Hello, Howard!

It's been a great start to the start of the 25-26 school year!

Every month, the students and staff of the Howard School focus on one of the five themes of Wildcat PRIDE: Passion, Respect, Ingenuity, Determination, and Empathy.

Our theme this month is RESPECT. Students in all grades will be exploring and practicing respect in school. We encourage you to ask your child about respect. How do they show respect to their friends, their teachers, to you, to the environment? Why is respect important? How can respect be lost, and how can it be gained back?

We with gather together as a school community at the end of the month to share and celebrate all that we have learned.

Please make sure to check your email for the ASPEN Re-registration instructions. This will enable you to update all emergency contact information, phone numbers and email addresses. This is a VERY important to-do for the start of the year. Please make every effort to complete this as quickly as possible.

PLEASE NOTE: By selecting Do Not Photograph your child will not appear in any teacher classroom postings, newsletter postings or the Yearbook.

Thursday, September 11th is Howard School Curriculum Night. Teachers in grades 4 and 5 will run through their presentations two times to accommodate families with students in multiple grades. Please see the schedule below.

School Pictures - Wednesday, September 10th

Curriculum Night - Thursday, September 11th

Early Release - Wednesday, September 24th

I am looking for parent/guardian volunteers to serve on the Howard School Council. A School Council is a committee comprised of parents/guardians, teachers, community members, and the principal. Together, we will consider updates/edits to the student handbook as well as the School Improvement Plan.

Meetings are scheduled for 6 times during the year, will take around 45 minutes, and begin at 3pm. (See full schedule below.) Member can attend in person or virtually. If you are interested in serving, please email Mrs. Giuffre at mgiuffre@wbridgewater.com. Thanks!

3rd Tuesday of most months at 3pm

September 23

November 18

January 20

March 24

May 26

2 more meetings may be scheduled as needed

All cell phones and smart watches should be turned off and stored in backpacks during the school day.

Our school handbook states that smart watches are only allowed with permission from staff, and at this point in the year, I am directing all staff to enforce a no-smart-watch policy. We will be treating smart watches the same way we treat cell phones; they are to be turned off and stored in backpacks during the school day.

Students often claim that they need their phone or watch in school in case of an emergency. The message we give them in school is this: if there is an emergency, students are not expected to manage themselves or communication to their families. Teachers and the school have practices in place that we review frequently to keep students safe and manage communication. In an emergency, it is important that children's full attention be on adults, not on their devices. We would appreciate if you reinforce this message at home.

In my experience, students with access to their phones/watches during the day will turn to home adults for managing every day school issues, rather than seeking out school support. When this happens, the children are not building the skills they need to advocate for themselves and become increasingly more independent.

You have probably heard that the MA Senate passed a school cell phone ban, and that legislation has moved on to the House of Representatives. It is possible that such a ban will be in place for the start of next school year.

If children need to contact home, they have access to the phone in the main office. If you need to get in touch with your child, you can call the main office at 508-894-1250.

MESSAGE FROM THE NURSE

Welcome back everyone! Here is some helpful information as we aim to keep everyone safe and healthy while at school this year.

Please complete the Annual Student Health Update form at your earliest convenience, if you haven’t done so already. If your child requires any medications to be given at school, please bring in labeled medications in the original containers with physician orders. Please DO NOT SEND ANY MEDICATIONS WITH YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL.

Communication throughout the school year is also very important, so please reach out to me if any health information changes or if your child isn’t feeling well. I will be checking in periodically if anything arises while your child is at school or to follow up on prolonged absences.

Otherwise, we want to keep everyone healthy while at school so please keep them home if they are not feeling well. Please refer to our Sick Child Guidelines and school health policies at https://www.wbridgewaterschools.org/page/health-services and reach out to me directly with any concerns.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is recognized every September around the world. With a goal to increase awareness, we encourage everyone to wear gold (or yellow) on Friday 9/26 in honor of kids with cancer, especially those in our community. We are hosting our 3rd Annual Childhood Cancer walk on the MSHS track on September 13th from 3-6pm. This is a free family friendly event that will raise awareness for childhood cancer. This year we are honoring Kash Doughty of Bridgewater. Please come to enjoy food, games, a dunk tank, and raffles. All funds will be donated to the Jimmy Fund in honor of Kash and his fight against cancer!

As always, please feel free to reach Nurse Mando if you have any questions or concerns: smando@wbridgewater.com or 508-894-1250 ext. 3115.

Click here for the lunch menu for September.

Click here for the breakfast/snack menu for September.

In this unit, students will explore the word heart in two ways:
Literally – as the important organ that keeps us alive.
Figuratively – as a symbol of emotions, love, kindness, and courage.
They’ll read quotes from people like Confucius and Clara Barton. Through their stories, students will see how real people show compassion and bravery, showing what it means to have a “great heart”. This module helps students grow in reading, thinking, and understanding how character and courage shape lives.

In Topic 1: Generalize Place Value Understanding, students are learning how to read, write, and compare large numbers, up to 1 million. They’re exploring how each digit in a number has a different value depending on its place.
For example, they’re learning that a digit in one place is 10 times the value of the same digit in the place to its right. This helps build a strong foundation for understanding bigger math concepts and explaining their thinking clearly.

We will begin 4th grade social studies with our map skills unit which focuses on different types of maps and learning about the oceans and continents.

During the month of September we will review the PRIDE theme of respect and discuss ways to show respect. Each class will write an acrostic poem about respect. Lastly, we will combine ideas from the class poems to create a grade level respect poem to share at our PRIDE assembly at the end of the month.

