Letter from Leadership 4 - 12/22/23
Dear Families,
We write today to share some community happenings, announcements, and good wishes for the upcoming holiday break. We’ve had a busy few months leading to some very exciting developments for the school community and beyond.
As this is a season of sharing and coming together, families are visiting school to celebrate. We have had the joy of attending publishing shares for a variety of stories demonstrating upper grade kids’ understanding of the narrative storytelling process. Fourth graders are sharing their poems with the school community, focused on self reflection, strong emotions, speaking up, critical thinking, and vulnerability. There are potlucks and cooking experiences happening within the classrooms and in our green studio, allowing children, staff and families to share in the excitement of making and eating a communal meal, as well as collective sharing of songs. And surely, some grades and classes have planned to save their shares for the new year, while the warmth of the holiday season flows throughout the whole building.
In our Physical Education department, the New York Road Runners’ school-based running program is back in full gear, and our upper grade PE teacher Brandon has offered up recess run club, with one session each week for grades 3, 4, and 5. The first session for grade 3’s “Rising New York Road Runners” had quite the turnout, check out their cheer below:
Looking towards January 2024, in response to feedback and requests from families after cycle one, we also write today to share about the upcoming round two window for the academic screeners. Two years ago, our city introduced mandated academic screeners for all children in public schools in grades Kindergarten through Five. Many families reached out to express objections to this use of their children’s time during the school day, the heavy lift for staff, and the collection of data about young children through these testing company’s portals, but the city has stated that these are mandated for all children, and there is no parental right to opt out. This fall, during the screening window, Kindergarteners, First graders, and Second graders were picked up from their classrooms by BNS proctors for these 1:1 screeners in reading and math (second grade math was a series of timed worksheets that were proctored in the classrooms whole-class by teachers, and graded by proctors after hours and whenever possible, and then entered into the database). In grades 3, 4, and 5, the MAP Growth screeners were proctored in the computer lab, as they are fully computer based screeners. It was our goal to take care of this mandate without disrupting instructional time for classes as a whole, therefore classroom teachers were not pulled to proctor overall. As an FYI, the second screener window opens on January 2, the day we return from break. Over the course of January and February, all children will again be screened. We were asked by families after the fall round to be sure to share this information ahead of time, so we wanted to flag this. The third window will take place in the late spring, in May and June.
We want to close out this letter with wishes for calm, rest, and peace as we make our way to the final days of the calendar year. We know that we are all living through very challenging times right now, with shorter hours of sunlight and shorter fuses, less frustration tolerance, and seemingly less time and space for the things that bring us back to our centers. We encourage each and every one of you to find a moment, even just a few seconds, to allow yourself to feel connected to the world, to your family, and to our community during this break, and to share that experience with your children.
Rest, Relax, Enjoy. We will see you in 2024.
Diane & Malika
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