Staffing Update:
I’d like to offer a warm welcome To Helen Guzzi as Horace Mann's new librarian. Helen has spent the last 17 years at Brown Middle School teaching English. In recent years she discovered a passion and desire to work as a librarian and began preparations. Helen began teaching classes at HM last week and is now working hard to learn new routines, a new age group, and the names of almost 400 students! Let’s try to make the transition as easy as possible by offering our support, encouragement and experience.
Thank you to Meagan Hallaran for her work as a literacy aide this fall. She will be heading off to teach in Spain later this month. Best of luck to Meagan. Meredith Andrews, Newton resident and parent and former teacher, will be coming on board as our new literacy aide. Please welcome Meredith to Horace Mann.
Finally, prior to the break we celebrated Patti Karam's career as the HM librarian for the past fourteen years. I wanted to offer some thoughts about Patti and her career as a librarian, educator, and as a person:
Patti's is one of the kindest and positive people I know. She engages with staff and students in a way that is respectful, encouraging, and loving. Patti always has a smile and a supportive word for anyone she comes across. It is no wonder that she has built some lasting connections with everyone she has met, and there’s no doubt that Patti's impact on our school will endure well beyond her time at Horace Mann.
Patti's approach to running the library has been one of creativity and shared ownership. She put all of her energy into offering fun and inspiring projects for the children. On any given day, students could be seen constructing mini-golf courses with book based theme, recording their voices, ideas, and their love of literature into iPads, reading in the dark with nothing more than a flashlight, or waiting with anticipation to see what was in their mystery bags. She redefined how we think of librarians and what a library is supposed to be for kids.
Patti has always recognized the importance of providing an environment where students feel safe and welcome. She has invited students into the library to take breaks after a rough moment, or as a proactive way for students to make a connection with a trusted adult. She has created a safe haven for middle school students having difficulty with their transition to a new environment. She has offered book groups for students to talk about books and relate them to important themes in student lives. Her willingness to invest in and engage with students on a one-to-one basis has been a trademark of her work.
Finally, Patti has always been committed to diversity and encouraged students to be proud of who they are. She expanded and diversified both our school library and classroom collections to be more representative of our student population, and did the same for our book fair as well. She often talked to the students and our staff about life as a series of windows and mirrors and she used literature as a way for all of us to learn from one another and appreciate what we have to offer each other as human beings.
As you can see, Patti has been a model for everything we try to teach the children (and the adults) on a daily basis at Horace Mann. Her kindness, her willingness to connect with children, and commitment to diversity, are all part of her legacy. Her impact will endure at HM well beyond her time. Best wishes to Patti in her retirement.
School Safety Procedures: This coming Friday, January 10th, Horace Mann students and staff will participate in a series of school safety drills that have recently been updated by the district. Staff have spent two sessions this fall learning about the new procedures and planning for a range of events. With adults only, we practiced all of the drills and drafted scripts to share with students that are developmentally appropriate. For Friday, we have selected drills that we feel would be important to practice with students. This will include a lockdown drill for times when we want to keep everyone safe inside the building as well as an evacuation drill for those occasions where we need to quickly and safely evacuate our school. Later this spring when the weather is nice, we will practice procedures for relocating to our designated evacuation site (Day Middle School).
Please be aware that your children will be talking about the drills in class this week. It is possible that the discussion of these procedures may raise questions. If your child comes home with a question that you aren’t sure how to answer, please let your child's teacher know. The superintendent also shared resources earlier in the fall and you can access them here: Safety in the Newton Public Schools. If you have questions about any of this, please email me at mark_nardelli@newton.k12.ma.us
Drop-off and Pick-up Reminders:
A few reminders and suggestions about the area around the school…
- PLEASE DO NOT ENTER THE REAR PARKING LOT for drop-off or pickup. Staff vehicles are the only vehicles allowed there. This is especially important now given the tighter space we have with the addition of the modulars.
- In you park on the opposite side of LINWOOD near the rear entrance, I would urge people to use the CROSSING GUARD at NEVADA/LINWOOD, rather than crossing LINWOOD. Cars are often double parked amidst two way traffic making this area dangerous, particularly in the morning.
Facilities:
Acoustics:
- Since the last update, we’ve made tremendous progress on our classroom acoustic upgrades. As of today, we have completed tile installation in all classrooms on the second floor and almost all of the rooms on the first floor. I would anticipate that the entire classroom acoustic work will be done by the end of this week. We will still need to address the cafeteria and the music room, which will happen later this spring or this summer.
Modular Classrooms:
- Electrical power has been connected to the cafeteria modular. Data lines are being run today. Electrical power is being connected to the library mod today as well.
- Decking has been begun for the cafeteria mod. Here’s a photo:
- Work on the library mod deck starts this week.
Interior Work:
As Lisa Moore moves out to the modular classroom, we will have an opportunity to make her classroom larger. To make this happen, we need to relocate some wiring/network cables and a projector, and we need to remove a portion of the wall between 200 and 202. The wiring and relocating of the projector took place during the break. Some lighting and wiring was also done in Room 202. The complete takedown of the wall will happen during February break. In the end, we will relocate a 4th grade classroom to this newly enlarged space (hopefully take place a week or two after the February break).
Playground: Our first meeting took place on Thursday, December 17th from 3-4pm. We discussed options for expanding and improving our playground space and agreed upon the following:
- We will likely leave the existing structures in place. However, a priority will be to add shade to this area (hopefully this spring).
- We are planning to add a second play structure area (separate from the existing playground). This second area would be located under the trees in place of the currently existing swing sets near the Gaga pit.
- Over the break, we are going to look at structures from a variety of vendors. All of the designs we look at will be geared towards providing upper elementary students with age appropriate equipment.
- We will also look at options for outdoor equipment that children can use to build and be creative.
- Our goal will be to install the new playground structure this summer.
Sinks:
- Based on conversations with teachers and city staff, we’ve modified the design for our water/sink stations along the second floor hallway. We will now have four (4) stations that are logically spread out along the length of the hallway.
- These stations will allow students to wash hands, fill water bottles and allow grade 3-5 teachers to access a water supply for the science curriculum.
- We are currently in the design phase of this work. Due to the scope of the work, we anticipate that two of the four stations could be installed during the February break, while the other two stations would be installed this summer.
Culturally Responsive Teaching - The core of our work to become a more culturally responsive school will continue with our January staff meeting. In my next edition of NewsNotes, I will share the details of what this work will look like.
