Honey-Do List
6/7 Volunteer to be in charge of the visioning board during dismissal
6/7 Morning Provide ideas to Jodi for getting library cards in the hands of our students
6/9 Let Jodi know any end of the year celebrations you intend on holding
6/11 Complete calls to all your families re: Summer Plans
Field Day Friday June 11
Due to limited staffing and the desire to have fun! Next Friday (6/11) we will be having a Lee Academy Field Day
Thank you Mr. Baker for being incredibly flexible and willing to help out.
The current schedule is
9:45-10:45 K0/K1 Rooms 101 and 102
10:45-11:45 Grades 1 & 2
11:45-12:45 Grade 3
1:15-2:15 K2
2:15-3:15 K0/K1 Rooms 103 &104
- Paras will assist with their classes. At least 1 para will actively engage with Mr. Baker in activity facilitation. The other para will help monitor for behavior etc.
- Field day will impact our existing schedule. Denise will support field day during the following times:
- 9:45-10:30
- 12:00-12:45
- 1:15-2:15
- Please let families know that their students may get wet as we will be doing sponge relays and other fun and exciting things that may involve water.
- I will also send home a TalkingPoints Message about this next week
End of the Year Celebrations
Direct from Central Office:- With the continuing spread of contagious virus variants and other unknown variables still in play, the Center for Disease Control and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health continue to urge organizations to take a cautious approach to event planning.
- BPS consulted with the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), which has advised that BPS maintain the current masking and social distancing guidelines in place.
- Through June 18, 2021, all BPS students and staff must wear face coverings during all indoor and outdoor activities, including recess and athletics.
- Higher respiration activities pose a greater risk of spread.
- Individuals and organizations should assume the continued need for inclusion of many of the standard public health protective measures that have been in place throughout the pandemic.
- Some of those measures include:
- mask-wearing by all individuals at all times through June 18 (regardless of vaccination status)
- maintain social distancing indoors at all times, and as feasible when outdoors
- limit the number of people and duration of close contact with others
- monitor for and exclude symptomatic or quarantined individuals from gatherings - see CDC
- guidelines for what individuals should do if they are sick and a list of possible COVID-19 symptoms
- maintain strong hand hygiene by providing hand sanitizer stations for frequent cleaning
- signage and markings to remind individuals about the mitigation strategies in use and to assist with compliance
- The following outlines the current recommendations for all End-of-Year School Events:
- all events in the spring or summer 2021 must meet the COVID-19 safety standards outlined in this document issued by MDLS and DESE
- hold events outdoors, which provides the lowest-risk environment possible for attendees
- utilize larger outdoor spaces to allow for as much spacing as possible
- develop contingency plans for inclement weather by having one or more alternative “rain dates”
- plan virtual (recorded or live streamed) events for students in the remote learning model given that many families still have members in their family who are at higher risk for COVID-19
- students may not be excluded from participation (e.g. disciplinary, fees owed, etc.)
- ceremonies/events should be kept as brief as possible
- no food or drink shall be served
- As has been the policy, neither non-BPS employees nor students may access BPS facilities; thus, parent volunteers/visitors will not be permitted to enter BPS facilities
- depending on school enrollment and facility constraints, School Leaders may want to consider holding smaller ceremonies/events throughout the day or over the span of several days to limit crowds, allow for cleaning in between ceremonies, and to allow attendees to leave the venue before the next group arrives.
- please plan for appropriate adult supervision to support adherence to Covid-19 safety standards and overall student safety
- BPS transportation will not be provided for remote students to attend End-of-Year events
- plan for medical emergencies, especially if you have students on campus who have been in the remote learning model (e.g. medication, asthma pump, EpiPen, etc.)
- work with your Nutrition Team to make sure breakfast/lunch times are coordinated and they have a sufficient number of meals available
- make sure you have sufficient PPE in supply; depending on the event, you may use more than on a normal day
- limit the mixing of student cohorts to the extent possible
- depending on the event, plan to address traffic flow and to address people who may choose to mingle around your campus
- consider the benefit vs. the required lift for each activity you plan
We appreciate everyone’s collective effort to keep our communities safe as we celebrate key milestones and create more opportunities for joy in our students’ and families’ lives.
Summer Plans for Families
- I was informed on my Thursday (6/3) School Leader Call that we need to know the summer plans that families have for each of their students and to record them on this spreadsheet in column I
- I need each of you to call every student in your class by 6/11 and ask what their plans are this summer.
- In Column I please indicate which program families are planning to enroll students
- This is the same sheet that we used to prioritize students for the summer now we need to know where parents are intending to send their students.
- When you call families choose from the drop-down menu what program families intend to send their students to there is even an option for outside BPS plans
- In order to enroll students in BPS summer programs parents will need to go to https://summer.bostonpublicschools.org/login
- It has been reported that this form is cumbersome for families to complete
- If families have trouble or report having trouble you can refer them to the parent hotline at 617-635-8873 for assistance
Library Cards
- One of our amazing parents Kim Parker has reintroduced us to Chris Strunk the children's librarian at the BPL Codman Square branch
- Chris has availability next week to get our students set up with library cards
- This is the request that Chris made from us in order to make the magic happen:
- I think all I would need is a table and an hour or two?
- We have library card forms and barcodes where I can have the kids fill out a form and then give them the card then, and then I'll take the card numbers and info back to the library and activate their cards, so it's a pretty easy process.
- I guess I could also do a quick storytime or something like that?
- I don't think that our younger kiddos are capable of filling out the form yet
- Please give me ideas of how we can get this done. It would be ideal if we could have the forms filled out and have Chris come do an outside story time for each grade level
Staff Needs Assessment -Results
A community school builds partnerships and organizes resources (programs and services) to support the successful development of students. All young people must develop skills and strengths to navigate normal developmental tasks. Sometimes students face challenges that affect their healthy development. Schools, Communities and Families must work together to address the successful development of our youth.
The following list is how you ranked priorities, for addressing student challenges, on last week's survey. I averaged the Likert scale responses to get the correct values.
1. Recreational programs and activities 8.38
2. Organized Sports 8.15
3. Academic Enrichment 8.08
4. Crisis Intervention 7.53
5. Life Skills 7.07
6. Counseling and Therapy 6.84
7. Relationships with Peers 6.69
8. Communication Skills 6.53
8. Hopes and Dreams for the Future 6.53
8. Family Unity 6.53
8. Bullying Prevention (Being an Ally) 6.53
9. Nutrition Education and Practice 6.46
10. Academic Support: 6.41
10. Additional Support in math & reading 6.41
11. Leadership 6.3
12. Academic Remediation: 6.25
13. Working in a group 6.23
14. Problem-Solving Skills 6.15
14. Regular Exercise 6.15
15. Health Services 6.07
16. Critical Thinking Skills 5.69
17. Strong Sense of Self 5.46
17. Ability to operate within clear and consistent boundaries 5.46
18. Relationships with Adults 5.30
19. High Expectations for Success 5.07
Some ideas that people had were:
I like the idea of some enrichment activities both during recess and after school or before school.
I also think every grade level would benefit from a small group of students receiving additional math skills groups who are in need of remediation. These groups could focus on foundational skills that students are struggling with (i.e. in 2nd grade, finding combinations of 10 quickly, in 3rd grade, adding and subtracting multiples of 10 and 100). These are extremely important foundational skills that students need in order to access the grade-level curriculum, and I think there is a need for extra time. I would think this could be a "reading recovery" kind of model where the 4-5 students with the highest need across the grade level are chosen to be in the group and then students can rotate out after they meet the benchmark that is being focused on.
making instruction more systematic across the school; making intervention/referral more systematic across more grade levels; supporting students language skills in relation to both academics and functioning as a community member
social emotional development of children, developing our capacity as a staff (training for paras/teachers) in reading interventions/supports for ESL and Sp.Ed students, access to more programs for families
Please complete this week's Hive survey to provide more ideas of your vision for the top three priorities you identified
Building Visitor
On the morning of June 11th, Corey Harris, the District's new Chief of Schools, will be paying us a visit. We have 4 classroom teachers out that day so it will be a good day for him to see. It is also field day! He will be joining us for our visioning meeting (see below). Make sure you say hello if you see him and tell him about the great work we are doing!
Visioning For Family Support Team SY 21-22
- We are going to be truly lucky to have a robust amount of human support for our families next year.
- A full-time Family Liasion
- A full-time Social Worker
- A full-time program coordinator for our before and after school program.
- The amazing Sam Betti will continue to be with us
- The awesome Ms. Jen will continue to be with us and she will bring with her amazing interns
- Next Friday Sam, Jen, and I and anyone else who wants to join us will be doing a in school retreat to create a vision for family support at LAPS next year.
- Please complete the Hive survey to give us your vision for family support and the roles the new positions we have in our school will play in supporting our students
Family Communication Plan- School Priorities
- Next week will mark the launch of a family communication plan to gather input on what our schoolwide priorities should be
- This process was initiated by ESSER but it is also the right ting to do.
- On Monday a survey will go out to all families of K0-Grade 2 students asking them to provide some insight into obstacles families in our community may face and programs and activities that they would like to see that could potentially improve the school experience for our families.
- This survey will be sent on the Survey Monkey platform and communicated through School Messenger and TalkingPoints.
- We will also have a visioning board outside at dismissal for parents to add thoughts to vis sticky notes. I need a volunteer to be in charge of these boards outback.
- For families that do not respond to the survey, they will be contacted over the summer with a phone call using the survey as a script. This will also be true of our students entering the school year.
Staff Absences and Coverage
- I will continue to update you each afternoon on staff who is out and a coverage plan.
- I am going to be honest, during the next few weeks it is going to be difficult to balance the competing demands of teachers receiving their allotment of time off and providing students with the education they deserve.
- I appreciate everyone working as hard as you do when you are in the building to make it all work!
Bring Computer Science to K-8 Students!
- Are you interested in incorporating coding into your classes?
- Research shows that introducing students to computer science as early as elementary and middle school grades can encourage students to see themselves in this evolving industry.
- As part of the DLCS@BPS initiative, BPSTechnology and Early Childhood departments are offering three initiatives to help schools and teachers bring computer science to K-8 students in the upcoming school year.
- Attend our virtual session on June 7 from 5:30-6:30p to learn more or see our information page for more details and fill out the form to be considered. No coding experience necessary!
BPS Staff Language Fluency Survey
School leaders: please share the
following memo with your staff for educators to report their language fluency as part of the implementation of the Language Opportunity for Our Kids Act (LOOK ACT) and the district’s Strategic Plan 2020-2025.
Coming Up
- Professional Development Calendar- June 14th
