9/19/17 Daily Bulletin

Shout Out

Shout out to Viola Pike and family on the birth of their baby girl!
She's finally arrived!!
Sent to even the score...Baby Girl Pike makes 4;)!!!

Elarie Anne
7 lbs 4 oz
9/17/17 @ 4:37pm

The unknown super hero from dismissal on Friday has been identified. Shout out to Cinthia Aguasvivas! Thank you for being so diligent and accommodating when it was clear that a student needed help.

Shout out to Curley staff especially Mr. Melzer, Ms. Ward Jackson, and Ms. Griffith who stayed with me for hours looking for my car keys on Friday when I lost it. Mr. Melzer and Ms. Ward Jackson finally found it, but it was a great testament to how Curley staff looks out for one another. It felt good to know that so many were willing to help me during a time of need.

Shout out to Nina Wessen for spending her planning time helping a colleague plan for a new curriculum due to a last-minute schedule change. The time she has dedicated will help set up these students for a successful year!

Curley K-8 School’s Fire Drill Evacuation Procedure

Please post a copy of the correct evacuation route and instructions in a strategic and accessible place in the classroom. Also make sure you have reviewed both the Curley K-8 School Evacuation Map and Evacuation Matrix (located on the Curley K-8 School shared drive in the Operations folder).

Please familiarize your students with the evacuation route from your room, go over assembly instructions in case of an emergency, and the location of where your class needs to wait once you have exited the building.

The following tasks need to be completed during and after an evacuation:

• Bring along your classroom emergency kit. The kit will include: attendance roster, copies of emergency forms, a red sheet of paper (to hold up if you are missing a child or need something), and a sheet of paper with your name on written boldly on it
• Take attendance outside and when re-entering the building
• Return attendance and report any missing students to an administrator immediately

Everyone must evacuate during fire drills and alarms. Please be prepared to respond promptly and efficiently in order to insure the safety of our students and staff during a building evacuation.

Please familiarize yourself with the evacuation exit assigned to your area of the building.

Climate Team

Please join us for the first Climate Team meeting of the year on Wednesday, September 20 from 3:45-5:00pm. Room TBD.

Evaluation and Goals Reminders

Our school-wide Student Learning Goals and Professional Practice Goals can be found at the following link: SLP & PPG 2017-2018

Here are some important upcoming dates regarding evaluation:

Self-Assessment – Due September 15th
Response from administrator by September 22nd
*If you are in the 2nd year of a 2-year plan than you do not need to complete this step

Goals & Action Steps – Due September 29th
Response from administrator by October 6th

Lexia Core 5 Usage SY 2017-18

We have a limited number of "Lexia Core 5" accounts for the current school year. Although the “Core 5” tile may appear in students’ digital backpacks, please contact Eileen Cronin before enrolling students. We cannot reassign accounts once a student has logged into Lexia.

Dismissal Change

Starting on Monday, the dismissal calls will be slightly changed to allow time for student movement and people to be on time for afternoon duties. 

3:08 CASP called

3:10 Walkers dismissed

3:12 Students move to bus rooms

3:14 Buses that have arrived are called

International Week

There will be a meeting this coming Tuesday, September 19, at 3:30 PM in Upper School Room 207 for anyone interested in helping rethink our International Week celebration in light of our work on bias. All welcome.

NEW: Early Childhood Assessments now on Illuminate! 

The Early Childhood assessments are on Illuminate for the 17/18 school year! PALS and LAP-D currently available. EVT coming very soon. Contact: Brian Gold

Laminator

The laminator is a valuable resource to many staff members. As such, ask for assistance or training if you've any doubt on using it correctly.
Best ways to avoid issues: 1. Stop the machine before the laminate rolls run out (it takes much more time to install new rolls when it's been run completely out); 2. Slow the Run Speed to the slowest setting; 3. Be WATCHFUL that the laminated material is exiting the back of the machine - once it starts falling out, you're out of danger; 4. Rather than using the laminate splicer on the back of the machine, use scissors, leaving ~3" of slack hanging.
Any problems, please post a note on the laminator so people won't continue using it. Contact Charles Tewksbury if you have any questions.

