News From The Nest: Issue #4

Hello Elm Street School Families and Friends!

This past week we saw our Eagles settling into routines in and out of classroom spaces and starting to internalize the new routines and expectations of this school year. We know it takes students about 6 weeks to really adjust to the new school year and we are seeing great progress towards building those solid foundations!

In this edition of our weekly newsletter you will find information about:

• upcoming dates and celebrations
• September/October Counseling Newsletter
• Curriculum Night at Elm
• Bus Behavior reminders and expectations
• October Coffee and Conversation Save the Date
• First PAC Meeting
• Battle of the Books Website and Update
• Docent Volunteers Needed
• Student Support and Chronic Absenteeism
• SEPAC meeting

We are really excited to see all of our families and friends at this week's Curriculum Night. Please take some time to review the structure of the evening and reach out to your child's classroom teacher if you are having trouble making your assigned time.

I hope everyone has a restful weekend and we will see all our Eagles back at the Nest on Monday ready for another week of engagement, learning, and joy!

Jen

At the beginning of each month I will share a calendar of some upcoming Elm events as well as upcoming cultural celebrations and heritage months with hyperlinks to more information if you are interested in learning more. Below is information for the month of September.

If there are cultural celebrations that are important to you and your family that you would like to share with the adult Elm community, please email me so I can be sure to include them in upcoming newsletters. If you have any questions about anything you see on our calendar, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly.

August 30th: SCHOOL CLOSED

September 2nd: SCHOOL CLOSED, Labor Day

September 3rd: First Day of School (PreK and K)

September 5th 6:00p: "Ice Cream" Social for all K-5 students and families

September 6th 8:30a: Coffee and Conversation (see below)

September 10th 3:15p: Elm School Council Meeting

September 11th: Anniversary of 9/11

September 15th: First Day of Hispanic Heritage Month

September 15-16th: Mawlid

September 16th: Fall School Picture Day

September 19th 7:00p: First PAC meeting

September 20th: Early Release Day

September 21st: International Day of Peace

September 24th: Elm Curriculum Night

October 27th: Elm Fall Festival

We are excited to welcome all families to our Curriculum Night on September 24th. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet your child's educators, learn about curriculum, and make connections with families. Any questions specific to your child(ren) should be reserved for a more confidential setting such as upcoming educator/caregiver conferences or at a separately scheduled time.

The Curriculum Nights/Open Houses at all of the Walpole Elementary Schools are for adult caregivers only. Students, other family members, and guests should not attend. Thank you for your understanding.

Schedule:

6:00 - 6:20p Families with Last Name Beginning with A-L* meet in classrooms

6:20 - 6:30p Family meeting with Principal Buller in the cafeteria

6:45 - 7:05p Families with Last Name Beginning with M-Z* meet in classrooms

7:05 - 7:15p Family meeting with Principal Buller in the cafeteria

*If you have more than one child, email the teacher for an exception to the assigned times.

In addition our annual mum sale, sponsored by the Elm PAC, will be going on helping us all get in the full swing of Fall!

This week there have been numerous reports across various buses of unsafe and unexpected behavior. In reviewing some of the video footage of the buses I can confirm that our students need some explicit reminders about expected bus behaviors specifically:

• safe riding- students should be sitting in their seats the whole ride and only getting up when it is their stop and their hands should never be on another student for any reason
• safe volume- there is a lot of yelling and screaming on our buses. Students should use quiet voices to talk to their seat partners and those close to them
• respectful language - students should be using kind words and may not swear or use violent/harmful language towards others

When incidents are reported I will engage in some fact finding (including student, family, and/or driver interviews and viewing of bus video and audio), make a determination regarding consequences, and connect with families of students involved. I've also copied some pertinent language from the bus contract below:

Bus transportation to and from school is a privilege for all students who qualify according to the rules and regulations of the Walpole School Committee and the Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The school bus is an extension of the school itself, and the rules regarding behavior are the same as in school. It should be understood by all that the right of a student to school transportation is a qualified right dependent upon good behavior.

The Walpole School Department, through the Superintendent of Schools or his designee, retains the right to suspend the bus privileges of any student for behavior or misconduct that endangers the safety of its students, the driver, or the bus at any time. Parents, bus driver and Central Office will be notified of all suspensions in writing by the Principal. Further disciplinary action may be taken by School Administrators depending on the severity of the offense.

While I will always aim for progressive discipline and helping students learn from and correct their mistakes, there are some unsafe behaviors that may warrant temporary or permanent suspensions from the bus.

Over the next few weeks I will be going into all classrooms to remind students of safe and expected bus riding behaviors. I would appreciate your partnership in reinforcing these expectations at home and reminding your child(ren) that their bus privilege may be suspended if they are unsafe and/or not following our expectations.

Again, I appreciate your collaboration with me in helping ensure all our students have a safe ride to and from school each day and welcome any questions you may have.

Our next Coffee and Conversation will be on Friday October 4th starting at 8:30a. The topic will be math instruction at Elm. Come by to connect with Elm families and hear more about how we teach math at Elm, the scope of sequence of math learning K-5, and ask questions of our incredible math coach Jen Torigian.

Doors open at 8:15a at drop off and coffee and muffins will be provided by PAC.

We packed the first PAC meeting of the school year! Thank you to all the families that came out and to our amazing middle school students who offered childcare as a way to remove a barrier to attendance. We went through the budget, talked about all of the great events and opportunities that PAC offers the community, and discussed the importance of volunteers and inclusive programming. If you missed the meeting you can watch the recording here.

We hope to see even more families at our next PAC meeting on October 17th!

We are so excited to get the Battle of the Books underway for our Grades 3-5 students. Paper pamphlets with more information and the Battle contract went home with all Grades 3-5 students and are due back on Friday September 27th. Our plan will be to make teams and hopefully announce them the week of October 4th.

You can learn more about Battle of the Books on our Elm Street School Battle website.

I am reaching out today in hopes you will consider joining a favorite program of our students: Docent! We are especially looking for volunteers with students in Ms. Morse, Mrs. Fisher, and Ms. Ryan's class.

As a volunteer , you would be part of a town-wide program that introduces our students to some amazing artwork with classroom discussions, games, and projects. We have several fabulous and interesting art presentations planned for this year. It is so exciting to watch how much the students love to share what they see, and how easily they absorb the principles of art history and art

appreciation through this program.

This classroom visit (booked to suit both educator and volunteer schedules) takes about an

hour and includes a fun activity – which will be provided to you in advance. No specific background is necessary, since the program does a fabulous job of giving you everything you need to know to confidently share the art with your children and their classmates. We welcome parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even favorite neighbors – feel free to spread the word.

To learn more or sign up to volunteer, simply send an email to Alanna Zammett at alanna.zammett@gmail.com or Moriah Boulos at mdeden@gmail.com

Email: jbuller@walpole.k12.ma.us
Website: https://www.walpole.k12.ma.us/o/ess
Location: 415 Elm Street, Walpole, MA, USA
Phone: 508.660.7374

Instagram: ElmStSchool