The Center Mile

Dear Parents and Guardians:

Once again, welcome back to school! I hope you have felt the warmth from staff as we ushered in a new school year a mere three weeks ago. It always amazes me, even after many years as an educator, how students can pick up where they left off and re-enter school positive, energetic, and ready to learn.

At Center, we are feeling optimistic about the year ahead. We have launched our school year in ways both large and small, for example, through our Welcome Back All School meeting last week (photo below), our new district-wide master schedule, with our awesome new literacy curriculum, and through means such as daily morning meetings in classrooms and greetings every morning from staff to students. It is a real gift to be able to start over each Fall, and we are thrilled to do so alongside your students.

Please take a few minutes to read through this family newsletter in order to stay updated on all the Center School news that is underway. Feel free to reach out to me anytime with questions, concerns, or just to say hello! You can email me at lzavalick@nrsd.net, or call me anytime.

Fondly,

Lenore Zavalick

Principal

If you have a student in Grades 1-5, please read the important message below regarding next Tuesday's Back to School Night at Center. Please note - Center students are welcome to attend with their families. We can't provide child care for infants and toddlers; if parents have two classrooms to tour with their children, all children will be on that tour. See the schedule below for more details.

After some reflection, I have made a change to the original format that I communicated to you last week; these changes are a result of potential logistical issues for families, and a desire to ensure that our teachers have the time they need with adults to communicate about curriculum goals for students, which is one of the main goals for the evening.

We will no longer split the students' families by alphabet, however, students are still invited to accompany parents. Please know that if it's easier for you to come without your child, that is fine. The new breakdown of grade level visits will be:

6-6:45: Families of students in Grades 3, 4 and 5 are invited. Adults will go to classrooms to engage in teacher-led presentations of curriculum materials and goals for the year. While this is happening, students who are here will work with me, Mrs. Sanko, and Related Arts teachers to plan their classroom tours. At 6:20, those students will be brought to classrooms to meet their adults. Part of the tour will be seeing Related Arts areas, which you will be able to do and wrap up by 6:45, when this wave of visitors draws to a close.

6:45-7:30: Families of students in Grades 1 and 2 are invited. These families will first be invited to visit Related Arts spaces with their students. At 7:00, adults will head down to the classrooms without students to engage in teacher-led presentations of curriculum materials and goals for the year. Mrs. Sanko and I will work with students who are here to complete their classroom tour plans. At 7:20, students will meet adults in classrooms, show them their classroom space for 10 minutes, and wrap up by 7:30.

I appreciate your flexibility in honoring this change so we can accommodate all families and enjoy an informative and fun night for everyone. As always, I am here to answer any questions you might have. Thank you!

• Wednesday, Sept. 11: School Committee meeting in Bolton, 6:30-8:30 pm
• Friday, Sept. 13: Early release Day, dismissal at 12:15
• Tuesday, Sept. 17: Grades 1-5 Open House: 6-8 pm
• Thursday, Sept. 26: Kindergarten only Open House: 6:15-6:45 pm

It was another busy summer of hiring awesome educators, and as a result, we welcome several new staff this year to Center!

• Katelyn White, Instructional Assistant
• Anthony Pecci, Instructional Assistant
• Cailin Sallese, Instructional Assistant
• Mary McKeown, Instructional Assistant
• Samantha Cutler, Grade 3
• Claire Purrington, Grade 3
• Sherry Jusseaume, Grade 4
• Catherine LaRose, School Psychologist
• Anette LeFave, K-2 Special Educator
• Kathryn Newton, .6 Speech and Language Pathologist
• Angela Wotton, Art Long-Term Sub

Check out Ms. Elias' collaborative, cozy Computer lab (photo below), newly equipped with student Chromebooks for maximized technology learning across Grades K-5. It really is an inspiring space to be in!

Throughout our school, all staff are leading students in a new way of processing behaviors and issues that come up during the school day and interfere with learning. If a student displays an unexpected behavior, has a harmful interaction with a peer or an adult, or anything that violates our school-wide behavior expectations, they will be asked to process the incident by filling out a Think Form, with the assistance and guidance of a teacher, administrator, or other staff member. That form will then be sent home for guardians to sign, and send back with their student the next day for safekeeping in school. Parents will be given the heads up that the form is coming home so they can anticipate it and sign it.

We have four different types of forms, ranging from forms that have lots of pictures for circling, and forms with lots of space for writing. The goal of the Think Form is for students to pause and think about their actions, process how they were feeling at the time and why they did or said what they did, and make a plan for how to handle it differently the next time. We have used these forms with success this year and have found them very helpful in allowing us to facilitate helpful conversations with students.

Since it is a new school year, I would like to remind families about our Smart Watch school expectations. Per the Center School handbook, they are not allowed to be used for any purpose other than a time-telling device during the school day in our building. This requires the watch to be put on "school zone" mode, which disables the aforementioned features and makes it only a time-telling device. Additionally, students should keep the watches in their backpacks during the day, and they can be put back on once students arrive home or get in their parent's' cars. If students feel unsure about leaving watches in backpacks, teachers can hold them until dismissal.

As you recall from last year, we have begun to implement the new literacy curriculum that was chosen with excitement last Spring, EL/Imagine Learning curriculum. Teachers and staff have been trained in this curriculum, and started to teach the first Module this week. We are so fortunate to have this knowledge building, engaging curriculum that allows students to think critically, work with others collaboratively, and reflect, write, and sharpen those skills across the life of each unit. Texts that accompany each unit are authentic and high quality.

Our Grades 1-2 students' curriculum contains foundational components through the use of Fundations, as has been the case prior to this new curriculum. Our PreK and K students use Heggerty for their foundational skills building curriculum. Both focus on phonics and letter and sound acquisition as the building blocks of reading. Teachers will be receiving training and support throughout the school year through Teaching and Learning, which takes place on our early release days. I look forward to seeing this curriculum in action this year.

Please send in dismissal plan changes to your child's teacher, Mary O'Brien, and Kim Laster by 9 am so the communication can occur in a timely manner with lots of advance notice prior to dismissal. Sending changes to multiple people ensures that the message will be received, since staff can't always check email throughout the school day.

Mrs. O'Brien's email: mobrien@nrsd.net

Kim Laster's email: klaster@nrsd.net

Thank you!

We are so excited about our new literacy curriculum, EL/Imagine Learning, that is being implemented across grades 1-5! With this curriculum came lots of awesome materials that need to be labeled and stamped across grade levels, so we can be sure we have everything we need from year to year to successfully teach our students. If you are interested in volunteering here for a couple of hours to help stamp and label materials, please email Assistant Principal Sanko at: msanko@nrsd.net. Meagan will be organizing and getting in touch with volunteers in the next few days/next week.

Lost and Found is still located in the lobby of our school. We already have a lovely assortment of sweatshirts, water bottles, lunch bags, and other items, so please swing by and take a look at Back to School Night!

Students and staff enjoyed our first monthly All School Meeting (photo below) last week in the cafeteria. The theme was "Welcome Back", and Mrs. Sanko and I explained our schoolwide expectations with students, and launched the new Center School song (written by Ms. Cohen), "The Center of it All". We even had our amazing staff join us onstage for skits that modeled expected behavior for students school-wide!