Thank you!
A Huge THANK YOU to all staff and students across the district that made last week special.
We kicked off the week celebrating Read Across America Day. This was a lovely collaboration of literacy between our National Honor Society and elementary classrooms.
Then on Thursday of last week, we hosted over 50 senior citizens for our annual brunch. Seniors were served by our National Honor Society and were entertained by our awesome band and chorus. Our cafeteria staff prepared a delicious meal and security ensured that our buildings remained secure even with all of our visitors. You couldn't even tell anything was amiss because our students, caf staff, and custodians and maintenance leaders pitched in to get ready for secondary lunches. It is such a great way to come together, and I appreciate what everyone did to make it a reality!
Spring field trips
If you are planning a spring field trip, please be sure that the nurse has ample notice to check medication and medical needs prior to proceeding fully. If all students don't have full access, then the trip cannot legally proceed. Once the trip is planned, please also tell our cafeteria staff so they can plan lunch accordingly. Thank you!
Professional Development Coming Up on March 18!
Here is the information regarding the March 18 half day Professional Development Sessions.
This year, most of our professional development is going to focus on our instructional vision. You will notice that these sessions are a continuation of our work back in November.
The PD committee and leadership team are working together to present meaningful PD designed to support our staff. It was our combined goal that we would engage together in the deep work of looking at our instructional practices as a whole staff. From there, the elements of voice and choice should be present in how we plan for and implement instructional shifts. This led to a much more instructive professional learning offering, with the understanding that we have worked closely with the professional learning providers to ensure that the planning involved teacher voice and choice as well as immediately applicable learning. We look forward to engaging in that work together and appreciate your attention to these training sessions offered on November 5th so you can fully engage in professional learning. Registration will open on February 24, 2025. Please log in to Smart PD and register for your professional development sessions. If you need help, here are instructions for Smart PD. If you registered for your session back in November, you do not need to register again.
District
Pre-K Pyramid Model
Presented by: Marlene Robbins
Audience: Pre-K Teachers and Paraprofessionals
Location: Pre-K Classrooms
Time: 1:00-4:30
Staff will continue the work on implementing the Pyramid model. This will include team collaboration, attention to the modules and self-reflection work.
District Nurses- Session TBD- Deanna will send a separate email
Gateway Regional School
Student Ownership of Learning Continuation from November 5, 2024
Presented by Lynch Leadership Academy from Boston College
Audience: Secondary teachers and paraprofessionals
Location: GRS High School Gymnasium
Time: 11:30-3:30
Teachers will engage in a learning experience where they are asked to inquire deeply, get curious, and dig into new material. Through this learning, we hope to uncover what instructional moves support increased discourse, deeper problem-solving, and productive struggle. This learning will then be applied to planning for our own classrooms with support from the Lynch Leadership Group. We will ground the work in the Classroom observation tool and our Instructional Vision (above), then build the connections with productive struggle throughout both the observation tool and the instructional vision.
Littleville Elementary School & Chester Elementary School
Productive Struggle Continuation from November 5, 2024
Presented by The New Teacher Project (TNTP)
Audience: Elementary teachers and paraprofessionals
Location: Gateway Regional Middle School Gymnasium
Time: 1:00-4:30
Staff will engage in a deep learning experience in ELA, and answer:
Are all students responsible for doing the thinking in this classroom?
Students do the majority of the work of the lesson: speaking/listening, reading, and/or writing.
Students reason and make meaning of texts to persevere through difficulty. When teachers provide support, students still own the complex thinking.
Students talk and ask questions about each other’s thinking in order to improve their understanding about the text or topic.
Students provide text evidence to support their ideas and use topic or text-specific language in their oral and/or written responses.
They will then have some supported planning time to engage in applying their learning from the session.
Please come to the PD with access to the ELA unit/lessons that will be teaching the week following the PD session. You don’t have to determine the exact lesson until they engage in the PD, but we want you to have the opportunity to apply the learning with your upcoming materials.
Optional Fire Extinguisher Training: Please respond by FRIDAY!
The Huntington Fire Department will be offering an optional, hands-on Fire Extinguisher Training on March 24 after school. This is a great opportunity to learn how to properly use a fire extinguisher in case of an emergency.
📅 Date: March 24
⏰ Time: 3:40-4:30 PM
📍 Location: start in GPAC, but then will go outside
This training is optional but highly valuable, especially for increasing confidence in handling fire safety situations. If you’re interested, please complete this google form to sign up.
Chester staff-if you are interested in attending, please let Heather and Mark know so they can arrange coverage so you can slip out a little early.
Letters for Absences
The union eboard and I discussed this matter, and we want to be sure that staff have documentation for the time they need for sick leave. We encourage you to get a note whenever possible and to provide a copy to the principal and to Stacy Stewart in Central Office to be sure it is logged. Copies can be provided by scanning the note or putting in interoffice mail to Stacy. Notes do not need to detail any medical information--it can simply say that the staff member was seen in the office on the date of the visit.
Please know that this isn't a "secret message" to any individual. The union eboard and I meet monthly and we discussed this matter to support staff's understanding of the contract and their rights.
March Instructional Vision Challenge! (THREE Prizes this month!)
We will continue into March with inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the fifth two bullets in the instructional vision are:
Students will push through challenge tasks with a positive attitude.
Staff will trust students to succeed after productive struggle.
Staff are invited to fill out a brief (2-3 sentences!) summary of how you are implementing this part of our vision. It can be specific or general, and it should clearly describe how your actions are moving this part of our instructional vision forward.
Here is the link to share!
https://padlet.com/ksmidy1/march-instructional-vision-challenge-7xmxexo3ycau0pe5
To add to the board, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner and write in your submission. Finally, hit Publish and voila! You're done!
Staff who share how they are implementing or supporting implementation of December's focus area of the instructional vision by March 31 will be entered to win a $50 gift card to one of the following locations: Carms, Common Table, Moltenbreys, Amazon, Big Y, Dunkin or at a place of your choice that I can get a gift card with relative ease 😂
District Data for your review
I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.
With so many eyes on the budget, I thought I would do something a little different this week and share a bunch of different articles about school budgets across the state. Budgets are looking very tight across the state with many districts requiring to make cuts for financial purposes.
•North Adams school leaders eye level service budget but are wary of federal cuts (iBerkshires)
•Springfield Public Schools looking for the community input for FY26 budget (Western Mass News)
•Gill-Montague Regional School District seeks to close $400K gap (Greenfield Recorder)
•Overflow Belchertown crowd brings school cut protests to Select Board (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
•Amherst town members protest proposed school budget cuts (The Amherst Student)
•Hampden-Wilbraham Regional reviews budget, discusses cuts to staff, programs (The Reminder)
•North Middlesex School Committee adopts $67.57M fiscal 2026 budget; budget calls for closure of Ashby Elementary (Lowell Sun)
•School leaders and town officials confront Manchester Essex budget shortfall; override looms (The Cricket)
•Newton schools brace for potentially 'devastating' federal funding cuts under Trump administration (The Heights)
•Dartmouth School Committee addresses concerns regarding school choice funding (Dartmouth Week)
•Choices to be made at Duxbury Town Meeting on Saturday (Duxbury Clipper)
•Eastham School Committee will request a special education stabilization fund at Town Meeting (The Provincetown Independent)
These articles are taken from the daily news report sent out by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). You can subscribe to receive emails with news across the Commonwealth and across the nation by signing up here if you wish: Sign Up
