Congratulations are in order!

Congratulations are in order for one student and one administrator!

First, the student...

Every year, I get the distinct honor to present a graduating senior with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Certificate of Academic Excellence. These awards are given to high school students who have distinguished themselves in the pursuit of excellence during their high school careers.

The recommended criteria are:

                                                Three (3) year cumulative average,

                                                Rank in Class,

                                                Personal Selection by the Superintendent

                                                The Superintendent has leeway among the top

                                                5% for his/her personal selection.

Upon recommendation of Ms. Christine Vigneux, BHS Principal, this year's award recipient is Devyn Hebert. Devyn exceeds the criteria listed above and is very active in the life of the school in a variety of extra-curricular activities. I presented Devyn with her certificate at the School Committee meeting on Tuesday, January 22nd at Swift River Elementary School.

Devyn Hebert (center) and Ms. Vigneux (right) join me for  the award presentation.

Devyn has also been accepted at Williams College to pursue her interest in science. Congratulations, Devyn, on your achievements!

Now the administrator...

The School Committee voted unanimously at their January 22nd meeting to approve my recommendation for a newly created Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning. Mr. Brian Cameron, currently principal at Chestnut Hill Community School, will be assuming the position in the near future.

An interim principal will be appointed to fill the principal position at CHCS for the remainder of the school year. A full search for a permanent principal will be launched very soon, with a search committee of staff and parents leading the way by conducting the initial screening and interviews of applicants.

Mr. Cameron's eight years of experience in the district, his knowledge of our curriculum process, instructional and professional development needs, and of our staff will be an invaluable asset to our district as we continue to move forward in strengthening our curriculum and instruction. It is my pleasure to congratulate Mr. Cameron on his appointment and I look forward to working with him in his new role.

Any questions or comments? Contact me at 413.323.0423 or email superintendent@belchertown.org

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

Reading Milestone

As of late last week, students and townspeople have logged 241,950 minutes of reading toward our Million Minutes of Reading challenge! We hope to reach our goal by early spring and we need your help! Reading opens the doors to worlds of knowledge, dreams, and creativity. It is the one foundational skill upon which all others are built. Reading lets us reflect on our history, see visions of our future, and allows for the sharing of ideas.

How can you help? Read and keep track of your minutes! We have reading logs for children in grades K-8 that children can get from and turn back in to their teachers. Adult reading logs are available from anyone older than our middle school children through adults. Logs can be obtained from any of our schools, our Central Office, and from Clapp Memorial Library, which has partnered with us on this project.

What counts as reading? Anything! Reading aloud to our younger children counts for both the adult reader and the child hearing the story. Books, newspapers, magazines, even online reading counts! On Sunday night (I confess with one eye on the TV only to watch the Patriots end their season earlier than hoped), I participated in an online Twitter chat with educators primarily from Rhode Island, as well as from Wisconsin and Michigan at #edchatri. We spent an hour exchanging and building off one another's ideas about student-centered learning: what that looks like, how technology is used, and how we can encourage educators to provide those opportunities to our students. The moderator of the chat archived all our posts so we can go back and review them later. Participants posted ideas, links to blog posts on the subject of student-centered learning, and a final post led me to the launch of a new site, http://www.time2changeit.org/, designed to bring people together to stop cyberbullying, the final topic of the night. Needless to say, these initial 60 minutes of reading for me will lead to more reading and learning about the future and the promise of education in the 21st Century.

So stop by one of our schools, our Central Office, or Clapp Memorial Library to pick up a log, or download and printout out the student log or adult log from our web site: www.belchertownps.org and posted in the District Announcements area and use it to log your minutes! When finished, drop it off at any of these locations or email me: superintendent@belchertown.org with your weekly minutes. The goal is ambitious but, working together, we can do it! Feel like a million - read!

If you have any questions or comments about this post, please feel free to call me at 413.323.0423 or email me, using the link above.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

PS - The School Committee will be meeting on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 7:00 pm in the library at Swift River Elementary School. Click here to see a copy of the agenda for the meeting.

Making a Difference

I've taken to a new habit this year of visiting each of our schools in turn in the early morning hours to spend some time focusing and thinking about the students, administration, faculty, and staff and the work they are all doing, school by school, week by week. As much as I enjoy being in our schools when everyone is there and seeing the work first-hand, there's something about being reflective in the morning as a new day of opportunity dawns for our school district.

In the fall, I walked outside around a different school each day, drinking in the morning air and counting this time as a bit of exercise. Now that winter's chill has arrived, I've taken to walking inside and I am certainly glad that I did! Each day I see evidence in the hallways of the work that our students are doing: examples of writing, artwork, history timelines, and evidence of the implementation of our new PeaceBuilders program can be seen everywhere. In the quiet, I get the chance to stop and reflect on the outcomes of our busy classrooms. This week I started taking some pictures that I will be sharing with you here, so you can witness the good things that are happening in our school district every day.

Our teachers and students are making a difference in learning new things and understanding what it means to live and work together in a school that promotes respect, tolerance, and civility. For example, at Swift River Elementary School, I came upon a hallway display by Ms. Tarnawa's third grade, with a twist on the song, "Let There Be Peace on Earth."

A closer examination shows that this was a writing assignment where students were asked to think of what peace means, letter by letter and how they can make a difference, one person at a time.

I see every day, how our students and staff try to make a difference for others, one person at a time. On Friday, January 11th, I had the privilege of attending the BHS Buddies Variety Show. This after-school club was begun by Kyla Madden, a junior at BHS, who has a real heart for special needs children. The purpose in this club is for students who may not be in the same classes and who have different abilities to get together to have fun and enjoy each other's company. The show included songs, comedy, dance routines, and skits written and performed by club members. I was moved to tears by the deep bonds that these students have forged with each other, which was clearly evident throughout the night. I thought about all the things that teenagers can choose to do on Friday nights, yet these students chose to share their friendships and joy with each other and with those gathered in the audience. This vision of Kyla's, that began when she arrived at BHS as a freshman, has truly made a difference in the lives of these students and in the whole school. Ms. Kampe, who teaches in the Transitions Program, and Ms. Kerle, a paraprofessional who works in the program, serve as adult advisors to the group and enthusiastically cheered the students on throughout the night.

Kyla Madden (l) performs a song and dance number with the female members of the club.

Best Buddies all on stage for their final number.

If there was ever a time that our community, our nation, and our world needed to hear and see messages of hope, it is now. I am delighted to bear witness that hope lives everywhere in our schools - in the lives of our students and staff, who are all out there, making a difference each and every day.

You are invited to be part of our journey. We are always in need of volunteers to help out with various groups and activities. Please feel free to contact me or one of our principals to find out how you can make a difference, too. We also hope that you will join us during the last week of January as we collect non-perishable food items in each of our schools as we support the work of Belchertown CAN! - a town-wide volunteer group whose mission it is to help neighbors in need. Food collection boxes will be placed in all of our schools and Belchertown CAN! volunteers will be at Stop and Shop on February 2nd to collect donations.

As always, if you have any questions about this blog post, please feel free to call me at 413.323.0423 or email me at superintendent@belchertown.org.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

A New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our students, staff, families, and community members! Whenever a calendar year changes, many of us think of this as a fresh start, a new beginning. For us, it is the realization that the first half of the school year is almost complete and a reminder of the work that we need to accomplish in the half year ahead.

In the area of teaching and learning, we are working to complete our curriculum writing work in all content areas so that we have clear plans of what needs to be taught from preschool through grade 12 in the district. Social Studies, Science, Visual Arts, Music, and Physical Education are all in progress toward that end.

Over the last year and a half, curriculum documents have been completed in the areas of English Language Arts, Mathematics, Foreign Language, Library/Media Education, and Technology Education. Copies of these curriculum documents can be found on our web site. The English Language Arts and Mathematics curricula are aligned with the Common Core Standards. These standards have been adopted by 45 of the 50 states, including Massachusetts. Teachers across the district are busy at work creating units of instruction that will provide a framework for implementing these curricula.

Our mathematics curriculum requires that we re-evaluate the materials needed to teach the curriculum. Teachers in grades K-8 are investigating new mathematics textbooks and several teachers will be piloting materials published by Pearson and McGraw-Hill. We hope to be able to make a decision regarding an adoption of these materials by the spring of this year.

Our district Technology Advisory Committee is also busy at work overseeing the implementation of the district's Technology Plan. We asked our teachers to complete a survey about how they use technology so we can plan for additional technology and professional development to help teachers learn best how to integrate technology into instruction. Members of the Committee will be visiting other districts who are integrating technology into instruction in order to inform our decisions for moving forward in this area.

So, the new calendar year is off to a busy start! There is much to be done in order to ensure that continue to provide excellence while achieving our mission of success for every student every day. Check back to this blog for updates - you can also subscribe to the blog by RSS feed or email (see area to the right).

The School Committee will meet on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 and the Playground Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 9, 2013. Check the School Committee area of our site to see the agendas for both meetings.

As always, please feel free to call (413.323.0423) or email me (superintendent@belchertown.org) with any questions or comments regarding this update.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools.