OBSERVER Photo by Anthony Dolce Members of the Forestville school board hear about events taking place at the Elementary School.

FORESTVILLE — With discussion on the topic spawned by public comment at the most recent Forestville School Board meeting, Forestville Elementary Principal Lindsay Marcinelli said some positive changes are coming to the Elementary School.

For starters, Marcinelli said that some fifth- and sixth-grade students have started going up to the Middle/High School to participate in the band ensemble. The students going to the school started earlier this month and are going there Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour each day. Marcinelli said the prospects of this are exciting, given the past limitations put in place due to COVID-19.

“Due to the large number of students who are new to the instruments from not playing last year, and a lot of our sixth-graders who didn’t have an opportunity to play in fourth- and fifth-grade and chose not to continue,” said Marcinelli. “We did wait until just recently to be able to go up to the high school to put together an ensemble.”

Marcinelli said she has also spoken to chorus instructor Amy Gier and Music teacher Jay Hagen about possibly returning to performances that people are allowed to attend.

“We are starting to think about as if protocols were not to change as they currently are now to hopefully things being back to normal with a full auditorium,” said Marcinelli.

While waiting for in-person performances to return, Marcinelli said that the elementary students have started to experience some other fun activities in the recent weeks. Students in Lindsey Ruffo’s first grade class have had the opportunity to take a couple virtual field trips. In January, the kids got to do a field trip with a science center, which hosts the Junior Astronaut Training Program.

“It ties in with their science program,” said Marcinelli. “They were able to share their knowledge of the stars and the solar system with a real-life astronaut and they got to see pictures of the international space station. But their favorite part was watching an astronaut make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in space.”

And earlier this month, that same group of students virtually visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada, which studies fossils and dinosaurs. Marcinelli said this trip was a hit with the class as well.

“If you know first graders, you know dinosaurs are a big deal,” said Marcinelli.

There is another virtual field trip planned for another couple weeks to explore animal adaptations, and while Marcinelli acknowledged that it’s sad there are no in-person field trips, she sees these as an adequate substitute.

“The virtual opportunity is something that will continue even when we are back on a normal schedule,” said Marcinelli. “There are lots of really fun things happening in the elementary school.”