Welcome New Staff!
Please join me in welcoming the following new staff to Gateway!
Michelle Laurin-Guidance Secretary at GRS
Mark Laliberte-PM Custodian at GRS
Shaleignne Main-Cafeteria Worker at CES
Alicia Spaulding-Learning Lab Para at GRS
Carly Wright-SAC at GRS
JoAnn Orluk - Special Education Teacher at Littleville
Instructional Vision Challenge! (Yes, there are prizes!)
Starting in November, the district will be inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the first two bullets in the instructional vision are:
- Gateway students will engage in their school community.
- Gateway staff will know and reach every student.
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/november-instructional-vision-fgh330en8pjf38o4
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 November's focus area of the instructional vision by November 30 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 😂
The Barr Foundation Work-A Little More Context
I was asked this week why we are engaging in work with the Barr Foundation and why is it important. This is such a great question, and I wanted to give a brief explanation here for our work with Barr, and invite any opportunities to discuss further. It will also be my topic with the new teachers at our mentor meeting in November, since the new staff weren't here for the work that was done last year.
The Barr Foundation is a private organization that invests in school programs that they believe in--those who are looking to improve instruction and culture for students. Although the Barr Foundation is focused on high school transformation only, we expand this work to our whole district since we are small (but mighty!) and the work is really most appropriate for our whole district.
In our first year of partnering with Barr during the 2023-2024 school year, they asked us to learn more about our own community in a deep way. The purpose of this was to be able to truly pinpoint the focus point of our transformation. We collected data in a number of ways including focus groups, surveys, and walk throughs.
After learning more about our own community, we visited other districts to see strong teaching and learning in play. We were invited to "dream" about the possibilities at Gateway and to be inspired by these observations to other schools across the country. This ended up being some of the best PD we have every experienced!
Finally, we took from March through June of the last school year to plan what we were going to do with all of the information. We gathered lots of feedback from staff and over the summer, the instructional vision was born.
This year, we are charged with pushing the instructional vision forward by trying new things. Barr expects us to be in our "early implementation" phase and to be piloting new ways of doing things in small, manageable ways. They also expect that some of the things we try will be wildly successful while other things are going to flop--and that's all okay!
I am going to share some of the data that built that sense of urgency to make some shifts (in other words, some of the not-so-positive data). There was plenty of positive data as well! You will see a direct line from the areas of growth from the information gathered to our instructional vision this year. The full data sets (compiled by Cheryl Wright and Anne-Marie Fant--AMAZING) can be found here:
Gateway Regional Middle School Data
Gateway Regional High School Data
This data captures students, staff, and families perspectives from October of 2023.
Calling Out Absent Clarification
There seems to be some confusion about calling out for an absence. If you will not be able to come to school--regardless if you need a sub--you must call, text, or email Kayla Turner, the district sub caller. More specific instructions are here, and also are updated in the faculty handbook.
Elementary Staff who are going to be absent from school should call, text, or email Kayla Turner at 413-977-2833 or at kturner@grsd.org before 7:35 AM. If calling out after 7:35 AM, staff are expected to also call the main office. If nobody is available in the main office after 7:35 AM, the staff member needs to call the building principal to alert them of the absence. If a staff member knows about an absence in advance, they should fill out an Advanced Request for Absence form for approval. Prior permission from administration must be obtained before leaving early during the school day.
Secondary Staff who are going to be absent from school should call, text, or email Kayla Turner at 413-977-2833 or at kturner@grsd.org before 6:15 AM. If calling out after 6:15 AM, staff are expected to also call the main office. If a staff member knows about an absence in advance, they should fill out an Advanced Request for Absence form for approval. Prior permission from administration must be obtained before leaving early during the school day.
Reminder: New Technology Help Desk Request Process
We are happy to announce that Gateway’s new Technology/Maintenance request system is ready to use.
Gateway users can simply go to https://1to1plus.com/login/Gateway_MA and login using google, or alternatively by using your google credentials if needed (same as your email).
Once logged in, the system will ask you to choose the type of ticket you want to enter (i.e. Maintenance, Technology, or Student Chromebook). At this time, we are not allowing students to submit tickets for their own chromebooks, so please, do not share this with them as they will not be able to login. Based on the type of request you have, the system will prompt you to tell us more about the issue(s) as well as the location of the issue. Click submit at the bottom and you are finished. We will be using this system exclusively for all issues moving forward so please make the change from our previous email system. In other words, do not email technology-department@grsd.org any longer for assistance.
If you have any issues, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to let us know!
From the School Based Health Center
COVID vaccine available for children 5-11 and12+ available at the School Based Health Center.
Flu vaccine available for children of all ages.
Getting vaccinated lowers your chances of getting infected. If you do get infected, you will be much less likely to get severely ill if you have been vaccinated.
In addition to protecting yourself, getting vaccinated will also help protect other people, especially those who are at higher risk of getting very sick or dying. It also protects people who can't get a vaccine, like young babies.
Call School Based Health Center today to coordinate (413) 667-0142.
