Boston School Committee school uniform policy requires all schools at all levels to survey all constituencies of the school community, including parents/guardians, teachers and staff in the spring of each school year to adopt one of three uniform options. (see Superintendent Circular #18)

PLEASE VOTE by JUNE 6th

This survey is online:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hzZECGeFt6-rYyQhpUnxjMU-RlJy5DGvadibkp2W2qw/viewform?

Each family may vote ONE TIME: online OR by paper. Paper copies have already been sent in backpacks.

Please do not vote more than once.

Thank you!
– Curley School Site Council

***

La política de uniformes escolares del Boston School Committee require que todas las escuelas hagan una encuesta de todos las elementos de la comunidad escolar, incluyendo los padres, los tutores legales, los maestros y la plantilla de cada escuela, en la primavera de cada año escolar, con el =in de escoger una de tres opciones respecto de los uniformes escolares. (véase Superintendent Circular #18)

Por Favor Vote Antes del 6 de junio

Esta encuesta es en línea:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hzZECGeFt6-rYyQhpUnxjMU-RlJy5DGvadibkp2W2qw/viewform?

Cada familia puede votar UNA VEZ: en línea o en papel. Las copias en papel que ya se han recibido las mochilas.

Por favor vote sólo una vez.

Gracias!
– Curley School Site Council

This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Curley Bike Challenge: The Get Biking Challenge is a city-wide competition to encourage more K-8 students to bike more during May, National Bike Month. Students and teachers will track how many minutes they ride each day. Prizes will be awarded to participants as well as schools and classes based on the percent of students that participate and the amount of days ridden. Prizes include the coveted Golden Pedal Award, free bike raffles, a bike field trip and more! We will provide all of the materials and support resources for the program to be successful in our school, including this calendar to log your student’s hours. Please email Danielle Moran for more information dmoran3@bostonpublicschools.org.
• New Student Welcome Session: Thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped to make our welcome session a success! We look forward to working with all the new students in September.
• School Uniform Survey: Our annual poll for asking the school community about whether we will have a mandatory, voluntary, or no uniform policy for next year is now available. Paper versions will be going out in backpacks, and you may also fill out the survey online as well here. Please note, there is only one vote per family. The deadline for submissions is June 6th. For more information, please contact Nicole Aljoe.
• School Yard Clean Up: Thank you to all families and students who helped with a outdoor school yard clean up on Thursday afternoon. It is important that we all find ways to Care About Our School.
• Listen and Learn Tour: Dr. Tommy Chang, BPS Superintendent as of July 1st, will be coming to the Curley K-8 School on Wednesday, June 3rd from 6:30pm-7:30pm. A group of families and staff will be sharing with him and his transition team the work we have been doing around improving the inequities between Advanced Work Class (AWC) and General Education classrooms. We would love for families and staff to come and listen to the discussion and support the work the Curley’s doing around AWC/General Education curricula.
• Family Potluck: The SPC is hosting a family potluck on Thursday, June 4th from 5-8pm on the playing field. All staff and families are welcome to attend and bring a dish to share.
• 4th Annual Rock Monitor: The SPC is hosting this annual show at the Midway Café on Friday, June 5th starting at 8:30pm. All staff and parents are welcome to attend this adults-only event, and if they want to sing/play they can contact Molly Brigham at mollykbrigham@gmail.com.
• Last Day of School: Due to all the snow days the last day of school has changed and we will have school on Wednesday, June 17th (Bunker Hill Day). As per tradition the last two days of school will be half days Friday, June 26th and the last day of school will be Monday, June 29th.
• Arrival and Dismissal: The school hours are 8:30am-2:30pm. We open each morning at 8:15am for breakfast and students may proceed to homeroom. All parents are welcome to escort their child to class if they arrive before 8:35am. Anyone who arrives after 8:35am is marked tardy. Also we are asking that families do not dismiss their child after 1:45pm to assure a safe dismissal transition.
• Parents Picking Up On Centre Street: Parents who pick up students who leave by the CASP entrance on Centre Street are kindly asked not to stand in the circular driveway of the residential building next to our school while they wait, or to allow their children to play on the trees on their property. Parents are instead encouraged to wait for their students inside the school’s gates. Thank you.
• Social Media: If you are on Twitter be sure to follow me @principalgrassa. This is a great way to share up to date information about the Curley.

