Fall Newsletter
October 26th, 2022
Superintendent's Corner
Fall Updates @ HPS
Hello Parents, Guardians, Caregivers, & Staff:
As I reflect on these recent weeks and my third reopening of Holliston Public Schools, I realize there is so much to be grateful for. Every time I visit the schools, classrooms, and events, I truly feel blessed to be able to lead such an amazing school district with so many incredible students and staff. Most recently, I am enjoying my student advisory meetings that I have begun to attend this year, as I want to hear directly from students how we can continue to create a safe and supportive environment that is welcoming and with equitable opportunities for academic outcomes to help students meet their full potentials and meet with future success.
As the leaves have fallen and days have begun to grow cold, fall marks a time for change, as we hunker down, readying for the frigid winter days soon to come. With Thanksgiving soon approaching, I am ever reminded how fortunate I am to have my health and my amazing family and friends. Many of us, including myself, have suffered losses during the pandemic, and it is important that we take time to create more memories together with family and friends at every opportunity.
I am excited about the work we have already undertaken as a school district, as we embark on our journey together working toward our new mission, "To collaboratively create a safe, inclusive environment that empowers all learners, through innovative teaching and learning, to be lifelong, active, global citizens." (Holliston Public Schools 2022-2027 Strategic Plan)
There are so many exciting things happening each and every day at Holliston Public Schools. Thank you for sharing your children/ students with me. Continue reading below, in order to get to better know more about our central office team and the work each district department has been engaged in at HPS this fall!
Have a restful, relaxing, and reflective Thanksgiving with your family and friends!
Yours truly,
Dr. Susan Kustka
P.S. Would you like to join this amazing team? We still have open positions at HPS. See our employment page. Also, if you would like to substitute while on break from college or parttime, we have just increased our daily substitute teacher rate to up to $100/ day. It's a great time to make some extra money for the holidays and beyond. See flier.
“It’s like going
back to school. You know, autumn! Time for ‘Harry Potter’.”
— Robbie Coltrane
"Autumn carries
more gold in its pockets than all the other seasons."
– Jim Bishop
“Life starts
All over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
Curriculum & Instruction
District Curriculum Fall Updates
- Joe Hicks - PreK-12+ Humanities District Curriculum Coordinator
- James Levasseur - PreK-12+ STEM District Curriculum Coordinator
- Ida Pappas - PreK-12+ Unified Arts District Curriculum Coordinator
Each district curriculum coordinator is in each of our four schools one day a week working with teachers and principals and then as a curriculum and instruction team the remaining day.
This fall, our team has been concentrating on many initiatives from the district's strategic plan.
- Collaborating with teachers to create clear, rigorous and consistent academic expectations for student success that aligns to Massachusetts state curriculum frameworks by utilizing a district template to capture vertical and horizontal curriculum alignment.
- Updating Holliston's review and revision process for all curricula content to ensure currency, equity, and alignment of curricula. We are excited that both PreK-12+ math and secondary ELA curriculum reviews have begun this year.
- Collaborating with principals and the central administration team on developing a professional development plan that is committed to the professional growth of all staff which supports staff in their professional growth to enhance teaching and learning practices. I am excited to announce that the curriculum and instruction team has teamed up with the technology integration team to plan our teacher lead January professional development day. This day provides our staff an opportunity to share their best practices on teaching strategies and student engagement.
- Studying district practices in using data to inform the teaching and learning at all levels. This results in identifying the strengths, gaps, and needs of using data to inform the teaching and learning, improve educator practice of using data, and analyzing school trends.
Our team is excited to be working on this critical work with district staff! Be on the lookout for more details in our upcoming Curriculum & Instruction newsletter.
Wishing all of you a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving with family and friends.
Warmly,
Joanne Menard
Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction
Student Services
What's new in Student Services?
First, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself as the interim Director of Students Services. I have been in the district for over 20 years as a counselor and administrator. My vision as your director is to help maintain an inclusive, safe, supportive, and an academically engaging environment for all learners, while providing open communication with our families.
The start of the year has been a busy, but productive one. Our Student Services Departments has been working hard under Arches 2 & 3 of our Strategic Plan; Social & Emotional Wellbeing as well as Teaching & Learning. We are digging in deep across the district to understand our current practices and procedures as they relate to a student’s emotional wellbeing and learning styles, and how that impacts their success in the classroom.
