2 Parsons Street

Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

413-587-1460 (phone) 413-587-1474 (fax)

Dr. Beth N. Choquette, Principal bchoquette@northamtpon-k12.us

Elizabeth Peterson, Administrative Assistant epeterson@northampton-k12.us

Jordan Celino, Secretary jcelino@northampton-k12.us

Nora DeJasu, Head Teacher ndejasu@northampton-k12.us

Would you like this news letter translated? Here are the steps to have it translated:

At the top of the weekly email, there's a link that reads "View it in your browser," click that and it takes you to the post on a webpage.

Scroll to the bottom where there's a black menu bar and pick the option that says "Translate."

Select the language you would like it translated in and it will then translate it on the webpage.

Le gustaría traducir esta carta de noticias? Aquí están los pasos para traducirlo:

En la parte superior del correo electrónico semanal, hay un enlace que dice "Verlo en su navegador", haga clic en eso y lo llevará a la publicación en una página web.

Desplázate hacia la parte inferior donde hay una barra de menú negra y elige la opción que dice "Traducir".

Seleccione el idioma en el que desea traducirlo y luego lo traducirá en la página web.

It is the vision of Bridge Street School to promote educational excellence and equity for ALL students. Promoting educational excellence and equity will prepare and motivate students to be engaged learners and critical thinkers who strive for high academic achievement, listen to all perspectives, value the multicultural and diverse world we live in, and actively participate in eliminating racial and social injustices so that all people are able to reach their full potential.

Bridge Street School’s faculty and staff, caregivers, and community are committed to providing educational excellence and equity to its students by challenging the injustices that create barriers to high academic achievement, to access and opportunities to learn, to high-quality teaching and learning, and to a climate of belonging. This commitment to educational equity, where all children are successful regardless of their personal, social, or cultural contexts, is at the core of our practices, structures, and policies.

Good afternoon, I hope you all had a good week. Friday morning was the first day of scraping the frost off of my windshield. I'm not sure I'm ready for winter yet. With the fall season also comes a time change so please remember to change your clocks on November 7, 2021 back 1 hour.

The office is still waiting for the beginning of the year paperwork from some families. Please send that paperwork in as soon as possible and if for some reason you are missing any of it, please contact the office and we can get you copies of what you need.

Picture re-take day will be on December 2nd. I know some students who may have been absent are worried that they won't have a picture, please reassure them that they will have a chance again on the 2nd of December.

Even though the MCAS data may not be fully accurate given that students only took one session of each subject, and that we had many students opt out, I still think it's important to look at the data, looking at where we did well and where we need to focus during this school year. We all have our own personal beliefs about standardized testing, but regardless of those beliefs, the data can be helpful in looking at the gaps between our subgroups, where we need to adjust our teaching practices, and whether or not we need to look at the programs and/or curriculum for any needed changes. If we don't have 100% participation, it causes our scores to come out lower and can cause us to look at problems that may not really exist. I am the first one to point out the inequities of the test and what it is used for, but unfortunately, I can not change the fact that we are required to take it. I take from it what I need to in order to support our students and to support our teachers in helping our students grow academically and also know that there is a lot more to a child than one standardized test score. With that said, I am extremely proud to share with you that in ELA our school outperformed the district as well as the state. I am especially proud of this accomplishment given the challenges of last year. I'd like to give a special shout out to our 3rd and 4th grade teachers, staff, and students from last year. 63% of our third graders met or exceeded the grade level standard outperforming the state by 13% in ELA. Our 4th graders from last year had 51% of their grade meeting or exceeding the grade level standard and also outperforming the state in ELA. Overall our 5th graders from last year struggled and as a school, district, and state math scores were very low. Therefore, there is a strong focus that will be placed on math and science achievement this year. There will be an MCAS objective in our updated school improvement plan, once I receive the state targets, I will put them in our school improvement plan.

I've attached the 2nd year of our school improvement plan below. Additionally, our school council evaluates our progress each year on our goals, I've also attached our assessment of the first year of our SIP. In 2020 the school council and I created a two-year SIP. We are in year two of the plan and because we met all of goal one from last year, we have a new goal one. We've also added some changes to goals two and three. and added in the new district improvement plan goals where appropriate. The SIP was designed with a real focus on social justice leadership. Really looking at the systemic barriers causing students to not reach their full potential academically, social emotionally, and behaviorally. You will also see our new vision and mission statements in the SIP that was shared with you for your feedback at the beginning of the year. We encourage all families to talk about our vision and mission to help students understand what is at the heart of what we do, why we do it, and what we believe as a school community.

Finally, there is No School on Tuesday, November 2nd due to teacher professional development.