This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Curley Bike Challenge: The Get Biking Challenge is a city-wide competition to encourage more K-8 students to bike more during May, National Bike Month. Students and teachers will track how many minutes they ride each day. Prizes will be awarded to participants as well as schools and classes based on the percent of students that participate and the amount of days ridden. Prizes include the coveted Golden Pedal Award, free bike raffles, a bike field trip and more! We will provide all of the materials and support resources for the program to be successful in our school, including this calendar to log your student’s hours. Please email Danielle Moran for more information dmoran3@bostonpublicschools.org.
• End of Year PARCC for Grades 3-8 (and MCAS for 5th and 8th Grades): There is another round of PARCC testing coming in May (See dates below). We are asking all families to assure that their student arrives to school on time, gets a good night sleep the night before and eats a healthy breakfast. City Year made this video to get students excited about this week. Here is the link so you can watch with your child https://youtu.be/_xft5Z_zj-k. We are all proud of each and every student and we want to ensure that students work hard and do their best and that is what matter most!
  • 5/18 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)
  • 5/19 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)

  Many families have been inquiring about PARCC and its future in Massachusetts. I will be attending one of the upcoming state forums about testing and I encourage families to join me. You can find more information by clicking this site: http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=17901 I will be attending the meeting at Bunker Hill Community College on Monday, May 18th from 4pm-7pm. I hope to see you there!

• New Student Welcome Session: On Friday, May 22nd from 9am-10am we will welcome our new kindergarten families. If you are interested in helping out please email Katie Grassa: kgrassa@bostonpublicschools.org. We are excited to meet the students and families!
• Memorial Day: There is no school on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day.
• Arrival and Dismissal: The school hours are 8:30am-2:30pm. We open each morning at 8:15am for breakfast and students may proceed to homeroom. All parents are welcome to escort their child to class if they arrive before 8:35am. Anyone who arrives after 8:35am is marked tardy. Also we are asking that families do not dismiss their child after 1:45pm to assure a safe dismissal transition.
• Parents Picking Up On Centre Street: Parents who pick up students who leave by the CASP entrance on Centre Street are kindly asked not to stand in the circular driveway of the residential building next to our school while they wait, or to allow their children to play on the trees on their property. Parents are instead encouraged to wait for their students inside the school’s gates. Thank you.
• Social Media: If you are on Twitter be sure to follow me @principalgrassa. This is a great way to share up to date information about the Curley.

Molly Brigham (l), Katie Fitch (c), and Jess Ormsby (r), three of the past organizers

Book your sitters now adults, Rockmonitor⁴ is Friday, June 5th, from 8 ’til late at the Midway Cafe at 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. Otherwise known as one of the funnest events on the Boston fundraising circuit.

Here’s a recap of the awesomeness.

The 4th Annual Rockmonitor Midway Cafe show, where parents and staff bring their instruments and perform, this year has an even bigger number of acts! They are below, and include a band of Mendell parents who want to join the fun.

• Bunceopolous
• Henrietta
• The Grommetts
• The Modifiers
• Aviatrix
• deadbeat daddies
• Shopco

Limited edition T-Shirt by parent and artist Matt Coplen

The amazing limited edition Rockmonitor T-Shirts will once again be available so come early to get your’s before they are all gone!

This is an adults-only 21+ venue, so book your sitters now!

More details? Email Molly Brigham, Katie Fitch, or Joe Wardwell.

SPC Co-Chair Molly Brigham

Hi Curley Community-

I wanted to take a moment and reflect on some important and difficult issues that were brought up during the May Parent Council Meeting. I know everyone is super busy, so I appreciate your time and involvement.

After hearing the updates on all of the positive work from the Plant Sale subcommittee, Wake Up the Earth initiative, School Site and Citywide Parent Councils, we began what I hope is just the beginning of an open dialogue about the climate of our school from a parent’s and caregiver’s perspective.

Maybe it’s the changing season, or being motivated by the Curley race equity dialogues, or feeling the new energy from parents this year around fundraising… whatever it is, there is an energy in the air asking for progress – I feel it and the general feedback I have heard over the months and the consensus that came out of the last SPC meeting is: our parent community has so much potential; and it is noteworthy that many people feel like the vibe has room to grow, but at times it can feel cliquey, exclusive, segregated.

