Falcon Family Flyer

Greetings, Forestdale Families!

This week we had our 90th day of school! For me, time is moving way too quickly! As we pass the halfway point, it’s a good time for us as educators to be thinking about progress monitoring - both to see how far our students have progressed, and to plan for how to best use the next 90 days for our students to make further academic gains in a supportive and nurturing environment.

After the mid-year literacy and math assessments, teachers across the building met both with our literacy coach and in their grade level teams to review their data and look at individual student and group growth and areas for improvement. As a building, we’ve made modest gains so far. We started the year with 38% of our students performing at grade level in literacy, and 37% of our students performing at grade level in math. As of the mid-year point, it’s slowly growing to 50% of our students on grade level in literacy, and 43% of our students on grade level in math. 100% on grade level is the goal, and we won’t be satisfied until we get there - however, the slow gains are a good sign of progress, and a place to keep building so we can finish the year even stronger.

If you’re interested in your own student data, please feel free to reach out to us, your classroom teacher, or one of our coaches to discuss. I will plan to update families with a more comprehensive look at our building data in one of our future family flyers as well. We may have already hit that halfway point but if anything, it’s a great reminder for all of us that there are still a lot of gains to be made - and we’re going to get there!

Mr. Weldai

We have an amazing team of people supporting our students each and every day at the Forestdale School. This year we were able to bring on board a great new group of team members, and each month we'll try to showcase some of our new Falcons here.

• My name is...Ariana Mathews.
  
• I am...the 5th and 6th grade ELL (English Language Learners) teacher.
  
• What I am looking forward to this year is...getting to know more families
  
• What I love most about the Forestdale Community so far is...how the small student body allows for meaningful connections among students and staff.
  
• Outside of school I enjoy...rock climbing, traveling, and drinking boba tea!

• My name is...Francia Cordia
  
• I am...the 7th and 8th grade ELL (English Language Learners) teacher.
  
• What I am looking forward to this year is...getting to know all of the wonderful families I can work with!
  
• What I love most about the Forestdale Community so far is...the tight connection between teachers and students, as well as the support we receive from everyone.
  
• Outside of school I enjoy...volunteering with the Haitian community, especially with the current arrival of the new immigrant families.

Coming up on Thursday, January 25th at 6pm, the Title 1 department will be hosting their next family event - a Zumba night in the cafeteria! The whole family is invited for pizza and drinks, Zumba, and a free book giveaway at the conclusion of the night. Please join us for a night of fitness, food, and fun as we discuss how to support our Forestdale students in literacy. We look forward to seeing you there!

Please join the Title 1 department, along with math staff and coaches for a district-wide math night on Wednesday, January 31st from 6pm - 7:30pm in the Salemwood School (529 Salem St.) K-4 cafeteria and library! Learn about Eureka Math Squared, Open Up Resources, and how to support your student's math development at home!

Just a reminder, the next PTO meeting will be Wednesday, February 14th at 7pm! Come join this great group and hear about the upcoming events, ways to get involved, and more. The meeting will be held virtually on zoom, and link can be found on the Forestdale PTO Facebook page.

Be on the lookout for the next round of Forestdale School Spirit Wear! More information will be coming soon.

The Forestdale PTO held a wonderful Winter Ball for students in grades 3-4 last Friday, January 19th. Students had a lot of fun dancing, and making memories at school!

MPS students in grades K-6 are able to register for a February Vacation Program which will run Tuesday - Friday, February 20-23, from 8:00am - 4:00pm at the Salemwood School, and spots are still available! If you're interested, please make sure to register by January 31st! .

This program is open to all K-6 MPS students, even though it is housed at the Salemwood during break! Details are in the attached flyer.

Malden Reads: One City, One Book, is a community reading program that seeks to answer the question "What if all of Malden read the same book?" Please join this great group for their opening celebration for the 2024 book "Being Heumann" by Judith Heumann on Thursday, January 25th from 6pm-8pm.

6pm - Gather with the Malden community. Learn about organizations in the local area that promote disability rights, accessibility and resources for persons with disabilities. Tables and exhibits will be set up in the main section of the library. Refreshments will be served in the Maccario Room.

7pm - Join us in the Maccario Room for a thoughtful and varied presentation featuring members of our Malden community sharing their stories, ideas, and artistic expressions. Learn more about our book selection through this presentation! There will be opportunity for connection and conversation to follow

The Chinese Culture Connection invites you to share in the Year of the Dragon celebratoin on Saturday, February 3 from 1pm - 5pm at Malden High School. The event is free, open to the public, and will feature presentations, performances, and celebrations of all kinds. Come join in on the fun! For more information, or to RSVP, please visit: https://bit.ly/3H24h0O

Next Tuesday, January 30th at 7pm Malden Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) will be holding an Anti-Bullying Training workshop to interested Malden Public Schools parents, caregivers and educators. Johanne Pino of Massachusetts Advocates for Children will speak on the following:

• Massachusetts Anti-bullying Law: IEP and Schoolwide Strategies to Prevent Bullying of Students with Disabilities

This workshop will address best practice based on the state’s anti- bullying prevention law. The training focuses on laws that require both school-wide efforts to create safe and supportive school settings for students with disabilities and laws that require IEP Teams to address bullying of students with disabilities.

**Join us In Person or via Zoom**
Topic: Malden SEPAC January 2024 Meeting
Time: Jan 30, 2024 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join In Person: The Forestdale School Cafeteria - 74 Sylvan Street, Malden, MA
Join via Zoom Meeting:
https://cityofmalden.zoom.us/j/96953767608?pwd=WDMxSllyMDFRNFc4L0tnTStuQ01VZz09
Meeting ID: 969 5376 7608
Passcode: 987589

ACCESS testing is well underway, and continuing through February. This is a test that is used to assess our multilingual learner students' progress in building English language fluency. Our fantastic ELL team (Ms. Melissa Katz, Ms. Lisa Sheridan, Ms. Francia Cordia, Ms. Arianna Mathews and Ms. Lauren Beltran) have been working diligently to prepare for the assessment with our students, and help guide them through. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out!

On Monday, February 5th students in grades K-8 will be receiving their report cards! This is the Q2 report card for grades 1-8, and the first report card of the year for our K students. They will be sent home with your student, but should also be available on the parent portal on Aspen. If you need any help accessing them, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Planning ahead, on Tuesday, February 6 there is an 11am early release day for the Malden Public Schools!

Our next Parent/Caregiver conferences are coming up next month! Tuesday, February 13, from 4:00 - 5:30pm here in the building. Your awesome teams of teachers will be reaching out next month, but we wanted to make sure the date was in our calendar ahead of time!

Please make sure to check backpacks regularly for important notices from the nurse, and from your teachers. While most things are done electronically, a regular backpack check is always a good idea.

**Speaking of backpacks, if anyone still needs one for their student we have extras to give away in the main office. Please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know!

Our lost and found is still going strong! For any students looking, the lost and found is in the cafeteria directly to the right when you walk in. If you're missing something, please encourage your student to come check it out.

The Forestdale School is still seeking a candidate for an open position! If you or anyone you know is interested, we have a newly created Special Education position open. If you'd like to learn more, please feel free to reach out or visit https://maldenps.tedk12.com/hire/index.aspx

The January school lunch menu is pictured below, and the link to the monthly menu can be found here: https://malden.schooldish.com/SchoolMenus/Forestdale?fbclid=IwAR2ZJ0dwZiruvvYiJhtVAk1yngQak5OmO8hyTVKfUV_rzL5gzDOlwP540_k

On Friday, January 12th, Kindergarten students and their 8th grade buddies worked on their monthly STEM activity of building snowman glyphs and winter images using geometric shapes. It was awesome to see how wonderfully our middle schoolers work with their buddies!

As our Kindergarten students learn about farm life and farm animals through their literacy unit, Ms. Yvette Nolan created a cow replica for students to be able to see and experience a little more hands-on what the process of milking a cow could look like!

Ms. Gail Casgrain and Ms. Kara Rock's Kindergarten class put on a really great performance of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" for the rest of the Kindergarten students while learning about farm animals and farm life. The students really got into the performance and thinking about the animals on the farm!

Students in Ms. Vanessa Duncan's STEM classes are working with the engineering design process to build paper helicopters to see how they fly, and whether or not they can control the end destination! They're looking at the concepts of weight and gravity, and doing a lot of trial and error to see who can finally make their helicopter reach the goal!

There are a lot of wonderful things happening in our classrooms each and every day - and many of those things get displayed around the building for students and staff to see! I'll try to share some of my favorite snapshots so you can get a chance to see them, too!

Up on the 3rd and 4th grade hallway, you can see the goal setting happening around the building very clearly! As students came back from break, they set some goals for themselves: "2 new things I want to try this year, 1 word I will live by this year, 2 ways I can help others, and 4 dreams I have for the world." There are some really great notes in each of these displays!

If there's anything that we can do, please don't hesitate to reach out to any member of our main office team. Our phone number is (781) 397-7326, and each of our email addresses are listed below.

• Mr. Adam Weldai, Principal: aweldai@maldenps.org
• Mrs. Karie Carpenito, Assistant Principal: kcarpenito@maldenps.org
• Mr. Kenji Foster, Assistant Principal: kfoster@maldenps.org
• Mrs. Megan LoPilato, Administrative Assistant: mlopilato@maldenps.org