Thank you for all that you do to support our school. I hope you all have wonderful week.

n Episode 2 of Policy Conversations I discuss Policy ACA Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzmmvIHZq-o

As we bring October to a close, I wish I could present to you the November menu. Unfortunately, it is not finalized. And, due to the unpredictable nature of the national supply chain challenges, we will not be serving what was planned for the first week of November.

Here is what we are planning to serve next week:

Monday 11/2

Breakfast: Assorted Cereal

Lunch:

(Elementary)

Egg & Cheese on WG Croissant

(JFK & NHS)

Hot Dog on a WG Roll

Tuesday 11/2

No School

Wednesday 11/3

Breakfast: WG Breakfast Bun

Lunch:

Turkey Taco Bowl served over brown rice

(all schools)

Thursday 11/4

Breakfast: Assorted Cereal

Lunch:

WG Pasta with Marinara Sauce

(all schools)

Friday 11/5

Breakfast: WG Banana Bread

Lunch:

Cheese Pizza

Steamed Broccoli

All meals are served with vegetables, assorted fruit and milk. Sunbutter and Jelly and the Bagel Lunch options are available daily as an alternative.

Breakfast options may vary school to school. Please check with the kitchen at your school if you have questions. As always, the above menu is subject to change.

The School Nutrition Association recently created this video which does a great job capturing the challenges that are occuring. We will post it on our website. Please check it out!

With the unpredictable nature of our program, we can assure:

• Both breakfast and lunch will continue to be FREE for all students
• We will not cut portions
• We will continue to do our best to meet USDA nutrition standards
• We will serve fruits and vegetables with our meals daily

Reminders:

• Milk is not free unless an entire meal is taken. Milk alone is $0.50
• Adult meals are not free. An adult meal cost $2.14 for breakfast and $4.28 for lunch.
• Adult meals cannot be charged on a meal account unless you have an account and have funds on the account. Otherwise, you must pay for the meal when you have ordered it. We are happy to set up an account if you would like!

We appreciate your patience and understanding!

Please watch the video link below regarding the supply chain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEwOa9Mx7WQ

Dear BSS Families, (Mensaje en español abajo)

Halloween Walkathon next Saturday, November 6 at 3:00 PM! We hope to see you there for a parade of fun and community. And now you'll get another chance to come up with a fabulous costume!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the PTO pie and cookie dough fundraiser! Pie and cookie dough pick up date is Friday November 12 from 2:30 - 4 in the parking lot outside the school. You must pick up your pies and cookie dough at that time unless you have made alternate arrangements with Dina beforehand. Any pies and cookie dough that are not picked up on that date will be donated as they come frozen and we do not have the space to store them. Any questions, please contact Dina at dinakochanek@gmail.com or 413-297-8980.

Hello BSS families. This year I plan to write up a little information about what each grade is doing for art in the monthly Newsletter. I plan to photograph all of the students’ artwork and make another google slideshow for viewing in June. Here is the link for the art show I created last June if you didn’t have a chance to see it yet:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UFLsF9VyERsBQFKuh6u_tj2pD9siR9HWUOqvYGd6hkM/edit?usp=sharing

5th Grade:

The fifth graders learned how to draw cylinders and cones and created their own planet or city using the new way to draw those shapes. Their drawings are very creative and unique! They are now learning about the Mexican artist: Frida Kahlo, who is famous for making self-portraits.They are creating a self-portrait using colored pencils and watercolor paints.

4th Grade:

The fourth graders drew objects in a Still-Life that were set up at each table. Their still-life drawings were created by trying to draw 3-dimensional objects on a flat surface by adding shading and shadows. They used colored pencils and watercolors.

3rd Grade:

The third graders drew an animal portrait from a photo of their choice. The animal portraits were colored using texture with colored pencils. The next step was to paint a frame for their portraits, which they used metallic colored paints. Once the paper was dry they cut a window out of the paper and made an Art Journal with the scraps, which they took home already. The framed Animal Portraits are beautiful!

2nd Grade:

The second graders learned about the artist, Kelsey Montague, who created large murals depicting designs inside wing shapes. Her work is on social media showing people from around the globe in front of her beautiful wings. The first graders made a mural in the hallway for everyone to enjoy.

1st Grade:

The first graders learned about the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh, who is famous for painting Sunflowers. Their sunflowers are just as colorful, especially with yellow as that was Vincent’s favorite color. They used oil pastels and watercolors for their sunflower pictures.

Kindergarten:

The kindergarteners are learning about abstract Art, using shapes, lines and patterns to create several works of art. Now they are creating a city street using lines and shapes with inspiration from pictures of downtown Northampton.