We brainstormed around a shift in outreach and came up with a bunch of good potential ideas (that I won’t go into now). But what I will share is one very important theme in the feedback. That theme is: we need to complement our awesome fundraising events with fun family events so we have more opportunities to get to know each other in an organic way.

So that you can walk onto the playground and feel more comfortable talking to others. So that when a flyer comes home in your child’s backpack, it’s inviting you to an event you feel reflects something your family would be interested in going to. So that you know that however/whenever you contribute to supporting your child and the school it feels valued and important. So that you feel an even deeper investment in your child’s public education because of your diverse personal and social connections.

Our children are so fortunate to go to a K-8 school that has great teachers who care about our children, and who are motivated to be thinking about the social climate enough to have a committee that meets regularly in support of it (and makes t-shirts about it!).

We know this: we all have our hearts in the right place. If there was a time in our community to take the reigns on the direction that it is going… that time is now.

Please save the date for a fun family event that is in the planning stages:

The Curley Summer Send Off Potluck: Thursday June 4th 5-8 pm.

This end of the year celebration is for your entire family on the Playing Field. It will include dinner (please bring a dish to share), a photo booth, games, face painting, and other activities that we would love your ideas on.

From 5-7pm there will be fun for the whole family. From 7-8pm childcare will be provided while we take time to reflect on the huge year we’ve had as well as confirm who would be interested in volunteering on the different committees. Spanish interpretation will be provided.

Hopefully we will have gorgeous weather like this weekend and it will be an event not to miss! Nicole Aljoe is captaining this fun event, so please reach out to her if you have fun suggestions or want to help in small ways! nnaljoe@gmail.com.

Happy Mother’s Day and Cheers to all of the positive and strong women in our lives who support us/our families as we continue to grow & learn.

Please continue to be in touch! I love that many of you have telephoned or emailed to voice what’s on your mind.

Molly
617-519-0167
mollykbrigham@gmail.com

Dear incoming Curley families,

Welcome to the Curley K-8 School Community!

We look forward to collaborating and learning with your family.

Please join us for a welcome session on Friday, May 22nd from 9am-10am.

This will be an opportunity to meet teachers, see classrooms engaging in learning, ask questions to the principal and meet other families.

The session will last one hour and children and families are welcome.

Please enter the building at 40 Pershing Road.

For more information, please email Principal Katie Grassa.

We are very excited to meet you all!

This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Curley Bike Challenge: The Get Biking Challenge is a city-wide competition to encourage more K-8 students to bike more during May, National Bike Month. Students and teachers will track how many minutes they ride each day. Prizes will be awarded to participants as well as schools and classes based on the percent of students that participate and the amount of days ridden. Prizes include the coveted Golden Pedal Award, free bike raffles, a bike field trip and more! We will provide all of the materials and support resources for the program to be successful in our school, including this calendar to log your student’s hours. Please email Danielle Moran for more information dmoran3@bostonpublicschools.org.
• School Climate Survey: We want to hear what you think about your child’s school! BPS offers parents the opportunity to fill out a survey every year. Students and teachers also fill out surveys at school. Please let us know what is good, and what needs to be changed or worked on to make your school better. Your feedback is very important and results from the survey will be incorporated into a school’s Quality Score. If you would like to participate, please fill out a survey by May 15, 2015. Paper copies have been sent home, or click this link to complete it online (offered in all languages as well): http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Domain/737. Please help us improve our school. We need families to participate!
• End of Year PARCC for Grades 3-8 (and MCAS for 5th and 8th Grades): There is another round of PARCC testing coming in May (See dates below). We are asking all families to assure that their student arrives to school on time, gets a good night sleep the night before and eats a healthy breakfast. City Year made this video to get students excited about this week. Here is the link so you can watch with your child https://youtu.be/_xft5Z_zj-k. We are all proud of each and every student and we want to ensure that students work hard and do their best and that is what matter most!
  • 5/11 PARCC ELA EOY (Grades 3-8)
  • 5/12 PARCC ELA EOY (Grades 6-8)
  • 5/18 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)
  • 5/19 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)
• School Site Council: The next SSC meeting will be this Tuesday, May 12th from 5:30-7pm in the Upper School Library.
• Principal Breakfast: Please join us on Friday, May 15th from 8:45am-9:45am for the May Principal Breakfast. We will talk about inclusion and how this will benefit the Curley K-8 School. Rati Murray, Inclusion Specialist will join us and share how we are able to education a range of students in one class through Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
• Arrival and Dismissal: The school hours are 8:30am-2:30pm. We open each morning at 8:15am for breakfast and students may proceed to homeroom. All parents are welcome to escort their child to class if they arrive before 8:35am. Anyone who arrives after 8:35am is marked tardy. Also we are asking that families do not dismiss their child after 1:45pm to assure a safe dismissal transition.
• Parents Picking Up On Centre Street: Parents who pick up students who leave by the CASP entrance on Centre Street are kindly asked not to stand in the circular driveway of the residential building next to our school while they wait, or to allow their children to play on the trees on their property. Parents are instead encouraged to wait for their students inside the school’s gates. Thank you.
• Social Media: If you are on Twitter be sure to follow me @principalgrassa. This is a great way to share up to date information about the Curley.

