This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Fall Fling: Thank you to all the families who worked hard to make the Fall Fling a successful event for the Curley K-8 School. It was great to see families and staff enjoying their Friday evening as a way to support the school. This event would not have been possible without the School Parent Council and we appreciate all their efforts!
• Quality School Plan Meeting: The rescheduled event will take place twice to try to accommodate various schedules. The first meeting (Principal’s Breakfast) will be Friday, October 25th from 8:45am-9:45am in the Upper School Library and it will be repeated on Wednesday, October 30th from 6:00pm-7:00pm. All families are welcome to attend and hear about the goals and actions steps the Curley K-8 will focus on this school year.
• Halloween: I have heard from many staff and families around the celebration of Halloween and I appreciate their honesty and support. The Curley K-8 will not have a Halloween celebration during the school day. As a community we are focused on health and wellness and therefore we ask that all candy remain at home.
• Picture Day: Picture day is this week so read the earlier story for details. K-5 will participate on Monday, October 21st and 6th-8th will participate on Wednesday, October 23rd. Order forms were sent out in backpacks earlier but you can also downloaded them here.
• School Showcase: Stay tuned for updates and volunteer opportunities for the Boston Public Schools Showcase. This is the first time the new student assignment process will take place and we are going to be opening our school to potential families on Saturday, November 16th from 9am-1pm.
• NAEYC: The Curley K-8 School will be recognized for receiving NAEYC Accreditation at the November 6th School Committee Meeting. The meeting will take place at 6pm in the Winter Chambers at 20 Court Street. All are welcome to attend.
• Katie Grassa Professional Development (PD): Our school is participating in a national study concerning principal use of time. As a principal I try to make instructional work my priority but management duties sometime get in the way. A data collector will be shadowing me on 10/22, 10/23, 10/25, 10/28, 10/31. Every five minutes my “shadow” will take data on what I am doing. The data collector can’t talk to me, or anyone else. The data collector will carry a clipboard with a stopwatch and will try to be as “invisible” as possible and not disrupt our work.
  • I will receive the results of the data collection ten days later and will work with my SAM to increase the percentage of time I spend on instruction.
  • Next year we will repeat the data collection process to see how much progress I have made.
  • Please make every effort to interact with me as you do every other day.

Los padres que editan la pagina web de la Escuela Curley esta encargada de escribir las historia en ingles. Sabemos cuan dificil es leer en ingles para algunos de ustedes.

Tratamos de traducir en español cada historia que padres, maestros y administradores publican, sin embargo no ha sido siempre posible.

Si usted es un padre/encargado de la Escuela Curley, hemos desarrollado una herramienta que traduce todo lo que escribimos en la pagina web.

En la parte derecha inferior en la pagina, encuentra una pestaña que dice “seleccione el lenguaje”. Alli encontrara unos 71 lenguajes por ejemplo “español” donde toda la pagina seria traducida automaticamente para ustedes. Esto funcionara para todos los 71 idiomas en la lista.

Le hemos proveido con otra herramienta usando la internet a travez de google donde es traducido esta pagina web, deben de ir a esta pagina para traduccion.

Queremos advertirle que esta herramienta no es la mas perfecta. Por favor queremos dejarle saber que estamos tratando de traducir los materiales enviados a sus hogares en español. Sirvace de usar esta herramienta para asi traducir cualquier documento.

Para mas ayuda favor de escribirle a Betty Alvarado-Villalba (bvillalbaalvarado@boston.k12.ma.us) o Maria Monteiro-Roby (mmonteiroroby@boston.k12.ma.us) en la oficina del Centro de Familia.  Ellas estan mas que disponibles en ayudarles.

Muchas gracias a la Sra. Muriel para la traducción. Gracias también a los padres Ann Williams para recomendar el widget de Google Translate en la parte superior de esta página hace un par de años!

¡Gracias!
Heshan Berents-Weeramuni
(Padre de niños Curley)

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Tools for Non-English Readers on our Curley Website

The parent editors of the Curley website realize the SPC website runs most of its stories in English and this may be difficult for non-English speakers.

We try very hard to have our stories translated by parents, teachers and administrators, especially into Spanish, but unfortunately this is not always possible. We apologize for that.

But, if you are a non-English speaker, the Curley already has a translation tool built into this website that has existed here for some time that you can use right now.

At the top right hand of the page, you will see a drop-down box with the title “Select Language.” When clicked on, a list of 71 different languages appears. If you click for example on “Spanish” this web page will automatically be translates into Spanish for you. This works for every language you will find on this list.

In addition, if you need any page translated from any website on the internet, there is also a simple tool Google has created called Google Translate. This will translate any web page into the language you choose from. Watch the video below to see how it’s done.