Students have finished the beginning-of-year testing and will start their first module of Wit and Wisdom. Module 1 covers Cultures and Conflict and uses the novel "Thunder Rolling in the Mountains." Students will start by investigating their culture and values at the beginning of this module.

In math, students are learning to understand place value with decimals in Topic 1.

Students have switched classrooms and will begin a unit on gravity next week. Following that, students will learn about the path of the sun and its effect on shadows.

To prepare for our ELA curriculum, students are learning about the background history of Native Americans in the early United States.

Grade 5 students will discuss respect in the community, school, towards others, their environment, and themselves. Each classroom will prepare a topic to focus on. The entire grade will learn a song to share with others at the pride assembly at the end of the month.

We will be having Victoria J. Coe, a local author, visit us on Thursday, September 18th. The PTO is providing every 5th grader with a signed copy of Fenway and Hattie, the first book in a series. Ms. Coe will be showing students how to write from a dog's point of view. We are so excited for her to come to our school again!

Incoming 6th grade students will attend the Outdoor Classroom Program April 14 - 17, 2026. Move information will be given in late September.

In ELA class, we have just started our first module of Wit and Wisdom - resilience in the Great Depression. We will start by reading the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. In this unit we will explore paragraph and essay writing and analyze how people sustain themselves during difficult times.

In sixth-grade math this month, we're diving into some exciting new concepts! Students are learning about exponents, order of operations, and how to simplify algebraic expressions and formulas. It's a busy but rewarding month of building a strong foundation for future math topics. Don't forget that the homework calendar is due at the end of the month!

We have spent the first few days in science class exploring the room, setting classroom goals and expectations and organizing our binders! We reviewed the characteristics of living things and next week we dive into our unit on cells! Students will explore plant and animal cells and will partake in some microscope labs!

We are starting the year with a review of Social Studies and Map Skills! Then we will look into history and archaeology to analyze how social scientists work together. We should start our first unit on Early Man (the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age) by the end September!

For our PRIDE theme of respect, students will write a paragraph about someone who has shown them respect. A student from each class will be chosen to read their writing at the PRIDE assembly.

On October 6th. the 6th Grade is going on a Field Trip to the Hall at Patriot’s Place. Students will participate in a STEM based collaborative learning activity related to the 6th grade curriculum frameworks. Students will be split up by homeroom and there will be at least 2 adults with each class and classes stay together the entire trip.

Field trip permission forms will be passed out in homeroom on Thursday, 9/11. Please fill out the information and your child’s order for Red Robin on the back. Field trip forms and payment are due Friday, 9/19/25.

We only need a few chaperones to help support our staff that attend the trip. If you are interested in helping chaperone the field trip, please email Mrs. Mills (amills@wbridgewater.com) by September 19th. You must have a current CORI on file with the school. Chaperones will be picked through a lottery. Thank you for volunteering!

We began our Cooperation Games Unit, working on Teamwork, Leadership, & Communication.

We are happy to welcome back our ML students! As we begin the year, students will focus on self reflection, and goal setting. They will begin work toward increasing their proficiency in the areas of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing in English, while also engaging rigorously in core subject areas.

Unified Sports is back for another great year with our Wildcat athletes! Registration is open for all three teams on the Middle-Senior High School Athletics page and our Unified Bocce season is set to start the week of October 6. Please reach out to Nikki Maloney at nmaloney@wbridgewater.com with any questions!

Important Dates:
Meetings for Old Members:

• 9/16 (club ends 3:15 PM)
• 9/23 (Club ends @3:05 PM

9/30 - Interest meeting for all new members!
Deadline for paperwork & club dues: 10/7
10/14 - 1st official Meeting

Little Leo’s is a community service club sponsored by the Lions Club of West Bridgewater. The motto for Lions Club International is “We Serve!” If helping people is something you want to do, then this is the club for you! As Little Leos, we help people in our community and around the world through our community service projects. We volunteer to help teachers, do community outreach projects, as well as have several drives throughout the year! There will be an information booth at Howard Curriculum Night where you can find out more about Little Leo's from our club members on Sept. 11th from 5 - 6:45 PM.

If you are interested, come to our interest meeting on 9/30/25. We will meet in the gym after all buses are called from 2:45 to 3:15 PM. Student will need a ride home. The pick up procedure is just like the normal parent pick up procedure at regular dismissal at the front of the school.

Mrs. Giuffre loves to read!

Join me each month as I book talk a new middle grade novel for students to explore.

Sharkita “Kita” Hayes is always waiting.
Waiting for her mama to mess up.
Waiting for social services to be called again.
Waiting for her and her siblings to be separated.
Waiting for her worst fear to come true.

But Mama promises things are different now. She's got a good job, she's stopped drinking, stopped going out every night-it's almost enough to make Kita believe her this time. But even as Kita's life is going good, she can't shake the feeling that everything could go up in flames at any moment.

September is💛 Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, 💛 and our community will come together for the 3rd Annual WB Pledge Walk on Saturday, September 13th from 3–6 PM at the WBMSHS Track.

This year’s walk is held in honor of 5-year-old Bridgewater Warrior Kash, whose strength continues to inspire us all.

Along with the walk, families can enjoy pizza, an ice cream truck, a dunk tank, games, raffles, and music—a full afternoon of fun for a meaningful cause.

Hoodies and t-shirts are available for preorder through the registration form or can be purchased at the event (while supplies last).

Register & preorder here: https://forms.gle/LwFAYFKa8FbXg5us8

Together, West Bridgewater stands Strong & United.