Wheelock Visit for Teachers

On Wednesday, September 27th from 11:00am-1:00pm in the faculty lounge, Paul Akoury, Director of Field Education, and Ryan Lovell, Licensure Preparation Officer at Wheelock College, will visit Curley School as part of Wheelock’s continued efforts to deepen the partnership and provide support to supervising practitioners. Their visit will be an informal opportunity for them to speak with staff and: (a) share information and resources with supervising practitioners, as well as answer questions or address concerns; (b) meet teachers who may be interested in serving as a supervising practitioner for Wheelock in future semesters.

Counseling Services for Students

The Guidance Office is charged with providing a range of services to students, families, and faculty that support and promote the successful functioning of our students. One of the ways we do this is by providing students with individual counseling services. We are very fortunate to have amazing clinicians from The Home for Little Wanderers, Children Services of Roxbury (CSR), and Community Service Institute (CSI) to support our students. These Clinicians provide a range of services including, but not limited to: providing solution­-focused strategies to help students manage problems that may arise during the school day, providing crisis assessments and developing safety plans, and working with teachers to help them understand how a student’s social­/emotional concerns may impact their academic performance and identify classroom strategies that can help the student to be successful.
If during the course of this school year, you have a student in need of counseling services, please inform Ms. Santos (4-8th grade) or Ms. Silva (K-3rd grade). All students seeking counseling services MUST receive parental consent in order to receive school-based services. You can obtain parent permission by sending home the "Parent Permission Form," then, submitting the form to Ms. Santos or Ms. Silva. You can find copies of this form below, in the Lower or Upper school office, or by visiting the Guidance Office located in the Upper-School room 203.

Fall Assessment - Updates

STAR assessments, as well as Accelerated Reader, have been activated in students' digital backpack. As a result, we are extending the fall testing window. All Interim #1 assessments, including STAR Reading, STAR Math and written open response, should be completed by end of day, September 28th. Open response prompts and accompanying scoring rubrics will be posted. Please contact Lindsey Morgan or Eileen Cronin with any questions.

Water Updates

Following our water bubbler walkthrough today the following will be put in place starting Tuesday, September 12th. Thank you for your ideas and patience as we make the process more clear to everyone.

• There will be one water bubbler in each hallway of both buildings
• Central locations will also have a bubbler: main offices, cafeterias, gymnasiums, nurses office
• Classrooms that have students with medical needs will also receive a bubblier: Lower School Room 116 & 121 Upper School Room 017, 115 & 207
• Due to a lack of electrical outlets some bubblers will not be plugged in and this means the water will be room temperature
• Facilities will look into having electrical outlets installed in the coming weeks as well as mats placed under the bubbler to avoid spilt water
• Custodians will fill each bubbler every night and leave 4-5 full jugs next to each bubbler
• Staff should get cups from each main office for students and/or encourage our students to bring in their own water bottles
• Kathy Powers & Madeline Vazquez will be responsible for ordering water jugs and cups for our community, please communicate any issue and/or questions with them

Window Schedule

In both the Upper and Lower School you may see our contractors caulking the outside of the windows while you are teaching. We are trying to not distract the work in classrooms but this work needs to be done in daylight. Below is the two week schedule for rooms that will be working on in the afternoon inside each classroom. Please make sure that all furniture in these rooms is 3ft-5ft away from the windows and staff exit this space after dismissal. We will send a new update every two weeks. Please direct all questions about windows to Katie Grassa.

2 Week Look Ahead: 9/11/17- 9/23/17 

Work Hours: 3:00 – 10:30 

Week of 9/18 -- 9/23  - Upper School Building

o West Elevation 2nd Floor Room 220-216 

o South Elevation Courtyard 2nd Floor Rooms 214-211

Curley Cares Fund

BE A MEMBER OF THE CURLEY K-8 CARES FUNDS! (Contribution of $20.00 per year) By becoming a member of the Curley K-8 Cares Funds, your donation will help the Social Team take care of our community (gifts, flower arrangements, cards, fruit baskets) during different times in our daily lives (i.e. Adoption, Bereavement, Long-term Sickness, New Baby, Retirement Wedding).

Please give your contribution to

• Ms. Mundo, Room 107- Upper School
• Ms. Davis-Upper School
• Ms. Iatrou-Upper School
• Ms. Kidd-Lower School

CASH and/or CHECKS are welcome, payable to Curley K-8 Cares Funds.
Thanks to your contribution, last academic year 2016-2017, the Curley Cares Funds had the opportunity to honor 38 Curley Staff Members. They received either a plant, fruit basket, flowers, gift certificates, cards or a monetary contribution. Records and statements of deposits and withdrawals are available for you to view in Ms. Mundo's classroom.

Propping Doors 

Doors should never be propped open in our building. This is a safety concern and if you see a door open please close it immediately and notify the office. Staff should use their ID badges to enter the building.

Announcements & Tardy

We will hold off on morning announcements and marking students tardy for the next few days. We need to work out the kinks with the buses and that may take us about a week. We hope to implement the tardy desk starting Monday, September 18th.

Student Who Have Not Reported To School

Did you have students who have not reported to school yet? Please reach out to families and find out if they are planning on attending. Students will be DNRd (Did Not Report) if they miss the first 7 days of school. We know that some of our families are stranded due to Hurricane Irma and we do not want them to be dropped from our list. Please email Sugeily Santos (ssantos2@bostonpublicschools.org) if you know of families in this situation so we can support them. If you reach out to a family and they are not sending their child please let Madeline and Kathy know so we can discharge students.

Celebrations Policy

On January 1, 2017 we adopted a Celebrations Policy that was created by our Health and Wellness Committee. Copies of this will be placed in mailboxes to go home on Monday for all students. Here it is for your reference. This is a transition for many families so please let an administrator know if birthday items continue to be sent it in, we can support you with this matter.

Guide to the Boston Public Schools (Formerly Blue Guide Books Handed to Families)

The following is a message going out to families:
In an effort to reduce paper waste and create a more efficient system, BPS has decided to move the guide online. Families and students will view the guide and fill out necessary online at www.bostonpublicschools.org/family guide.

The guide is available in English and nine other languages. It outlines many of the district's policies, programs, and services. A separate booklet contains forms needs to be completed at www.bostonpublicschools.org/contact.

A limited number of paper booklets will be provided to each main office for families of students who are new to BPS or do not have access to the internet. We encourage you to go online and complete the form for each of your students as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation. 

ID Badges

Please remember to wear you badge tomorrow and also to let yourself in the building. If you have lost or misplaced your badge please let Kathy Powers know. We recognize that not all new staff have their IDs yet and we are working on this.

Emergency Cards

In your mailbox ( upper and lower school) is a copy of the English/Spanish Emergency card, instructions for volunteers on how to do CORI forms online and your bus tags and labels. We need emergency cards from all students. Once you receive one from everyone please make a copy for the main office and the nurses office as well.

Epi-Pen Training

Hi, Hope you all had a great summer. BPS Health services require that all staff must complete two training modules.
1. Blood Bourne Pathogens (slide show and test)
2. Epipen (training module and staff quiz)
This email contains the link for the staff Epipen Training and a short quiz. All staff should click on this link and first complete the "School Staff Training Module" on the left. After you have completed the training module please click on the "School Staff Quiz" link on the right. Once you have completed the quiz please print out your certificate and bring it to the nurse's office. You can also email the certificate or leave it in the nurse's mailbox in either office. We ask that all staff have this completed within the first two weeks of school. We have many student's here at the Curley with life threatening allergies. It is important that they are safe in school.

There is also a link for the Blood Borne Pathogen Slide Show and another for the Blood Borne Pathogen Test. Please view the slide show. Once you have completed the slide show, print out the test, complete it and return it to the nurse's office with your epipen certificate.

Please take the time to print off Nurse's Passes from the link noted in the handbook. All students who come to the nurse should have a pass with full name, time and the reason for visit to the nurse.

Also, it is very important that the nurses receive a copy of emergency forms as soon as they come in. Often these emergency forms are how we become aware that a student has a certain medical condition that needs attention. All medications and medical forms should be sent to the nurse's office. It is against HIPAA Privacy Policies for medical information to be left in classrooms. Please feel free to stop by the nurse's office across from the lower school gym if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks, April & Marilynn
https://bpshealthservices.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/microsoft-powerpoint-bbp_ppt_09.pdf
http://www.allergyhome.org/schools/management-of-food-allergies-in-school-what-school-staff-need-to-know/

Calling all summer readers!

Students who have been reading over the summer, will be recognized a “Reader Leaders” during September . The names only of these students should be emailed to Caitlyn Gable (K-2) or Eileen Cronin (Gr. 3-8) by September 20th. Students will receive a Certificate of Achievement during the first “Curley Cares” assembly and will have their picture posted on a central bulletin board, along with a brief summary of their favorite summer read. Contact Caitlyn or Eileen with any questions.