March 2019 Superintendent Monthly Memo

Dear Staff Members,

Despite some initial concerns very early this morning, we were able to safely have a full day of school today and our last day of school remains Thursday June 13, 2019.  If we have any additional snow days they will be added to the calendar.   However the end is in sight, with winter “officially” being over.   The end of next week looks like we will see several days above 50 (insert happy dance music here)! As a reminder next year’s school calendar is on the website for planning purposes.

1.      School Building Committee update

1. Please remember the vote for the building project is Saturday April 6^th at each towns polling station.  The polling station locations are on the school website.  It is critical that every person gets out to Vote!

2.  The formal vote by the MSBA to approve the project in terms of schematic design and budget as being voted on April 6^th in the seven towns is on April 10^th in Boston at the MSBA.   

3. There have been several articles written in the local news regarding the project.  Most have been added to our school website.  If you want more information please check out http://www.cbrsd.org/m_s_b_a_building_project.  Also if you want to get more involved with the Advocacy of the project, you can reach out to Families for Wahconah through Jared Shannon or at their twitter: https://twitter.com/FamiliesforWRHS

4. Principal Aaron Robb and I filmed a segment for the school building project on PAC TV.  Clearly Mr. Robb is far more likely to be admitted to the Screen Actors Guild than I but our message is out there! https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1s&v=lmtsM66FbGc

3.      Staff updates

1. Open Positions we are currently hiring for:

Special Education Teacher at Craneville

Math Teacher at Nessacus

2. New/Reorganized Positions we will be hiring for next year:

Board Certified Behavioral Analyst: This is a position we currently contract for part time, next year our goal is to hire someone on staff full time

Instructional Coach: A full time instructional coach will be at the elementary level and a full time at the middle.  We currently have one full time coach and will be hiring for a second.

3. We have retirements in the following areas we will be hiring for:

School Adjustment Counselors

Nurses

Math

ELA

Industrial Technology

Please encourage those you know who may be interested to apply.  Positions will be posted shortly on School Spring.   

4.   Equity and Diversity Steering Committee: The second meeting of the Equity and Diversity Steering Committee took place on Thursday March 21, 2019.  The focus of the meeting was a training on Micro-Aggressions.  Micro-Aggressions are small acts that take place respectively and can cause great harm.  They may not be intended to be mean, hurtful or discriminatory but there impact is just that.  They are far more common than overt acts of racism, sexism or other forms of hate in our community and less often responded to.  The most powerful thing we can do as a group is build our capacity to reduce the amount of bystanders not only to blatant discrimination or hate but also to such micro-agresssions that are incredibly harmful to our school and larger community.  I have included a link to micro-aggressions commonly seen in classrooms.  One specific micro-aggression that was highlighted which can be very harmful is the continued misuse of pronouns or names after a student has voiced either directly or through a trusted staff member they will be going by a certain name or pronoun based on a genuine desire.  There is an excellent resource on the DESE website regarding this: http://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/lgbtq/GenderIdentity.html Also one thing that was pointed out from those with first hand experiences is a mistake can be rectified if the follow up is corrective and genuine.  Please make an effort to ensure you are using the correct pronouns and names for students and if there are questions talk with a staff member with a well-established relationship with the student about how to approach.  One thing that at one time was a common practice that is no longer seen as best practice is asking for everyone’s preferred pronouns. This is for two reasons: 1.     You may be inadvertently “outing” someone or creating anxiety 2.     It is not preferred but rather is their pronoun In addition to the training by Multicultural Bridge we discussed the formation of four sub-committees to focus on specific work; Policy and Procedures, Curriculum and Instruction, Sustainability Planning and Community Engagement.  There will be specific timelines and goals for the work with the ultimate goal of bringing recommendations forward to the School Committee.  More to come as we proceed with this work.  Sarah DiFazio, grade 2 teacher at Becket Washington and Stefanie Wright from Multicultural Bridge will be co-facilitating a community book talk on the book Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum the 20th Anniversary Edition.  All participants will be provided copies of the book thanks to our Social and Emotional Learning Grant.  There will be several meetings over the course of April and May.  Information on sign-ups will be sent out within the next few weeks. 5. School Committee Updates: There has been an update in Sub-Committees of the School Committee.  The Technology Sub-Committee has been discontinued as at this time the goals and objectives have been achieved.  In its place there has been a new committee formed chaired by School Committee member Nicole Tucker, Safety and Wellness.  I will be working with Mrs. Tucker going forward to bring forward information and presentations to them consistent with these topics and may reach out to some of your roles to participate in such meetings.  The charter of the new committee is as follows. Safety and Wellness Review and make recommendations to the School Committee as it relates to student and staff safety and security Review and make recommendations to the School Committee as it relates to environmental impacts on student learning and on student and staff comfort Review and make recommendations to the School Committee as it relates to the social emotional learning environment The additional sub-committees remain: Personnel-Chair Dick Lacatell Finance-Co-Chair Richard Peters, Bonnie DiTomasso Policy-Chair Michael Hagmaier Curriculum-Chair Barbara Craft Reiss The budget was approved by School Committee on March 14th unanimously with a .82% increase over last year.  The budget will be brought to the 7 town meetings for a vote. The budget requires 5 out of 7 positive town votes to be approved.  The town meeting dates are: Cummington (First Friday in May) ……………………………………    May 3, 2019, 7:00pm Dalton (First Monday in May) …………………………………………        May 6, 2019, 7:00pm Windsor (First Monday in May) ……………………………………….           May 6, 2019, 7:00pm Washington (Wednesday before the Second Saturday in May) ……….         May 8, 2019, 7:00pm Becket (Second Saturday in May) …………………………………….   May 11, 2019, 7:00pm Peru (Second Saturday in May) ………………………………………….       May 11, 2019, 7:00pm  Hinsdale (Third Wednesday in May) ………………………………….       May 15, 2019, 7:00pm The full budget is available online. A special thanks to Shawn Therrien, Patty Robie, Colleen for presenting to the School Committee on Instructional Coaching. A special thanks to Bryan Patton who presented to the Curriculum Sub-Committee on the new Social Studies Standards.  6.      Important Upcoming Dates: ·        April 6-School Building Vote ·        April 15-19 April Vacation ·        May 17 – Last day of classes for Seniors ·        May 30 – Senior Walkthroughs of Elementary Schools and Nessacus ·        June 2 – Graduation (1pm) ·        June 13-Last day of School 7. Additional Communications: I will be scheduling times for open conversations in each of the five buildings between the months of April and May.  I look forward to dialoguing with you directly about the year and going forward.  I have reached out to Jessica Minahan to see if she can return to district for some consultation and PD specifically PK-5 on social, emotional learning and trauma sensitive practices.  Jessica was here in the fall of 2015 and very well received.  She recently put out the following article which I found very useful and thought it prudent to share.  https://www.kappanonline.org/building-positive-relationships-with-students-struggling-with-mental-health/ Have  a great weekend! Laurie