We are excited to share with you some of our work ahead:
Creation of a Student Service Family Resource Guide
This guide is designed to provide all families with an overview of what services are provided in Holliston Public Schools. This includes our student support referral services, continnums, specialists, contact information, and resource page to best support a families journey in heping their child both academically and emotionally.
Continuum Alignment
Our continuums are such an important service from PreK-12+. As education evolves, so does our delivery and supports. We are working to align this journey so that we are providing a structured, supportive, and inclusive process for our learners and their families. In this process we are working with our teams of staff to re-evaluate our entrance/exit criteria, data collection and data-driven decisions, and overall functioning of each continuum. We are participating in site visits to local districts to gather data and observe their specialized programs, which will help us redefine our work here in Holliston.
- Partnership with Landmark Outreach
- We have established a 2-3year partnership with Landmark Outreach who will be working with our staff in the development of our Language Based Programs within the district. This work will include observations, modeling, training, and developing criteria starting at Miller and RAMS, and shifting across all buildings upon completion and student need.
We continue to be so proud of the work being done here by our staff and students, along with our partnership with families. We look forward to providing our families with updates and learning opportunities through our newsletter, as well as FamilyEd in the future!
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with feedback.
Sincerely,
Jessica Beattie
Interim Director of Student Services
Technology
The growth and expansion of technology use by students has led to increases in creativity, learning and productivity in our schools. We have invested in devices and management systems to allow for more efficient learning without sacrificing safety by providing 24/7 filtering and single sign on to many of our digital resources. Even though our student devices and systems are robust in this regard,. we still recommend that you consider additional measures at home to minimize unproductive screen time.. Listed below are some home solutions to consider for this purpose:
Family Digital Safety Options
Social Media
New social media apps continue to appear and often become student's preferred option even before we know it exists.. To help understand some of the features and privacy settings for these apps, we recommend visiting Connect Safely, which has a wealth of resources for parents to learn about these platforms . The guides are typically one page long for each social media app and contain strategies for parents and caregivers.
New Chromebooks for Grades 5 & 8
New devices for 5th and 8th grade approved at the October 2022 Town Meeting have arrived and will be deployed in the coming weeks. Thanks for your support!
Network Infrastructure Update
Many of our projects approved at the Spring 2022 Town Meeting have been delayed due to supply shortages which are finally beginning to ease. As a result, we expect these projects to begin in earnest in the coming weeks to help provide better connectivity and security for students and staff.
Placentino's Future Scientists!
Dan MacLeod
Director of Technology & Digital Learning
Social-Emotional Learning & Equity
Great things happening here at HPS!
We are excited about the momentum we are making towards building a solid foundation for students, staff, and families relative to our social-emotional support system, along with our culturally responsive approaches. It goes without saying that it “takes a village” and here in Holliston we want to unite our schools and community in the challenges we are facing each day, and how we can best teach and support our students along their journey to be inclusive, engaging, and mindful learners.
We have begun our initial shift using the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). Through this model, supports for students are viewed more as an elevator approach. Support for ALL, does not mean students are “stuck” in one place, but rather they will shift between Tier 1, 2, and 3 based on levels of need at the moment. Our teams of educators and staff across all four buildings have been working diligently through training, creating curriculum, and embedding supports in this approach that focuses on: social emotional wellbeing, cultural proficiency, and academic supports.
What does our journey look like so far?
Acknowledging our Student Supports staff are constantly looking for best practices and innovative ways to help our students. Starting in September we have begun to provide resources and trainings, and yhave also partnered with local communities who will take part in these trainings alobng with us so that we can collaborate and partner with each other, if a crisis should arise in our communities.
Psychological First Aid
Trauma Informed Approaches course through Lesley College
- Creation of a Crisis Response Team & implementation of response models
- Cultural Responsive Approaches; led by “And Still We Rise”
- Family supports are of the utmost priority for us in leading our students through these challenging times. In knowing this, we have begun to develop FamilyEd opportunities as a way to provide education, up to date data, and ways in which you can navigate the world with your children both academically, but in a safe and supportive manner.
- Family Ed Events: Dec 22 - January 23
- What is MTSS: how does SEL / MH, PBIS and a focus on “Equity” help build Safe & Supportive experiences.
- Understanding the Metrowest Health Adolescent Health Survey:What does this survey tell us about what our youth’s experiences
- How to Have Important Conversations with Our Kids: “Parenting for Greater Inclusion in Holliston”
- HPS SEL Webpage-coming soon
- Will include a variety of resources for families to include:
- Counsling wrap-around services
- Podcasts
- Articles
- Upcoming events
- Welcome our new team of therapy dogs!!
