Hello Florida Ruffin Ridley School Families and Friends,

I hope that this past long weekend brought you opportunities for reflection, connection, and recharging. These last two weeks have certainly been a bit bumpy as we all navigated the shifting schedules with the professional day, early release days, and days away from school. As we get into November and December many of us will be juggling schedules even more, celebrating holidays, traveling, hosting family and friends, and balancing competing demands on our time. With all of this it is important to carve out mindful moments where we can practice gratitude and keep our stress responses low and manageable. We will be practicing balancing and centering strategies with students in the coming weeks leading up to the winter break to help maintain and support calm, safe, and kind spaces here at school.

On Tuesday, November 8th our FRR educators engaged in a full day of professional learning. The morning was spent with Debbie Irving, author of Waking Up White, followed by small break out groups discussing the impact of her keynote. During the afternoon our educators gathered in role alike groups with coordinators and other district leadership staff to dive deeper into curriculum and other topics relevant to their current positions. As a follow up to Ms. Irving's keynote all of our educators were invited to participate in Debby Irving's 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge. I invite you to participate along with us to develop and hone your own equity habits and anti-racist practice.

In these days leading up to the American Thanksgiving holiday, I invite you to find time each day to pause, reflect, and share gratitude and kindness. Maybe it's a note to a new family in our community welcoming them and offering connection. Or perhaps it's a quick email to thank one of our educators for the work they've been doing to support your child(ren). Or maybe it's a moment to show gratitude and kindness to yourself for all that you've been doing and accomplishing over the course of this year. Whatever you choose I hope that you can practice these acts of gratitude and kindness each day and that you are also on the receiving end of others' gratitude and kindness practice.

As always, if you have any questions or need to connect further, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I look forward to seeing and connecting with many of you at the DFL Super Bowl next Wednesday at 12:15p!

Jen

If you need to drive to the building, you MUST use the rolling drop off line on Stedman Street or park on Harvard Street or in the Centre Street lot.

Below is the schedule for the rest of this fall's early release days for conferences. Please make arrangements for your child(ren) to be picked up on time at 12:40p each of these days.

Thursday November 17th: K-8 Early Release Day

Thursday December 1st: K-8 Early Release Day

Wednesday December 7th: K-12 Early Release Day

Also, please note that Wednesday, November 23rd is a 12:00 Noon Dismissal for all students. We hope students and families will join us at our annual DFL flag football Super Bowl. This is a time honored tradition at our school and great opportunity to be together before the Thanksgiving break.

In December of 2020, the Brookline School Committee put into effect an official PBS Yearbook policy that promotes inclusion of all students enrolled in a Brookline Public School. This means that for FRR families who want photographs of their child to be included in our yearbook, you do not have to do anything – but please do continue sending in pictures!

We recognize, however, that for any reason you may not want your child’s name and/or pictures to be in the yearbook. If so, parents and guardians may opt-out in writing by simply emailing the name and grade of the child (or children) that you are opting out to the Yearbook Committee at Yearbook@RuffinRidleyPTO.org. All information will be kept confidential.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

-The FRR Yearbook Committee

It was wonderful to see so many families at our PTO Coffee and Conversation on Friday 11/4. We had some great conversations and questions about bullying and social conflict and what we can do together to meet the rising connection seeking behaviors and lagging skills we are seeing present in our students.

Below is the slide deck from the meeting which includes an added slide at the end with resources for families.

Several great ideas for future forums and groups were presented so stay tuned for more opportunities to get involved in addressing this need in our community and collaborating on supporting a culture of care here at FRR.