Friday, September 27, 2019

Back to School Night Recap and a few other items

Dear HM Families,

Thanks to everyone for coming out last night!  It was great to see so many supportive and engaged families!

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT - For anyone who was unable to attend, I've attached the slide show from my presentation last night.  I attached the PTO presentation as well.

Principal Presentation 2019

PTO Presentation 2019


Also, a reminder about our flu clinic is below...with a corrected link for downloading the forms:
FLU CLINIC - Our annual flu clinic will be held on Friday, October 4th beginning at the opening of school until late morning. Parents may sign up children to receive the flu shot at no charge by returning consent and screening forms to our school nurse.  Forms are due October 2nd.  Forms are available online at www.newtonma.gov/flu.  We also have forms in the nurse’s office at school.

TYNES TIMES - Finally, David Tynes has asked me to share the first edition of the Tynes Times. Enjoy! 

Tynes Times

For those of you celebrating Rosh Hashanah, Happy New Year!  For anyone interested in learning more about this holiday, check out this link: https://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/

Have a nice long weekend,

Mark Nardelli
Principal

Monday, September 23, 2019

NewsNotes 9/22/2019



Early Release Day - This Thursday is an EARLY RELEASE for ALL STUDENTS.  Children will be dismissed from school at 12:30 for staff professional development.  The plan for our staff for this afternoon will be the following:


  • We will provide a review/recap of our equity work from the last few years, including redefining the idea of equity, looking at brain research, recapping activities we’ve conducted, and looking at the importance of building connections with students.
  • We will re-engage with learning partners to talk about our efforts with students last year.  We will then do some planning for our work this year.
  • We will renew our commitment to our anti-bias curriculum, including providing time for grade levels to review and update lessons during the month of October.


Back to School/Curriculum Night - This Thursday, September 26th, we will host our annual Back To School/Curriculum Night sponsored by Title 1.  This provides parents and caregivers with an opportunity to learn about the curriculum and the daily schedule, as well as see the classrooms and the work that has been going on so far this fall.  Attendees will also be hear from the PTO and principal about our school-wide beliefs, programming and goals for the year.

Pizza will be available for all families beginning at 5:00pm  Childcare will also be available for families and will be staffed by Rose and DAD teachers.  We will have a movie and some smaller play areas available for the kids who stay.

5:00                  Pizza available for all families in the cafeteria
5:15pm             Kindergarten presentations
5:30-6:15pm    Grade 1-2 Presentations
6:15-6:45pm    PTO/Principal Presentations
6:45-7:30pm    Grade 3-5 Presentations
7:30                  Childcare Pickup

You can register by clicking here (this will help with estimating pizza and childcare): https://forms.gle/Wng5dgKpDpGnUyTh8

Flu Clinic - Our annual flu clinic will be held on Friday, October 4th beginning at the opening of school until late morning. Parents may sign up children to receive the flu shot at no charge by returning consent and screening forms to our school nurse.  Forms are due October 2nd.  Forms are available online at www.newtonma.gov/flu.  We also have forms in the nurse’s office at school.

FORJ: Families Organizing for Racial Justice - FORJ is a group of diverse Newton families helping our children learn about issues of power and inequality and how to stand up for racial justice. We seek to generate understanding and curiosity about differences in our society, and to work together towards racial equity.  We strive to achieve safe and welcoming environments that enhance the well-being of all people. We offer lectures on race and diversity, discussion groups, community events, and more. We follow the lead from our communities and help families foster inclusion in our city and schools.  At Horace Mann, we want to support and build on the work being done by our principal and teachers to recognize privilege and develop an approach to diversity and inclusion that enables all HM students, staff and families to feel that they belong.

The first FORJ event will focus on bringing families together.  Please see the flyer below for details.  We hope you can join us!






Facilities Update - I would like to briefly respond to the concerns that have been shared by in letters that have gone out about the condition of our new location, both from the Superintendent as well as from some parents in the Horace Mann community.  I will briefly address this at Back to School Night as well.  First, I want to thank all of our families for your support.  You’ve been amazing…encouraging, positive, and willing to support us in making our new location a great place for your children.  Thank you!

With regard to the concerns that are out there, we’ve been practice in working with the city to make some improvements.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve had School Committee members, the Mayor, and other city personnel tour the building to hear about things that can be done to support the best instructional environment for your children.  Here is a sample of the things we are looking at:

  • Classroom size
  • Access to sinks/plumbing on the 2nd floor
  • Increasing bathroom capacity
  • Improving our playground area
  • Looking at small breakout space capacity and related storage concerns
  • Improving furnishings


As we go through the process of making improvements, we will have a plan for incorporating input from families, staff, and city officials.  I will also provide regular updates on this topic.