Today we celebrated our teachers with our Annual Teachers Appreciation Lunch.

We are very fortunate to have so many wonderful teachers at our school, so if you see a teacher, let them know how great they are!

Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions. ~Author Unknown

The PACE (Practical Academic Community Education) program at the Curley School serves students with autism. The 3rd and 4th graders are taught by Ms. Mountain and her class has incorporated the Curley Cares expectations into a fun, interactive reward system. In September, the students brainstormed a list of different ways they could care for themselves, each other, and the school.  Some of these ways included: taking turns, saying “please” and “thank you”, listening to each other, and sharing toys.  They created a caring board by writing down these ideas and illustrating them. In the middle of the board Ms. Mountain created a grid with 120 boxes. Whenever a student in the class demonstrated one of these “ways to care”, Ms. Mountain, Ms. Canada, or Ms. Fatima congratulated the student and asked them to add a sticker to the board. Once this board was full, the class celebrated with a caring party.  They are currently working on filling up their third caring board!

Last year's sixth grader Naim Laird and teacher/Sole Train coach Alissa Ferro, after they finished last year's half marathon!

Below is a call for volunteers to hand out medals for the Run To Remember, the road race our Sole Train runners have been training for, sent to us by Alissa Ferro, our very own 7th grade ELA teacher and Sole Train coach:

The Run to Remember (Sunday, May 24) is the big race for which Sole Train has been training since October.  I can’t believe it’s almost here!  For a lot of our runners, the best part of the race is earning their finisher medal at the end.  We are really lucky: the Police Department (who organizes the race) has allowed Sole Train to fill all the finish line volunteer positions.  So now I am looking for a few volunteers who will hand out finisher medals to all people at the race that day… but who will also totally cheer on every Sole Train athlete who crosses that finish line!

The details are this:
Sunday, May 24, 2015
7-11 AM
Finish line is across the street from the Seaport Hotel
Stand at the finish line, hand out finisher medals, extend extra Curley love to all Sole Train athletes

Anyone interested should email Jess Leffler, Director of Sole Train at jessicaleffler@gmail.com

Thanks,
Alissa Ferro

The recap of last year’s race is here and here.

Join us TOMORROW, Thursday 5/7/15 at 8:45am for coffee and pastries in the Upper School Library at our last morning School Parent Council meeting of the school year!

We will be talking about the 6/5/15 upcoming (adult) music benefit for the Curley at the Midway and changes we want to see within the SPC–including outreach initiatives, so we need your input!

Spanish interpretation and light breakfast provided in the upper school library.

Spring has arrived! I loved meeting families who I hadn’t met before and was so impressed by the parents who organized mask making, the new parade lion (thanks Riyo Hirota!), and businesses to sponsor the plant sale! What a solid combination of a fun community family event + spring fundraiser weekend…

I am in awe of the energy of Curley families! Your time, creative ideas, and enthusiasm are what make our school continue to grow in amazing ways for our children.

Many thanks in particular to Kristin Jurkoic, Ann Chinchilla DeGeorge and Elisabeth Nevins, for coordinating the Plant Sale and then the Curley’s Wake Up The Earth marchers and tabling.

