April 6th E-blast

From: Mary C. Gormley
To: Parents/Guardians and Staff
Re: E-blast Update
Date:  April 6th, 2015

FROM THE DESK OF THE SUPERINTENDENT

The month of March, once again, came in like a lion and out like a lamb.  Now that the winter of 2014-15 is behind us, thoughts have turned to sports, with both March Madness playoffs and Red Sox Opening Day upon us. Our school and town spring sports seasons have begun, with all the anticipation that comes with them. Town election season is also in full swing, and political signs have popped up on lawns throughout town, alongside crocuses and daffodils. Happy Spring!

SCHOOL COMMITTEE UPDATE

There have been no School Committee meetings since my last E-blast. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 15th at 7 pm in the Milton High School library.

CURRICULUM NEWS

In my last E-blast, I provided a link from Safe Routes to School (SRTS), a group with whom the Milton Public Schools has had a long-standing partnership. This group advocates for safe walking and biking routes to schools.  The first step in developing Safe Routes is to collect data from parents/guardians about how they get their children to school each day. We are asking for the Milton Public Schools’ community for their help with a survey being conducted by SRTS.  The survey is now “live” for each of our elementary schools, as well as for Pierce Middle School. It will remain active through April 17thIf any of our schools gets 50% (or more) participation from the entire school population, that school will receive funding from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, to be used towards Safe Routes around the school. The five participating Milton Public Schools can be awarded these funds, so please take the time to fill out the survey by clicking on this link:  http://masaferoutessurvey.org/en/   Also, as part of the SRTS initiative, we will be helping to celebrate Massachusetts Walk and Bike to School Day May 6th.  We hope that many parents will join in the celebration with thousands of other students and families statewide in walking and biking to school. Please contact Mike Zullas at mzullas@miltonps.org if you have additional questions.

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In my last E-blast, I noted that the School Committee voted to approve a revised School Year Calendar for the 2015-16 year.  This new calendar reflects the removal of two religious holidays as “No School Days.” This change was in response to the recent survey sent to all MPS families, asking whether school should be in session on Yom Kippur (September 23rd, 2015) and Good Friday (March 25th, 2016.) The survey was sent to our entire E-blast distribution list (more than 6,000 addresses) and we received 72% yes votes and 29% no votes. Please click the link below to see the most recent 15-16 School Year Calendar.

http://www.miltonps.org/documents/20152016schoolyearcalendarRevisedandapproved040115.pdf

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The following item was sent to us by Cunningham Principal Jon Redden:

               The Reading about Diversity (R.A.D.) series is a 1st – 4th grade program that is run by parent volunteers. Two current educators and Cunningham parents, Tanya Frank and Dr. Jenn Manak, designed the curriculum. Their expertise in diversity, literacy and social emotional developments will help students to better understand and celebrate our diverse world. At each grade level, five children’s books have been selected with related questions already prepared. Each book also includes writing and drawing activities. Each lesson takes about forty-five minutes to an hour. RAD runs almost every week at Cunningham and the feedback from teachers, students and parent volunteers has been tremendous.

In these RAD photos, a parent volunteer reads a RAD book and with the help of the curriculum plan, guides a classroom discussion. Kids return to their desks to draw/write about a topic (in this case, different dwellings, modes of transportation, shopping etc  found around the world). They then return to the story rug and if they choose, share their drawing and words with the class. The parent then wraps up the lesson with a few closing thoughts/questions.