- We are excited to introduce our HPS Therapy Dog Program. Education at times, feels challenging and stressful enough, no matter the age. While we have developed emotionally supportive interventions to help students, we have also instituted our first “full” Therapy Dog Program. We find that this helps our children learn social skills, preventing social isolation, but also helps them regulate emotions and shift their thinking when they feel stressed or overwhelmed.
- Placentino: Rozy
- Miller: Koda
- HHS: Nugget
- Outdoor Learning Alliance
- We are very excited to announce the hardwork and labor of our staff and community members who are creating Outdoor Learning Spaces for our students. Our OLA group is breaking ground and making momentum in creating this spaces for all students, starting at Placentino. Please see our site below to see the amazing work and how you can take part. Thank you!!
- New Counseling Support System for Families & Staff: CARE SOLACE
- Here in Holliston, we are extremely invested in providing mental health support for our students, families, and staff. Care Solace, is a mental health care coordination service, to help you and your family connect to quality care. This is a free resource for you and your family paid for and provided by Holliston Public Schools that is 24hrs/365 days of availability.
- If you are looking for help with mental health or substance use, Care Solace will quickly and confidentially find available providers matched to your needs. Care Solace has launched its “self-referral” process, so if your child is in need of mental health support please use the link below to begin the process. Or reach our to your child’s school counselor and they can assist you with this process as well. Care Solace
We recognize we have a lot of work ahead of us. We look forward to our continued partnership with families, to help our students feel supported and comforted as they navigate their educational journey here in Holliston. I look forward to sharing updates on new work to come ahead.
Jariel Vergne
Director of SEL & Equity
Finance & Operations
Transportation
We had a very interesting start of the school year with a state run road project on the most traveled road in Holliston. This meant that we had no control of hours they were working or whether lanes or the road itself was closed. We had make some adjustments on the fly. A true case of building the plane as it is heading down the runway. We eventually came up with a solution that will stay in place until we hear from the state that the project is completed.
We also had a robust return to full ridership for the start of the year. Changes in where students are located caused us to perform a major re-routing to facilitate meeting as many ridership requests as possible. We do thank all of those families that had their route changed for adapting to the changes.
Facilities
Our indoor camera project just commenced after a summer chasing supply chain and contractor staffing issues. Three of the four cameras at the Robert Adams Middle School are up and running and the High School six camera system is being installed today.
The Holliston PTO’s Outdoor Learning Alliance has started their learning space project in Placentino’s courtyard. Go to https://hollistonpto.org/outdoor-learning-alliance to see the work they have done to date.
Budget
Budget season is commencing. Tune in to HCAT to see School Committee meetings and get updates on the 2024 budget process from them.
Keith Buday
Assistant Superintendent for Finance & Operations
Health & Wellness
News from Food Services
Welcome back to school lunch! We are excited to be back and doing what we love – feeding children! Nutritious meals are an important part of the school day, and all students have access to them for free, regardless of eligibility, this school year.
As we have done in the past, we are offering lots of fresh produce, whole grains, and tasty proteins that meet National School Lunch Program guidelines and appeal to our students. We are excited to have partnered with Silverwood Farm in Sherborn to offer delicious bell peppers (planted by HHS students), butternut squash, kale, and more in September and October. At RAMS, Miller, and Placentino we are now proudly serving Sal’s Pizza every Wednesday; we continue to make fresh pizza at the high school using Original Pizza dough.
Our menus are posted in the Food Services section of the district and school websites, please review
them with your students. We continue to experience supply chain and product availability issues; while we are seeing improvements, please note that menus are subject to change.
Follow us on twitter and tell your students to please visit us!
Lynne Koenig
Food Nutrition Director
News from the Health Office
As we approach the holiday season, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has outlined steps to take in order to prevent illness and stay healthy in the following link: https://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/on-desktop/2022-1101preventing-fall-illness.pdf
The nurses of the Holliston Public Schools wish all students, families, and staff a safe and healthy holiday season!
Missy Jordan
Nurse Leader
Central Office Contacts
- Superintendent- Dr. Susan Kustka
- Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction- Joanne Menard
- Assistant Superintendent of Finance & Operations - Keith Buday
- Director of Student Services - Jess Beattie
- Director of SEL & Equity - Jariel Vergne
- Director of Technology & Digital Learning - Dan MacLeod
- Director of Food Services- Lynne Koenig
- Nurse Leader - Missy Jordan
370 Hollis Street
Holliston, MA 01746
(508) 429-0654