Community Newsletter
ReachMyTeach
Between now and March, BSD will be piloting a new communication tool called ReachMyTeach.
ReachMyTeach makes it easy for families, students, and teachers to connect in ways that work for them! Made by a student-teacher team in Maine, ReachMyTeach sends messages over text, email, WhatsApp, supports on-demand video interpreters, and scheduled conferences all in a guardian’s preferred language. ReachMyTeach empowers educators to message families and families to message educators! It pulls information directly from PowerSchool and is simple and user-friendly for the educator and the family receiving the message.
We believe this tool will be incredibly beneficial for communicating with individuals, classes, and groups of English-speaking and Multilingual guardians. We are very excited about this opportunity and truly believe this is something that will help to improve and increase our regular and on-going communication and engagement with all of our families, especially those who can't access information shared in English.
We have trained all of our administrators and are training a group of educators and support staff (including teachers, secretaries, nurses, school counselors, and social workers) over the next couple of weeks. At the end of March, we will evaluate whether this is a tool that we want to adopt district-wide.
Congratulations BJHS Nurse Bowdish
Congratulations to Jennifer Bowdish on receiving her National Certification in School Nursing!
As part of the Maine Department of Education’s (DOE) efforts to provide opportunities to the current workforce of school nurses to build upon their expertise and to promote evidence-based practice in all Maine schools, the Maine DOE hosted a National Certification in School Nursing (NCSN) Review Course created by Nurse Builders this past fall.
Fifty Maine school nurses participated in the course that was delivered online synchronously by Dr. Janice Selekman, DNSc, RN, NCSN, FNASN. The NCSN credentials, which is a nationally accredited credential that validates specialized knowledge and expertise as a school nurse.
The National Association of School Nurses endorses national certification of school nurses through the National Board for Certification of School Nurses (NBCSN).
Brunswick Buzz
Episode 6: Full Plates Full Potential
On this episode of the Brunswick Buzz, Phil speaks with Justin Strasburger, Executive Director of Full Plates Full Potential. Full Plates Full Potential works to identify and break down barriers to food access faced by too many children.
Help Alleviate School Nutrition Debt
Please DONATE
The Brunswick School Department is looking to alleviate school nutrition debt for families in our community. Prior to the pandemic, families in the Brunswick community had accumulated $7,000 in debt from unpaid lunch bills. We would like to relieve the stress from those families and take care of the payment for them. This is where we need your help! We're looking to not only fundraise for the $7,000 owed to the school nutrition program, but we would like to keep the fundraising going and provide cold milk for all students throughout the remainder of the school year.
The Maine Department of Education has funded free school lunches to all students throughout the 2022-2023 school year. However, what is not funded is cold milk for those students that choose to bring their lunches from home. We would like to have cold milk equally accessible to all students, and with your support, we could make this a reality for the Brunswick community.
If interested in donating, please scan the QR code or visit https://givebutter.com/foodservicerelief
Every little bit helps and goes directly to help families in our community.
We appreciate your support.
With Gratitude,
Brunswick School Department
Thank you to those that have already donated! We've raised
just over $3,700 to help school nutrition debt.
Cooking with Culture: A Culinary Celebration of Brunswick's Diversity
Brunswick’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) Committee is excited to invite community members to share their culturally significant recipes for the purpose of celebrating our community’s diversity through food. We appreciate the myriad of traditions, cultures, and diverse lived experiences present in Brunswick’s population and seek to build a collective understanding of the cultural traditions in our community through this fun and engaging opportunity!
We hope to compile these recipes into a digital format and, later, a Community Cookbook.
When sharing your recipe, please consider including a sentence or two describing why the recipe is important to you.
To submit a recipe, please either:
Email it directly to Erin Duguay, eduguay@brunswicksd.org;
Submit it via a Google Form available HERE or select another language below;
Send it with your child to school, attention Erin Duguay;
Mail it or Drop it off at the Superintendent’s Office, attention Erin Duguay, 46 Federal Street, Brunswick, ME 04011.
To submit your recipe via Google Forms, click your language below:
Employee Spotlight
Emily Field
English Teacher, Brunswick High School
Emily is originally from Massachusetts and currently lives in Bath with her husband, Devin, their chocolate lab, Sam and their gecko, Walter. Emily attended Springfield college for her undergraduate degree and Smith College for her graduate degree.
What makes you proud to work in Brunswick? #BSDProud
I'm excited to join Brunswick most especially because everyone here exudes pride for Brunswick and for this community. It already feels like such a supportive, close-knit place and I feel very lucky to have landed here.
What do you like to do outside of work for fun?
Outside of school, my husband and I love to hike and kayak, take Sam for walks, and grudgingly/enthusiastically take on house projects.
Favorite line from a movie?
"Milk was a bad choice." - Anchorman
If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would you meet?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What is something you learned in the last week?
I learned that the different colored bell peppers are just peppers in different stages of ripeness!