A slideshow story will follow this week!

The last SPC meeting with SPC elections is also the Curley Family Potluck. It’s around the corner… Thursday June 4th @6 PM I’m the lower school cafeteria.
Unable to come but interested in giving input or being more active at the Curley? Call or email me!

– Molly Brigham, SPC co-chair
617-519-0167
mollykbrigham@gmail.com

This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Thank You: Thank you to all the families and students who volunteered at our Annual Plant Sale on Saturday. It was great to see everyone collaborate in making our communities beautiful and see so many smiling Curley faces during the parade.
• 6th-8th Grade Report Cards: Report Cards were sent home with students on Friday. Families should be on the look out. If you do not receive anything please contact Adrian Ward-Jackson at awardjackson@bostonpublicschools.org.
• School Parent Council: The next SPC meeting will be this Thursday, May 7th from 8:45am-10:45am in the Upper School Library. All families are encouraged to attend.
• Curley Bike Challenge: The Get Biking Challenge is a city-wide competition to encourage more K-8 students to bike more during May, National Bike Month. Students and teachers will track how many minutes they ride each day. Prizes will be awarded to participants as well as schools and classes based on the percent of students that participate and the amount of days ridden. Prizes include the coveted Golden Pedal Award, free bike raffles, a bike field trip and more! We will provide all of the materials and support resources for the program to be successful in our school, including this calendar to log your student’s hours. Please email Danielle Moran for more information dmoran3@bostonpublicschools.org.
• School Climate Survey: We want to hear what you think about your child’s school! BPS offers parents the opportunity to fill out a survey every year. Students and teachers also fill out surveys at school. Please let us know what is good, and what needs to be changed or worked on to make your school better. Your feedback is very important and results from the survey will be incorporated into a school’s Quality Score. If you would like to participate, please fill out a survey by May 15, 2015. Paper copies have been sent home, or click this link to complete it online (offered in all languages as well): http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Domain/737. Please help us improve our school. We need families to participate!
• End of Year PARCC for Grades 3-8 (and MCAS for 5th and 8th Grades): There is another round of PARCC testing coming in May (See dates below). We are asking all families to assure that their student arrives to school on time, gets a good night sleep the night before and eats a healthy breakfast. City Year made this video to get students excited about this week. Here is the link so you can watch with your child https://youtu.be/_xft5Z_zj-k. We are all proud of each and every student and we want to ensure that students work hard and do their best and that is what matter most!
  • 5/5 Science MCAS (5th and 8th Grades)
  • 5/6 Science MCAS (5th and 8th Grades)
  • 5/11 PARCC ELA EOY (Grades 3-8)
  • 5/12 PARCC ELA EOY (Grades 6-8)
  • 5/18 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)
  • 5/19 PARCC Math EOY (Grades 3-8)
• Arrival and Dismissal: The school hours are 8:30am-2:30pm. We open each morning at 8:15am for breakfast and students may proceed to homeroom. All parents are welcome to escort their child to class if they arrive before 8:35am. Anyone who arrives after 8:35am is marked tardy. Also we are asking that families do not dismiss their child after 1:45pm to assure a safe dismissal transition.
• Social Media: If you are on Twitter be sure to follow me @principalgrassa. This is a great way to share up to date information about the Curley.

The Curley school has stepped up its recycling game with the help of Emily Miller from City Year who has been working with our Health and Wellness Committee as well as the Curley After School Program (CASP).  Here is a description from Emily about what they have been up to, be sure to check out the youtube video as well:

“The Green Team is a new and exciting initiative, thought of by the passionate Health and Wellness Committee, right here at the Curley. Torri Canada, our fantastic CASP director, was willing to host the Green Team in the after school space. Since then, we have selected seven leaders from the CASP program to help us. We have been working on helping the Curley community by taking an active role in the recycling efforts at the Curley. The group of seven students enthusiastically rushes around the school each Monday as if they are recycling detectives. We have created signs, a video, and helped to take out the recycling in all the teachers’ rooms and hallways at the Curley.  Take a look at our video, and spread the word. There is a new team at the Curley, and we are taking recycling to a new level:

Emily Miller

City Year | Curley K-8 School