LUNCH MONITORS - are needed at the Newton Elementary Schools listed below. These are great hours for a stay-at-home parent/grandparent or anyone who wants to work a couple of hours a day. The hours range from 2 ¼  – 2 ½ hours per day, 4 days a week, at $14.36 an hour.  Please call the school directly to set up an interview.

Lincoln-Eliot - 617-559-9540
Underwood - 617-559-9660
Williams - 617-559-6480
Bowen - 617-559-9330
Angier - 617-559-9300


Thanks and have a great week!

Mark Nardelli
Principal

NewsNotes 9/8/2019

Dear HM Families,

A big thank you to all of you for your support of our early release opening last week. I know it wasn’t easy for families to start school this way, but I can assure you that it was truly time well spent for our staff. 

I also want to thank our staff for the tireless work they’ve been doing to create a successful opening week.  In addition to the work of our classroom teachers to welcome the children, we also have had a lot of help from staff in other ways:

  • Organizing and setting up our shared spaces (eg. our literacy/book room/cafeteria)
  • Helping with arrival and dismissal (taking attendance, riding buses, helping with traffic flow)
  • Supporting students (and parents) during arrival/drop-off.
  • A big thanks to our staff, DAD staff, the YMCA, and the B&G club for supervising students after school from 12:30-3:00. 

I can’t say enough about our staff…they are selfless and dedicated to the children…they truly embrace being part of a team and understand that it takes a village to get a new school building up and running.

Facilities Update - I want to thank the families who have begun to advocate with the School Committee for our short and long term facility and instructional needs.  As we live in this building over the next few weeks, we will have a better sense of what those needs are.  Shortly thereafter, we will be looking to set priorities and timetables for how we can improve our collective experience in the new building.  I will share more about our needs in the upcoming weeks.

Lunch/Cafeteria Update - Today was our first day serving lunch in the cafeteria and the first day carrying out the procedures we had been planning over the last couple of weeks.  For the most part, things went very well.  I wanted to share a few details about how we are doing lunch:

  • We stagger two grade levels in the cafeteria, with 10-15 minutes separating grade level groups.
  • Students sit in seats that have been assigned by the classroom teachers.  Our hope is to start the year in a way that minimizes anxiety that many kids feel when they are new to our school, or for those who have a hard time navigating a large social environment.  
  • We have made an effort to contact all families regarding student allergies to find out about seating preferences.  The goal is to make sure kids are safe, while also not isolating them because of dietary restrictions.
  • It is a community effort to clean tables, seats, and the floor between lunches.

One final note…after some discussion with staff today, we’ve decided to try having our Kindergarten students eat in the classroom in the hopes of providing a smaller scale meal experience.  We will try that on Wednesday and make a decision about what to do moving forward.

Starting the Year - Below is a bulleted list of activities and ideas give you a sense of how we start our year.

  • Getting to know one another and establishing a sense of community -  In all classrooms, there are daily morning meetings with greetings, sharing, and a song or activity.  In second grade classes, children made collage self-portraits. Children mixed paints to try to get close to their own skin color, cut out paper to design hair styles, and drew features to complete their facial profiles.  Also, teachers and staff spend time getting to know students through play, through interactions at recess, and during academic times.
  • Establishing routines - In grade 3, teachers model clean-up procedures and then have students practice.  1st grade students learn to use various tools in the classroom...markers, scissors, etc.  In music classes, children enter class to the beat of a rhythm before taking their seats to await the daily lesson. 4th and 5th grade teachers introduce organizational systems and homework routines.  By spending time on these important rituals early in the year, we can spend more time on learning as the year goes on.
  • Assessments - Starting next week, we being the process of gathering information about where we should begin instruction with students.   We will assess reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension levels for all students.  We will also administer universal math assessments based on grade level expectations.  We will then use the results of the assessment to help target instruction.


Back to School Parenting Article - One common question about the return to school involves dealing with and managing meltdowns, particularly with our K, 1st and 2nd grade students.  If you have a child who has been coming home and crying or otherwise melting down, check out this article…https://parentingfromtheheartblog.com/after-school-meltdown-self-regulation/

At the very least, you will know that you are not alone…

Hope to see you all at our Picnic!

Mark Nardelli
Principal