Weekly Update
*MCAS this week*
Monday, April 7-Regular School Day
*Required PRISM Walk Through from TNTP
Tuesday, April 8-Regular School Day
Trip to State House in Boston to Testify with Chester gr 4 and GRS Gr 8
Wednesday, April 9-Regular School Day
School Committee 7pm
Thursday, April 10-Regular School Day
Friday, April 11-Wear jeans and your Gator Gear!
PRISM Walk Through on Monday
On Monday, April 7, team members assigned by DESE to lead our PRISM grant will be walking through classes to collect aggregate data.
The PRISM grant was awarded to only 15 districts across the state to support early literacy. Districts who were awarded this grant were required to have three elementary schools in their grant application, so therefore we partnered with Farmington River to apply. We are the only rural districts who were awarded this significant grant. This is their "planning" year and next year is meant to be an "implementation" year. They will fund one position at each elementary school for reading support. These positions were paid for by our Student Opportunity Act Implementation Grant which is ending this year, so it is a relief to our district to have received this grant so we can continue providing the services we do to our students. Therefore, our participation in this grant is important for continuing services.
DESE has selected a vendor to lead this work, and they opted for TNTP. We have worked with TNTP in the past, and unlike some of their other vendors, TNTP typically has strong, supportive services.
More information about TNTP and PRISM is here:
TNTP has partnered with Gateway Regional Schools to support your school through the PRISM I grant.
The site visit is meant for TNTP to get a view of a typical day of literacy instruction in early childhood classroom. We appreciate those staff who are participating in this visit!
Central Office Staffing Updates
The Central Office reconfiguration work continues to ensure that all roles in the Central Office are directly tied to ensuring student success and the implementation of the instructional vision.
I asked for volunteers for the screening committee from different stakeholder groups for the School Business Administrator Position and was pleased to be joined by Curt Robie from the Middlefield Selectboard, Bill Brown from the Gateway Education Association, Will Sullivan from the building administrator team, Stephanie Fisk from the Central Office, and Jason Forgue from the school committee. The School Business Administrator screening committee met and reviewed the pool of candidates and decided on proceeding with interviews. After this process was completed, the screening committee unanimously selected Amy Mason as the recommended candidate to put forth to the school committee for consideration. Since spring of 2024, Amy has been doing her apprenticeship with Assistant Superintendent Fisk learning the ropes of the position of School Business Administrator and has earned her DESE license in that field. She has also completed multiple courses to be knowledgeable in areas related to the position. In anticipation of this shift, Director of Pupil Services Kurt Garivaltis, Assistant Superintendent Fisk, Special Education Secretary Steph Conway, Amy and I met to discuss the transition to a new Teacher of the Visually Impaired to keep the program running smoothly. I will be formally introducing Amy to the school committee on Wednesday evening and they will go into executive session to discuss her contract, as this School Business Administrator is officially appointed by the school committee.
The Human Resource Director position is a new role in the Central Office. After collecting information from stakeholders and analyzing that data, this position is being created to replace retiring district Treasurer Deb Kuhn. Deb took on responsibilities much more aligned to a Human Resource Director while other positions also pieced together supporting staff onboarding, departure, and recruitment. Because this is a significant area of growth for our district, a dedicated HR Director is designed to ensure these processes and supports are consistent and we can attract and retain high quality staff. This position is also going to be supporting all towns in their human resource needs as they arise.
The screening committee consisted of eight stakeholders from various departments and multiple candidates were considered and interviewed. After deliberation, the committee unanimously selected Stacy Stewart for the Human Resource Director position. Stacy’s knowledge and commitment to our district, her trustworthiness in the role, and her vision for how to improve operations and provide support to staff were the best fit for what the committee saw as the needs for this role. Stacy will transition into this role on July 1.
Because some of her current responsibilities are aligned with human resources, the administrative assistant to the superintendent position will also be reimagined and posted within the next month. Additionally, 30-hour a week positions for Accounts Payable and Payroll have also been posted for hire. This is a reduction from the previous positions to ensure that the reconfiguration both meets our students needs and is fiscally viable.
Finally, after consideration, the district will no longer have the position of Curriculum Director and instead will be posting for a Director of Grants and Accountability. The roles and responsibilities of the Director of Curriculum position goes further beyond the scope of curriculum, most notably as the main administrator responsible for the programmatic management and writing grants for the district. The new position will bring clarity to what the role entails (working with grants and DESE accountability requirements through data) and is meant to ensure that we continue meeting our accountability measures in a positive and productive manner. You can see the job description here. This posting will be available soon.
As many of these positions in the Central Office will be new and be filled with new individuals, I have been doing significant reflecting on and seeking targeted coaching to ensure that the new team is aligned, connected, and are moving together with purpose. I have been in discussion about these shifts with the GEA Executive Board, and hope that you will find them supportive of your work, whatever your role may be. I welcome your feedback and questions!
ELL PDPs-Please complete by Tuesday!
In the last, Susan Addis has graciously and expertly delivered the PLC around the book From Borscht to Burgers study group again which would allow people to get 15 PDPs in one year. This would be offered during non-contractual time as an option for staff to engage in with Susan.
Susan is also willing to run a shorter workshop on ACCESS testing for 3 PDPs.
There are also some free 1 to 4 hour courses at WIDA that you can do on your own time - this would require staff to obtain and submit the certificate from WIDA and turn it in to get PDPs from the district.
Please click on this link to provide feedback regarding how you'd like the district to proceed with offering ELL PDPs. We need at least 10 people to respond to one of the choices to proceed.
April/May Instructional Vision Challenge!
We will continue into April and May with the last opportunity 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 know what they are learning and why they are learning it.
Staff will empower students to know what and why they are learning.
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/april-may-instructional-vision-challenge-t8m7i9h8aot0argp
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 the last focus area of the instructional vision by May 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.
Given our push to the state house this week to advocate for school budgets, I'm sharing the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools budget request list that was also adopted by other state groups so we are all asking for the same things.
It's a comprehensive list, but check it out!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X0mGuuONGM4nTxiVEHHb7BAAw3iCS3sB9qwD5ptGklA/edit?usp=sharing
