Bulldog Weekly Update
January 31st - February 4th
Building a Culture of Equity, Support, Trust, and Rigor
Quotes can become a touchstone that helps us remember deeper truths and processes. This week's quote is specific to Culturally responsive practice and teacher-student relationships.
“In culturally responsive teaching, rapport is connected to the idea of affirmation. Affirmation simply means that we acknowledge the personhood of our students through words and actions that say to them, “I care about you.” Too often, we confuse affirmation with building up a student’s self-esteem. As educators, we think it’s our job to make students of color, English learners, or poor students feel good about themselves. That’s a deficit view of affirmation. In reality, most parents of culturally and linguistically diverse students do a good job of helping their children develop positive self-esteem. It is when they come to school that many students of color begin to feel marginalized, unseen, and silenced.”
― Zaretta L. Hammond, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
Notes from the Principal's Desk
Stepping Up, Not In, to the New Year
Our efforts to foster a culture of belonging remain a focus and a priority for this school year. Belonging, however, can look very different to individual teachers and students based on need. How these needs are expressed, and how they are met, vary from person to person. We cannot dismiss the smallest gestures of inclusion. Fist bumping, high-fiving, smiling, eye contact, positive greetings, compliments that are specific and authentic, making intentional connections between students so they recognize their commonalities, identifying uniqueness among student groups so they appreciate their differences, among an endless amount of verbal and nonverbal strategies help our kids and the members of our team know they are recognized and valued. When an 8th-grade group was asked to show what it means to belong, every student took their foot and put it in the center of a circle--they needed no amount of prompting to express what it feels and what it can look like to be included.
A special shout-out and deep expression of gratitude to the incomparable Mrs. Early. Mrs. Early spent over 20 years in education and many in the Butler Middle School as a Math teacher. She has changed countless students’ lives and will be dearly missed as she departed this week for her retirement. As with all transitions within the school, we must pull together and support one another, even as we miss a tremendous player on our team.
Activism in ELA
Students in 7th grade ELA worked in small groups to analyze norms within the school, and within their classrooms. In teams, students discussed what they saw and what they would like to see and shared these observations and hopes on post it's that all members of the class could share in. In our other 7th grade class, students worked to develop their essential research skills vocabulary, categorizing and defining complex new and known words as a class. In 6th Grade, students are working on informational texts around the topic of teen activism. Students have read about Sir Darius Brown, Malala Yousef, Bellen Woodard. Through their readings, students are grappling with the text, pulling out main idea from supporting detail, making inferences about the authors' and the subjects' purpose, and connecting their work to our students' own capacity to generate change in their communities.
Vocabulary Gains through Vocabulary Games
Students in our EL classes have been tasked this week not just with word building but making connections with word-letter-sound associations. They also spent time grouping words based on specific categories of subjects, helping students to see relationships in words. Here students practiced this with a matrix of nouns ranging from rocks to clothes to types of foods.
Student Police Academy
Our SPA kicked off last with a visit from Officer Diego who spent time last Friday talking to students about what the academy is all about! Officer Diego and other officers supporting the program plan to show students what it's like to work with service and work pets. They will also teach students CPR/First Aid, among other learning opportunities such as what kinds of drills and practices officers engage in to prepare for emergencies. Encourage students to participate. It's an important partnership for the school and a wonderful way for students to build positive, trusting relationships with local law enforcement.
After School Rules!
The afterschool program has launched once again and is in full swing. Students have a broad range of choices daily with many choosing open and free play in the gym. We can understand why! The gym space will also be occupied for important basketball practices taking place before and after school. Butler's basketball team played against the Wang School last week, and while they did not win, the students had a blast and were grateful to have their first opportunity to demonstrate the skills they have been building within the basketball program. After School programming at the Butler is bountiful; teachers offer board games, chorus, cooking club, theatre, saga, coding, chemistry, and more. Check out our students' gummy gardens, a sweet treat they constructed during cooking club this week. Students discussed how soil is layered in a garden including clay, dirt/sediment, rich soil, topsoil, and grass. Students in Science/Chemistry also had a bit of a treat as they discussed the olfactory senses and its impact on tastebuds. We tested the theory that being unable to smell had an effect on students' ability to identify which flavor they were testing. Indeed, the students' findings proved that when they blocked their noses, in addition to being blindfolded, they were unable to taste the difference between flavors such as grape, cherry, lemon, lime, and orange with the same level of accuracy.
What is new in your world? If you would like to make sure the Butler community is informed on new happenings and learning opportunities in your classroom, make sure to connect with the schools admin team. Just write “Bulletin” in the subject with your submission. Pictures are always a plus!
REMINDERS:
Q2 Report Cards
1/24/22 Ends Quarter 2. Please conference with students about their grades and be sure to connect with parents about student progress. If there is material students can make up, offer this feedback to students and families as we approach the end of quarter two.
Important Reminders:
Let's Stay Healthy- STUDENTS MUST WEAR MASKS AT ALL TIMES. WE HAVE AN INCREASED RATE OF COVID INFECTION IN THE COMMUNITY! In addition to following expectations for distancing in the classroom and hallways, and to providing "surgical grade" masks for children, we ask that is you are able, please wear your KN95 masks during the school day, issued by Lowell Public Schools.
Hallway Presence - Your presence in the hallways and stairwells can mean the difference between safe passage and student or teacher injury. We need all teachers and support staff, as well as administrators, to be vigilant, to call for support as needed, and to use this time to both observe and relationship build with students as they enter the building, move between classes, or dismiss at the end of the day.
Bathroom protocol: 10-minute expectation- Bathrooms will remain locked during the first and last 10 minutes of each period. Mr. Chhim and Mrs. Horm will be supporting classrooms and will not be providing additional supervision in hallways. Please make sure you have bathroom logs posted in your classroom for students to sign in and out of class when they leave your classroom. This expectation has been helpful when in place and when we need to follow up on hallway misconduct.
Week at a Glance
Monday 1/31
9:30 Operations
Tuesday 2/1
- 8:30 Student Support
- RJLT 3:00
Wednesday 2/2
- Pool Testing Day
- Admin CPT
- ILT -3:30
Thursday 2/3
- PBIS Team Meeting 3:10
Friday 2/4
- Fun FriYay! Wear your Butler Pride Gear
ILT Updates
Next Team meeting - February 2nd
Check-in with your grade level team representatives for more information. Our last discussion focused on our leadership team walkthrough.
RJLT
Next Team meeting - February 1st
PBIS
Next Team meeting - February 3rd
Disruptive behavior can derail a lesson. It is important to recognize that misbehavior is more than just an interruption to the teaching taking place. It is also a form of communication. Getting to the cause of misbehavior is essential in correcting it. Misbehavior is often a result of frustration or stress which may or may not be related to the school environment. When students are frustrated or stressed about their learning experiences, they can act out. In some cases, students would rather be perceived as defiant than the internal message referring to themselves as “dumb.” To prevent disruptions to student experiences, we must first determine what constitutes a disruption. (Eyes on Culture)
Monthly Motivation
It's always great to start on an inspiring note. This month we will add speeches from the MLK Oratory competition.
Staff Birthday Shoutouts ~ February
Samantha Arnold - 2/8
Clara Cahill - 2/10
John Fugarino - 2/14
Jaime Moody 2/15
Marietta Camara - 2/17
Butler Community
Email: jmoody@lowell.k12.ma.us
Website: https://www.lowell.k12.ma.us/Domain/10
Location: 1140 Gorham Street, Lowell, MA, USA
Phone: 978-937-8973
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpsdbutler/