This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Curley Holiday Shopping Night: Thank you to the families who came out to support this community event! We appreciate your help!
• Book Swap: Bring a Book, Take a Book, K-5 Book Swap. Bring in 2 or more lightly used books from home and choose 2 ‘new to you’ books from school. The deadline for bringing 2 or more books from home is Friday, December 18th.
• K-5 Report Cards: These will go home with students this week. Please sign and return the report card to your child’s teacher.
• School Safety: We will have our first SAFE MODE drill this week. We are asking families to reflect with their children after the drill and talk about how to stay safe. Families may choose to tell their child in advance of the drill if they choose. The drill will take place on Wednesday, December 16th. While the drill is going on no staff or families will be able to enter or exit the building. We hope that when we practice this we will be able to work out any kinks in our plan. Some families have asked for the language that teachers will use when practicing with their students. Here is a script specifically directed at early childhood aged students, “We are practicing for an emergency outside the school. Just like a fire drill is practice for an emergency, like a fire, inside, the school, this is practice for an emergency outside. An example of an outside emergency I’ve given is if a truck spills something dangerous, like a chemical, into the street. It is not real and we have to show Ms. Grassa (principal) that we can be safe inside and stay quiet if we need to be.” We hope this language helps to support the conversation you have at home with your children. We will do a call out to all families on Wednesday evening as well.
• Technology Appeal: Technology and experience using computers are critical to our students. Unfortunately, most of our students do not have dependable access to computers at home, and mobile phones are not a substitute. We must prepare our children with a strong education, positive experience and the tools they will use for the rest of their lives. Students need time and practice. Students need technology. Please consider a gift to the Curley K-8 as you make your final selections for your 2015 charitable giving. *All gifts are Tax deductible as Friends of the Curley is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization.

  For your convenience, we created an online fundraising page on BiddingForGood (BFG) to receive donations. If you can, we ask that Curley families please forward the link on BFG to extended family members, friends (in and out of state), socially conscious businesses and anyone else you think may be interested in supporting our cause.

  Ways to donate:

  1. Give online at: www.biddingforgood.com/curleyk8 **Preferred option (Curley runs various fundraisers on BFG)
  2. Send in cash or check payable to: Friends of the Curley delivered to your child’s teacher
  3. Donate on this page by clicking on the big red button at the top right hand of this page of curleyk8.com to pay online with PayPal or credit card (December gifts will go to technology)
  4. Contact Ann DeGeorge with questions or special arrangements: ann.c.degeorge@gmail.com or (617) 251-6777
• ELT Planning Meeting: On Monday 5 staff volunteered to attend the ELT Planning Meeting. We met at the BTU from 8:30am-3:30pm with 7 other schools that will be adding 40 extra minutes to their day in SY2016-2017. We want to be sure to communicate with staff/families after each meeting to assure that this process is transparent.

  Here are some key messages we would like to share from today’s learning:

  • Our Extended Learning Time initiative is about building a better school day for our students, teachers and families.
  • With more time, our school will have more opportunities to provide targeted learning time for students, increase small group instruction, provide enrichment opportunities in order to increase student engagement and academic outcomes. At our first session we identified these urgent needs:
  • African American and Hispanic males do not perform on standardized tests at the same level as their White and Asian peers.
  • ELL and SPED students do not perform on standardized tests at the same level as their general education peers.
  • Overall as a school we struggle with reading and writing skills according to standardized tests.
  • We are just at the beginning and we need you to play an active role in the process of developing a new school experience for our community.
  • Between January and June the ELT Team will implement a community engagement process moving forward, stay tuned for meeting dates and other pertinent updates.
  • In the coming weeks you can get involved by reaching out to a member of the ELT team with questions and ideas (Ms. Ciardi, Ms. Grassa, Ms. Kidd, Ms. Peters, Ms.Wright). Click Here and you can submit your ideas and questions anonymously.
• Labeling Coats: We are asking families to label their child’s coat on the inside tag. This way if the coat gets lost we can return it to the rightful owner. We have had many winter coats end up in the lost & found and we want to prevent this from continuing.
• School Site Council: The SSC was changed this month to better align with the release of the budget for SY 2015-2016. We will meet on Tuesday, December 15th from 5:30-7:00pm in Room 101 Upper School. You can enter through the CASP doors until 6pm and all are welcome to attend.
• School Showcase: Thank you to the families who volunteered time on Friday to help perspective families make informed choices about schools for their child next year. We have two more showcase sessions Friday, December 18th from 9-10am and Thursday, January 14th from 3-4pm. Please email Arusha Hollister if you are interested in helping out or sign up here.
• Arrival: Please keep in mind that the doors open at 8:15am and the official school day begins promptly at 8:30am. Please make sure to have your child arrive on time for the start of the day. Families are welcome to accompany their child to the class each morning between 8:15-8:35. After 8:35am all students will be marked tardy and cannot be escorted by families members to class.
• Dismissal: Dismissal begins at 2:25pm. We are asking all families to remain outside at dismissal. We are also asking families to not release students after 1:45pm. It makes for a hectic dismissal and is disruptive to classroom learning. Also to assure the safety of the 300+ students who participate in afterschool activities we will not be able to allow families back into the building to use the facilities after dismissal. There are not staff on duty to supervise this past 2:45pm.
• Social Media: For up to date information about the Curley K-8 School please sign up for email alerts by joining the Mailing List. You can also follow Principal Grassa on Twitter @principalgrassa and be sure to always use the hashtag #curleycares when sharing/posting/tweeting information about our school.