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Greetings Flynn Families!

I spent my week in training around anti-racism, student/family engagement, and systems-change. To help Flynn continue to pursue a culture of learning for students and staff, I wanted to share about that learning experience with you.

I had the opportunity to attend a convening of schools in Lexington, Kentucky alongside several other educators and leaders from Burlington. We met and spent time learning alongside leaders and teachers from nine other school districts from across the U.S. and Canada. The convening was an opportunity to talk about shared strengths, challenges and experiences in our different school systems.

The educators and leaders who attended the convening had the opportunity to talk extensively with some students and educators from around Kentucky about their work with the Kentucky Department of Education which included a partnership to improve opportunities and access to individualized learning in schools.

By participating in this listening and learning process, I was able to make some connections back to family and student engagement back at Flynn. It is my goal as Principal to systematically include students and families who represent our diverse community in decision-making, visioning, and problem-solving around challenges that we face as a school community.

That will come through some collaboration between students and families and the school leadership team, which is made up of 5 teachers, an instructional coach, an academic interventionist, a Restorative Practices Specialist and myself.

In two weeks, the school leadership team will have its first opportunity to connect with some students and families around the current culture of the cafeteria during 4th and 5th grade lunch. Right now, the cafeteria feels chaotic for students and adults. I want to ensure that various experts from the community are involved in the problem-solving process for the cafeteria. The goal of this first iteration of school-community collaboration will be to determine how to build and maintain a positive cafeteria culture for students in 4th and 5th grade.

This first opportunity for school-community collaboration is just the beginning - I will be connecting with many different families over the course of the year to become involved.

I believe that as a school community, we can't do better by students and families unless we know better. Hearing from students and families about ways to make the community stronger is the best way to ensure success! If you're interested in becoming involved in this collaboration, please do not hesitate to reach out!

In partnership,

Nikki

Hello Flynntastic Families!

We would like to update you on a few things regarding the Flynn School Counseling Program. Please read below for information on curriculum and our parent community needs assessment.

During the month of October, we taught our “Bullying Prevention” unit to students. This unit began with an overview of the 4 different types of conflict, which were defined as follows:

1. Disagreement - When people have different opinions about something. Feelings are not always hurt during a disagreement.

2. Rude Moment - When someone's feelings/body get hurt and it was an accident. (I use this example: When I create an activity for a class and kiddos say "that's so boring". Their intention is not to hurt my feelings, but my feelings may be hurt because I put a lot of thought and energy into creating the activity. That is a rude moment.)

3. Mean Moment - When someone intentionally does something to hurt/upset someone else. (i.e. I got mad at a friend and intentionally said something mean to make them feel bad.)

4. Bullying - When someone's feelings/body is hurt repeatedly over time, there is a power imbalance between the one being bullied and the bully (or bullies) (i.e. the bully is older or bigger, a group of people are bullying one other person), and the behaviors are intentional.

While teaching this bullying prevention unit, we focus on the three “R’s” of bullying:

Recognize - Recognize when bullying behavior is happening to you or when you see bullying behaviors towards someone else. Think: Is it mean behavior? Am I able to get it to stop?

Report - Report bullying behavior to a trusted adult (i.e. teacher, school counselor, principal, parents, aunt, uncle, etc).

Refuse - Using an assertive, kind, and respectful voice, confront the person who is using bullying behavior. When confronting this person it is important to name the behavior as mean/bullying behavior and tell them it needs to stop. You can also refuse the bullying behavior by staying close to an adult or staying close to friends when feeling unsafe.

When someone recognizes bullying behavior happening to someone else, the witness is called a bystander. A supportive bystander is someone who:

1. Reports or helps report bullying (sometimes it is easier to report with a friend rather than reporting alone).

2. Stands up for someone being bullied (refuses bullying).

3. Is respectful and kind.

4. Includes everyone.

If a bystander does not take action (i.e. report or refuse), then they are part of the problem. A supportive bystander is someone who is part of the solution! It is important for our kiddos to know that they have a responsibility to make sure everyone feels accepted, respected and safe.

We hope that by sharing this information with families at home, the language we use in school can be mirrored in the home setting to deepen the understanding of the lesson and skills.

Please consider filling out our parent community needs assessment and let us know how we can best support your child.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

All Our Best,

Emily Russen 802-864-8478 ext 51005

erussen@bsdvt.org

Jill Everett 802-864-8478 ext 51227

Jeverett@bsdvt.org

stay informed....

Interested in the Flynn PTO? If you are an adult in the life of a Flynn student, you are already a

member! We invite you to participate in the PTO in a way that works for you!

