September 20, 2024
One of my favorite places to spend time is the Perley PreK classrooms. Our youngest students are full of wonderment, curiosity and the simplest moments bring them absolute joy! Our staff capitalizes on this and feel the joy with each teaching success! I hope you enjoy the artwork, “Star & Sky” given to me by Will Crockett, a 4 year old Perley student!
Employee Shout Outs
- Devon Stuart (Penn Brook teacher) has jumped right into her new position and worked very hard to build quick connections with students and their families. Her flexible approach and expertise in working with students who have unique needs is an incredible asset to the Penn Brook Community!
- Mandy Maguire-Stirk deserves a shout out for embracing the new ELA curriculum and new instructional routines. She ran a Socratic Seminar to expedite review of the summer reading. This socratic seminar was completely student led and ALL students participated. Thanks Mandy! Keep up the great work 🙂
- The Penn Brook 4th grade team collaboratively advocated for a schedule change in the best interest of students and having a solution that was communicated about with all staff involved.
- From a family member: Mrs. Fogarty is truly an example of a wonderful, caring teacher, going above and beyond to ensure my child has a successful school year! Thank You Mrs. Fogarty!!
Updates
We are on our 15th day of school as of today. When I visit each building I am keenly aware of the effort and success our teachers and students are having with solidifying routines and building relationships with each other. Our curriculum implementation is underway with both our printed and digital curriculum easily accessible. Through yesterday 93% of our student body is accessing Google Classroom; Clever, our single sign in tool has over 5000 connections by students and 400 by staff to our new curriculum; and over 1400 individuals have logged into Aspen. Each day we see an improvement with our technology and greater confidence in our staff!
Accountability Data: The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the 2024 MCAS and Accountability data to the press yesterday and will be lifting the embargo at 10am on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. My team and I have been reviewing the information and am happy to report that although there is much work to do, there is some growth that is worthy of celebration! I will be sharing information in a school committee meeting in the very near future.
Transportation: We continue to push through challenges with transportation and our partner NRT. Prior to the start of the school year, NRT shared that our routes were fully staffed with bus drivers, this week they were short which affected one of our afternoon runs. I share in our families frustration with bussing and am working to remedy it. Thank you for your understanding.