 

rad1rad2

 

 

 

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The Forbes House Museum recently announced the winners of the 2015 Lincoln Essay & Drawing Contest. In total, the FHM received 1,332 submissions comprised of 460 essays and 872 drawings. Congratulations to the following Milton Public School students who were recognized:

Lincoln Drawing Contest:

Kindergarten:

  • First Place: Avery Rose Squiciarino, Glover School
  • Second Place: Beatrix Cohen-Raymond, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: David Bourque, Glover School
  • Honorable Mention: Jacob Carlin, Cunningham School

Grade One:

  • First Place: Gabrielle Beaudoin, Glover School
  • Second Place: Oliver Jilani, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: Caroline Keohane, Glover School

Grade Two:

  • First Place: Jennifer Lo, Collicot School
  • Second Place: Orlaith Killion, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: Eilie Boylan, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: Owen Crowley, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: Maggie Mullen, Collicot School

Grade Three:

  • First Place: Mia Jilani, Collicot School
  • Second Place: Andrew Miskell, Collicot School
  • Honorable Mention: Alex Files, Glover School
  • Honorable Mention: Aidan McNulty, Glover School
  • Honorable Mention: Keara Riley, Collicot School

Grade Four:

  • First Place: Adriana Ruiz, Cunningham School
  • Third Place: Liam McLoughlin, Cunningham School
  • Honorable Mention: Lydia Geering, Glover School
  • Honorable Mention: Kai Salony, Glover School

Grade Five:

  • First Place: Sienna Giovannucci, Glover School
  • Honorable Mention: Anna Hamblet, Cunningham School
  • Honorable Mention: Ciara Hensley, Cunningham School
  • Honorable Mention: Elizabeth McGill, Cunningham School

Lincoln Essay Contest:

Grade Six:

  • Second Place: Justin Wilmot, Pierce Middle School
  • Third Place: Abigail Files, Pierce Middle School
  • Honorable Mention: Oskar Peloquin, Pierce Middle School

These students will be recognized during an awards ceremony to take place on Sunday, April 12th at 2pm in the Gathering Room at St. Agatha Church. Students will receive an official certificate and a complimentary one-year family membership to the Forbes House Museum, along with other prizes.

The ceremony will include a fiddle performance by Dorchester musician, Kevin Doherty. All are welcome to attend, and refreshments will be served. Call the museum office at 617.696.1815 to RSVP by Thursday, April 9th.

The essays/drawings were reviewed and winning submissions were chosen by a 24 member committee comprised of FHM trustees, FHM Lincoln Committee members, and community leaders and Civil War experts from Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

For more information on group tours, events and programs, including the Lincoln Essay & Drawing Contest, call the Forbes House Museum at 617.696.1815 or visit our website, www.forbeshousemuseum.org.

STUDENT WORK

Below is a writing piece from Nicole Hoyceanyls’ 6th grade science class.  It is a song about waves that Jack Darling wrote as a culminating assignment for the sound unit.  The entire 6th grade just completed a mini-unit, the Nature of Sound, where students made instruments to deepen their understanding of sounds waves thanks to a grant they received from the MFE this fall.

Sound Rap
By Jack Darling

The crest is the highest point of a sound wave
But I’m not making jokes, I don’t misbehave
The pitch, I’ll admit, can have a lot of aggression
But it’s a work in progress, let me teach you a lesson.
The pitch is affected by wavelength and frequency
But it’s pretty obvious, it ain’t no mystery
When the frequency slows down, the pitch is low;
Like a tuba or bass, how low can you go?
Sound waves, listen to the sounds
Some notes go up and some notes go down.
A big amplitude makes things real loud
Like the noises you can hear from a really big crowd.
A small amplitude keeps the volume real soft
Like turning down the dial right before you turn it off.

UPCOMING MPS EVENTS

The Program of Studies/Advanced Placement (AP) Information Night will be held tomorrow, Tuesday, April 7th at 6:30pm in the Milton High School Auditorium. This presentation will be a comprehensive overview of our course offerings, level choices, graduation requirements and the overall course selection process, followed by an overview of our Advanced Placement Program.

After these presentations in the Auditorium, Department Heads, AP teachers and students will be available to answer any specific questions you may have. All are welcome to attend! Following this evening’s event, course selection sheets will be due back to guidance by Thursday, April 9th.

If a course selection sheet has already been submitted to guidance any changes can be made by emailing your child’s current guidance counselor or just writing the change on the course verification sheet that will be emailed to ALL students in early May.

* * *

Don’t forget that this week is our art department’s Passport to the Arts event.  This begins tonight, Monday April 6th at 5:30pm at Pierce Middle School; Tuesday April 7th at 6 pm at Glover Elementary School; Wednesday, April 8th at 6 pm at Cunningham Elementary School and at Milton High Schools (in conjunction with MHS Cabaret Night); Thursday, April 9th at 6pm at Tucker Elementary School and at 6:30 at Collicot Elementary School (in conjunction with the “One Book Adventure Night.”)

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 Also, please remember to mark your calendar for Thursday, April 16th, when Maria Trozzi will be presenting at the Pierce Middle School. The topic is “Finding Resilience…(After Looking in All the Wrong Places) and it will be held at 7pm in the Pierce Middle School auditorium.   Join Maria Trozzi for an interactive and enlightening conversation about the new stresses of parenting our children today and evidence-based strategies for building resilience. Some of the topics she will address:

  • Creating the mix to produce an outstanding person: the surprising research
  • Making informed decisions about screen time
  • Dealing with life’s disappointments: when our children are hurt, what to say and not to say
  • Too many choices: How affluence can complicate parent decision-making
  • How to “not hover and sleep at night”; moving towards scaffolding your children.

MFE NEWS

The following information was sent to us by the MFE:

Attention Teachers: We are pleased to announce our Spring Grant Cycle!

Purpose: Our competitive grants are designed to encourage and reward effective, innovative teaching. The proposed projects are expected to show direct benefit to student achievement and impact classroom teaching.

Deadline: Tuesday, April 28, 2015, by the end of the school day

Application: Please submit via email to mfegrants@gmail.com

Guidelines: Refer to our website www.miltonfoundationforeducation.org for guidelines, application as well as examples of past grants.

Awards: Requests for $1,000 or less per grant preferred. Requests for more may be considered.

Limitations: No present limits on the number of awards per school. The foundation attempts to award each school about the same amount of funding, but we will grant awards on the basis of the number and quality of proposals received.

Eligibility: Teachers and staff members in all grades may apply individually or in groups.

Approvals: Each grant needs to be approved by your principal
and department head. Technology requests should also be cc’d to Dr. Angela Burke.

Information: Please contact mfegrants@gmail.com with further questions, or call MFE Grants Committee Chair Susan Sullivan at 781-244-9503.

FOOD SERVICE NEWS

REV UP! REVIVE! REHYDRATE!  Do you want to play your best this season?

Come join Framingham State University Nutrition students Melissa Silvia, Mackenzie Sousa and Julianna Coughlin to learn how to optimize your performance and come out on top this spring season! There will be presentations on pre- and post-workout nutrition and hydration. Snacks and water will be provided.  This event will be held in the Copeland Field House on Monday April 13th at 2:30pm (right after school). Free snacks and water will be provided and all spring athletes must be there!

NEWS AROUND TOWN

The Town of Milton Park & Rec Department has opened its online registration for summer programs. Click here for more info:

http://www.townofmilton.org/Public_Documents/MiltonMA_Recreation/2015%20summer%20program%20brochure.pdf

MILTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Spring is here – and so are fun things for kids to do at the Milton Public Library!  In addition to our regular storytimes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we have these exciting programs for the young people in your life happening during the week of April 5 – 11:

Friday, April 10, 2015 from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon
Free Play Friday, Ages 0-5 with caregiver

Drop by and enjoy puzzles, games and activities in the Story Hour room. The room will be open for two hours in the morning for you to enjoy with your little ones (ages 0-5). In partnership with the Milton Early Childhood Alliance.

Saturday, April 11, 2015 from 9:30 am – 1:00 pm
Chessapalooza, Grades K-6

A fun and friendly scholastic chess tournament open to all Milton school students. Players of all abilities are welcome. The tournament will be limited to the first 50 entrants. Trophies and prizes will be awarded in grades K-2, grades 3-4, and grades 5-6.  Sections may be modified depending on the number of entrants. Cost is $10 and registration at www.miltonlibrary.org in advance is required. Sponsored by the Friends of the Milton Public Library.