Here is the link to our meeting minutes from our meetings this year:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k6WbpEDxIqqodGc3S8gLqxHVymVG2aZI?usp=sharing

Our next meeting is Thursday, November 3rd at 6:30 pm. Meetings are held in-person in the

Flynn library or via Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/fuj-omkp-bnv). Childcare is provided by the wonderful Ms. Wanda!!

The Book Fair and Bake Sale were a great success!! Thank you to all of our volunteer

bakers—we have some serious food network stars among us!

Outerwear Swap—if you have gently used winter gear, please consider donating to our winter

outerwear swap. High need items are winter boots, snow pants, and waterproof mittens and

gloves. ANYONE can take ANY ITEM!! There is a rack of clothing in the front lobby so please

take a look any time the school is open. You can add what you have and/ or see if there’s

something you need. Donations can also be dropped off at New Duds in Colchester (382

Hercules Drive, Suite 4 near Costco). Let’s get ready for winter!

Thanks to an awesome parent volunteer, the play will be making a return to JJ Flynn! More

volunteers are needed, so if you have a passion for production, a sense for scenery, a love of

lighting, let us know! Please email us at flynnschoolpto@gmail.com if you are interested and wewill link you up with the right people!

Looking to volunteer at Flynn? There are lots of opportunities to help out with literacy

activities, such as reading to a Flynn student. Did you know the school has a goal to read 500

books a month to our emerging readers?!! Contact Principal Nikki Ellis if you are interested in

getting involved (nellis@bsdvt.org).

Other ways to get involved:

Choose J.J. Flynn as your AmazonSmile beneficiary. When you shop on Amazon, a percentage of what you spend gets donated to the PTO at NO cost to you!

How to use AmazonSmile on a web browser:

• Visit smile.amazon.com
• Sign in with the same account you use for Amazon.com
• Select your charity
• Start shopping! Remember to checkout at smile.amazon.com to generate donations for

your chosen charity.

Tip: Add a bookmark to make it easier to shop at smile.amazon.com.

How to use AmazonSmile using the Amazon app on your mobile phone:

• Open the Amazon Shopping app
• Navigate to the main menu (≡)
• Tap on Settings and then select “AmazonSmile”
• Select your charity and then follow the on-screen instructions to turn ON AmazonSmile

in the mobile app

Once AmazonSmile has been activated in your app, future eligible app purchases will generate a donation for the charity you have selected.

Note: The tablet app is not yet supported. Please visit smile.amazon.com/onthego to learn

more.

Donate via Venmo. The PTO is a non-profit organization that relies on fundraising to continue

its support of the Flynn community. If you are able to give a monetary donation to support the

PTO programming, then it’s easy—scan, donate, done! Our Venmo account is @jjflynnpto.

Scan those Box Tops!

• Click this link to download the app: https://www.boxtops4education.com/s/get-the-app
• When prompted to find a school, type in the zip code ‘05408’ and choose Flynn from the

choices and you are ready to start scanning those receipts!

The crowd was remarkably gracious. No one complained about the epic wait for their turn to pay. One parent suggested that standing in a long line gave you plenty of time to chat with other families, making the wait a community building opportunity. Seriously, people, I would not fault you at all for feeling grumpy about the fact that we had only one register to offer at this fall’s Scholastic Book Fair, but I am so grateful that no one let it show if it was in there! And the result of all that time to make friends in line was kind of incredible:

Total Fair Sales: $5,964.85.

In slightly less than 4 hours.

The Scholastic rep was quite impressed. She was pretty sure we had hit the threshold that would earn us two registers for our next fair! In addition:

• Your nearly universal willingness to round up to the dollar contributed $75.65 to the Books for All pool of money that supported buying books from teachers’ wishlist baskets.

• 67 of these wishlist books have been delivered to classrooms and were met with great fanfare by appreciative teachers and students alike.

The “Scholastic dollars” that we earn through book fairs allow us to ensure that our library collection reflects the things kids LOVE to read, not just the things we need or want them to read. We will soon have the latest books in our most popular series including Unicorn Diaries, Mister Shivers, Crabby, Princess Truly, Dragon Masters, I Survived, Babysitter’s Club, Dog Man, Narwhal and Jelly, Bird and Squirrel, Captain Underpants, Geronimo Stilton, Pete the Cat, and Press Start, to name a few.

And really, when we stop to think about it, what we adults actually want and need most is for our kids to love to read! Well, at least that’s a librarian’s dream!! Thanks to all the helpers and shoppers who made it possible!

Gratefully yours, Amy Cudney