Please note – Google’s translation tool is not always perfect. Please also note that we will always try our best to continue to translate our materials into at least Spanish. But we do hope that these two tools will help in some way to overcome translation issues.

For more assistance, please contact Betty Villalba-Alvarado (bvillalbaalvarado@boston.k12.ma.us) or Maria Monteiro-Roby (mmonteiroroby@boston.k12.ma.us). Both are always willing and able to help all our great Curley families!

Many thanks to Ms. Muriel for the translation. Thanks also to parent Ann Williams for recommending the Google Translate widget at the top of this page a couple of years ago!

Thanks!
Heshan Berents-Weeramuni
(Parent of Curley kids)

This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Bus Strike: Thank you to the Jamaica Plain community for all your help assuring the safety of our students during the bus strike. Families remained patient as we tried to communicate the changes in plans, teachers organized classroom dismissal plans and communicated with families and the Boston Police assisted in getting students to and from school. Together we succeeded!
• Fall Fling: Please be sure to come and support the Curley K-8 on Friday, October 18th from 5:30-8:30. It is a great family event and all are welcomed.
• ANet: ANet testing beings this week for students in grades 2-8 in both ELA and math on Tuesday and Wednesday. The results of this data will be provided to the school within 48 hours. Teachers will work collaboratively to analyze the data and set actions moving forward to assure mastery of each standard.
• Quality School Plan (QSP): An overview of the Quality School Plan will be presented on Wednesday, October 16th from 6pm-7pm in the auditorium. This meeting is an opportunity to explain the purpose of QSP and hear about the goals and action steps for the school this year.

Three important upcoming events: Wednesday’s presentation on the Quality Schools Plan by Principal Katie Grassa, Friday’s Fall Fling, and Picture Day the following week.

Principal’s Presentation of our Quality Schools Plan

Wednesday, October 16th,
6 p.m. – 7 p.m., Auditorium
Each school in the district is asked to submit a Quality Schools Plan, which outlines the goals and priorities for the school year. The plan is central to our development as a school during this academic year, and informs much of the budget considerations for next year.

On Wednesday, October 16th from 6 pm – 7 pm Principal Katie Grassa will present the final plan to all interested community members.

The presentation will be made in the Auditorium. Childcare and translation will be provided.

For those unable to attend, Principal Grassa will also present at the next Principal’s breakfast on Friday, October 25th at 8:45 am in the library. We will also do a recap story on this site as well.

All families and staff are strongly encouraged to attend.

7th Annual Fall Fling

Friday, October 18th,
5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m., Upper School Gym

The annual Curley K-8 Fall Fling is our key fundraising event of the year – it brings in 40% of the money we raise to support music, art, and science at the Curley!

This year’s event, the 7th annual, is on Friday, October 18th from 5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. It will be held as usual in the Upper School Gym. Enter through the Pershing Street bridge entrance. This event is attended by hundreds of people, including the Mayor, Superintendent, and some City Councilors.

Your kids also look forward to it like almost no other school event…

This Fall Fling features raffles, exciting prizes (an Apple iPad Mini, a Fuji kid’s bike, and an xBox 360 with Kinect), thrift shopping, food, ice cream, and dancing, and much more for the whole family!

Those of you who have attended in the past know how terrific the Fall Fling is, and it takes a lot of volunteers to pull it off. To make this year’s Fall Fling a success, we really need you to pitch in. Many of the things we need help with take two hours or less. Below are two ways to help:

• To pitch in on the day, sign up here.
• To donate a basket to be raffled off, sign up here.

Picture Day

K-5th: Monday, October 21st,
6th-8th: Wednesday, October 23rd

Picture Day is next week! For order forms, sibling photos, or if you want to help, click here.

Remember, you must return the order forms on or before picture day! If a child does not return a form, he or she will not be able to have a picture taken.

Are you interested in helping out in your child’s classroom? Join others parents who support our wonderful teachers with one-time or regular classroom volunteering! Your help is welcome in many ways including things such as completing class contact lists, making copies or doing other administrative tasks, assisting individual students with math or reading work, being a visiting presenter to the whole class, or chaperoning field trips. Teachers are often able to provide opportunities to help that work for many types of daytime schedules.

Potential volunteers will agree to participate in one of the following classroom volunteer trainings:

• Friday October 25 – 10:00-11:30am, Upper School library (immediately following the Principal’s breakfast)
• Tuesday November 12 – 7:00-8:30pm, Lower School cafeteria

With the help of Maria Monteiro-Roby and Betty Alvarado of the Curley Family Resource Center, we hope to improve the recruitment, training, and coordination of classroom volunteers to better serve teachers’ academic and community-building goals.