To see a complete listing of library events, please click here:

http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=MILTONPL

ATHLETICS

Parents/guardians of Milton High School football players (and all Wildcat football fans!)  — please note that tonight, Monday, April 6th, there will be a “Meet the Coach” event at 7pm in the Charles C. Winchester Auditorium. Steve Dembowski will be on hand to meet all parents/guardians, alumni, MPS staff & faculty, media, Milton residents, community members, and supporters of Milton HS Athletics.

* * *

Two Milton High School student athletes were invited to attend The Massachusetts Celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, held last Friday (April 4th) at Faneuil Hall, Boston. This year’s Girls and Women in Sports Day keynote speaker was Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

Milton High School students Sophie Cousineau and Grace Wamester were both invited to the MIAA-sponsored event, although only Grace Wamester was able to attend. The student athletes were chosen as positive, contributing members of both their teams and their school. Congratulations to both these students.

sport1

 

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The snow is melting and the Milton fields are starting to dry out.  Soon enough we will be playing games out on Milton’s fields. Please see this week’s sports schedule:

Tuesday, April 7th
Boys Lacrosse at Natick HS (Varsity & JV)

Wednesday, April 8th
Boys Lacrosse at Newton North HS (Varsity only)

Friday, April 10th
Rugby vs Algonquin Reg HS
7pm at Milton HS Brooks Field

For sports schedules for all MHS teams, please click here:

http://www.usatodayhss.com/school/milton-high-school-milton-ma/scores-and-schedule

AMBASSADOR PAGE

Students: I would like to congratulate our Milton High School LifeSmarts team, who recently learned that they qualified to attend the 2015 Lifesmarts National Championship in Seattle, Washington.  The team of Nolan Carvalho, Liam Chase, Brandon Musto, Albert Enyedy and Sindhu Banerjee competed at the State level earlier this month and learned that they would advance to the national competition April 17-20th.  LifeSmarts is a program of the National Consumers League and is an educational opportunity for students in 6th-12th grade. This competition prepares students to enter the real world as smart adult consumers. Participants focus on five key topic areas: consumer rights and responsibilities, the environment, health and safety, personal finance, and technology.   Congratulations and good luck to these students and their teacher, Nancy Mikels.

Staff:   On Saturday, March 21, several Pierce Middle School teachers-  Mr. Stoodt, Mr. Forge, Mr. DeMaggio, Mrs. McEvoy, and Mr. Clements and elementary teachers- Madame Brown, Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Ryan, Mr. Fender, Ms. Atwood, and Madame Bourass-Elzein along with Christie Chiappetta, 6-8 Science Coordinator, Bernadette Moonan, preK-5 Science Coordinator, and Dr. Karen Spaulding, Pierce Middle School principal gathered at the Christa McAuliffe Center for Education and Teaching Excellence at Framingham State University to participate in a professional development workshop.  While there, these teachers and administrators used the Planetarium as a tool for learning about the apparent motion of objects in the night sky.  In addition, they participated in a simulation of space flight in the Center’s full-size mockups of both Houston’s Mission control and a space station interior.  This professional development experience was funded by the Pierce Middle School’s Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Creativity/Innovation Initiative grant, which was awarded this year.  In the coming months, Pierce teachers and administrators will continue to develop and revise space engineering experiences for 7th grade students in partnership with the Center’s staff.

Volunteer:  I would like to thank Frank Schroth and the Milton High School Debate Team for helping to organize the Fourth Annual MyTownMatters Candidates Forum, which will be held in the Function Room of Fuller Village at Brush Hill at 1:00pm on April 11th.  Candidates for Board of Selectmen, School Committee, and Library Trustee will be present and questioned by members of the MHS debate team.

The Milton Public School system is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to the provision of quality educational programs for all students.  The Milton Public School system does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, genetic information, age or sexual orientation.

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