in the classroom.”
The first day of school at Hampton Street School is Sept. 2
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