Classroom Volunteer Applications are available in the Family Resource Center (next to the Curley Upper School main office) OR in the Lower School office OR online right HERE. Please return your completed application and Criminal Offense Record Indicator (CORI) form with photo ID to the Family Resource Center. Feel free to email Classroom Volunteer Liaison Val Snekvik with questions:  val.snekvik@gmail.com.

Thanks for your interest in helping out in your child’s classroom!

The Boston Public Schools has just announced they believe school bus services for this afternoon are expected to run normally as scheduled. Schools, however, will continue to open an hour earlier each morning until the situation is made clearer.

On their website, BPS posted the following:

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Bus drivers have returned to work today (Wednesday) for afternoon service. Parents can use http://schoolbus.bostonpublicschools.org to check the status of their bus, or call the Transportation Hotline at 617-635-9520 or the Mayor’s 24-Hour-Hotline at 617-635-4500 for more.

• Schools will dismiss at their regular times. As always, schools will remain open and students will be supervised until every child is picked up.
• The MBTA is continuing to offer free rides to any BPS student. Children under 11 must have an adult with them.
• The Boston Police Department and Boston Centers for Youth & Families continues to coordinate closely with the School Department ensure safe drop-offs and pick-ups.

Unfortunately we do not have confidence that service will continue every day. Parents should continue to have alternate plans in place. Schools will continue to open one hour early for drop-offs.

If you have questions please call the Boston Public Schools Transportation Hotline: 617-635-9520 and the Mayor’s Hotline: 617-635-4500 have extra staff on hand to answer calls.

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Continue to check the BPS website for update. All for now!

Picture Day is fast approaching!  Read on for details about returning your forms, getting sibling photos, what kids can wear, and more.  Also, please consider volunteering – we especially need parents to help out in the morning, when the younger children have their pictures taken. Pictures will be taken on Monday, October 21 (Grades K-5) and Wednesday, October 23 (Grades 6-8). The rain date for both groups is Thursday, October 24. Order forms were sent home in the backpacks; if you need another form, you can download it here. You must return the order forms on or before picture day! If a child does not return a form, he or she will not be able to have a picture taken.

Parent Volunteers Needed: Our fabulous photographer will again be Curley parent Jenny Connelly of Photo Charm – and she needs parent volunteers to assist starting on Monday at 8:45a.m. There are many ways to help, and it’s fun! If you can volunteer on picture day, please contact Jenny directly via email or at 781-696-1138.

Additional Info:

• Class Photos: All students in K-5th will be in a class photo.  Grades 6-8 will not have a class photos.
• Order forms. All children must have an order form to have photos taken.
• Sibling Photos. Photo Charm would love to photograph children together. For sibling photos, parents should fill out a separate order form for siblings (in addition to any individual order forms). Parents should let teachers know if a child will be in a sibling photo.
• Attire: Pictures are taken outdoors.  Please have your child dress accordingly.  Children do not need to wear uniforms on picture day.

Tens of thousands of parents are breathing a little easier across Boston this morning; school bus drivers appear to be returning to work this morning.

On their website, BPS seems to be cautiously optimistic, but advises parents that there may still be delays this morning, and afternoon service is not definite.

BPS still will open schools one hour early today. Students who are tardy or absent will be excused today.

BPS though notes that they do not have an update for afternoon service. WBZ reports drivers will meet with bus contractor Veolia Transportation this morning and then decide on what they will do next.

The full bulletin from BPS is here.

The following are excerpts from a message posted on the BPS website this evening regarding tomorrow’s school day and how it may be impacted by the bus drivers’ strike:
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ALL Boston Public Schools will open one hour early Wednesday

Boston Public Schools reported 82% attendance today, approximately 10% below average

School Plans for Wednesday

It remains unclear whether bus drivers will return to work Wednesday and transport students to and from school. The City is asking parents to plan to drive their students to school or plan alternative transportation for their students.

To help parents get to work on time ALL Boston Public Schools will allow for early drop-off and open one hour prior to the normal start of school. The MBTA will again offer free rides to any student. Students under the age of 11 must be accompanied on the MBTA by an adult.

The Boston Police Department and Boston Centers for Youth & Families will continue to coordinate closely with the School Department ensure safe drop-offs and pick-ups.

The Boston Public Schools Hotline: 617-635-9520 and the Mayor’s Hotline: 617-635-4500 will have extra staff on hand to answer calls.

Families can also use the “Where’s My School Bus” tracker to find the location of their child’s school bus if it is on the road at http://schoolbus.bostonpublicschools.org.

Just as on Tuesday, any student who cannot come to school Wednesday or who is late will be marked “excused.”
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For the full story, click here.