In the Holiday Spirit

Last week was a busy week as we concluded lots of activities before our holiday vacation break.

Students at all of our schools collected items for those less fortunate. Below is a photo of students from Chestnut Hill Community School with food items that were donated by the children. Our students are to be congratulated for their generous spirits!

On Thursday, December 19th, our first graders at SRE presented, "It's A Small World." This is the culmination of their study of the customs and cultures from across the globe. There were recitations, songs, and dances. Many of the children dressed in costume from the countries they represented. They did an outstanding job!

Students in costume, representing Sweden, share their country's holiday customs.

Children perform Nigun Atik, an Israeli dance.

On Friday, December 20th, BHS hosted our Senior Citizens for a concert and sing-a-long in the auditorium, followed by a brunch in the cafeteria. Musical selections were provided by the Women's and Mixed Choirs, the Percussion II Ensemble, and the Wind Ensemble. The food and beautiful cafeteria decorations were provided by the Student Council and National Art Honor Society students. The seniors thoroughly enjoyed both the music and the meal!

Seniors and students enjoy some time together over brunch.

Holiday Extravaganza! Concert Rescheduled

The BHS Holiday Extravaganza! concert was snowed out on December 17th and has been rescheduled to Friday, January 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm in the BHS auditorium. There are still tickets available for $5.00 per person and may be purchased at the door. We hope you will come and join us for an evening of holiday song!

Coffee and Conversation with the Superintendent

Our second quarter Coffee and Conversation with the Superintendent gatherings will take place on Thursday, January 9th, for parents/guardians of CSS, SRE, and CHCS at 6:30 pm in the CHCS Library (with thanks to the CHCS PTO for hosting). The gatherings for JBMS and BHS parents/guardians will take place on Thursday, January 16th, at 6:30 pm in the BHS Library. The topic of these gatherings will be school safety, with an opportunity for parents and guardians to learn about and give feedback to revisions to the district's Bullying Prevention and Intervention Policy and Plan, as well as our Emergency Operations Plan. So we can be adequately prepared for you, please call my office at 413.323.0423 or send an email to superintendent@belchertown.org to let us know if you plan to attend. 

Holiday Vacation

Our schools are closed for the December holiday vacation, Monday, December 23, 2013 through Wednesday, January 1, 2014. We will reopen on Thursday, January 2, 2014. On behalf of the Belchertown Public Schools, I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday season and we will see you all in the new year!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this blog post, please call my office at 413.323.0423 or send an email to superintendent@belchertown.org.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

Giving Back This Holiday Season

Our students are focusing on giving back this holiday season. Our CSS students will be bringing in non-perishable food items for distribution to local pantries. First grade students at SRE are donating hats, scarves, and mittens for children in need. At CHCS, the students are bringing in non-perishable food items and socks for distribution. The running club at JBMS ran in the Hot Chocolate run in Northampton on Sunday, December 8th, for Safe Passage and to raise awareness about domestic violence. BHS students are encouraged to donate $1.00 at lunch to help those who are in need. These activities represent one of the basic tenets of our PeaceBuilders program, which is to build peace at home, at school, and in the community.

I am also pleased to announce that my superintendent colleagues across the valley have also stepped to the plate to join in. The Connecticut Valley Superintendents' Roundtable met on Friday, December 6th. I am serving as the Roundtable president this year. The group was treated to some performances by the BHS music department: a saxophone quartet and the Women's Choir. The students did a fantastic job! Thanks go to Ms. Boysen and Ms. Comstock for coordinating and preparing their musicians. This is one of two traditions the group has. The second is to collect toys and non-perishable food items or to give a cash donation to families in need in the president's school district. I will be distributing food items and $195.00 in donations to Belchertown CAN and the toys will be distributed to families in need in Belchertown.

Owl Release Photos

As I mentioned in last week's blog post, Jean Brunelle, JBMS Science Teacher, released an owl that had been sprayed by a skunk she rescued this summer. After going through some rehab, the owl was ready to be released at Lake Wallace. As promised, pictures are posted here.

Jean Brunelle describes how she came to the aid of the owl in the carrier prior to its release.

The owl takes flight! Photo courtesy of Aimee Henderson, Belchertown Sentinel.

Holiday Extravaganza!

The BHS music department will cap off this season's musical performances with the Holiday Extravaganza! Concert on Tuesday, December 17th at 7:00 pm in the BHS auditorium. Come join us for some holiday cheer and be sure to bring your singing voices for the "Super Sing-a-Long"! Tickets are $5.00 each. Call the school at 323.9419 to reserve your seats as this concert tends to sell out!

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

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

Week One - a Success!

Our first week of school was a successful one! It began on Monday with a professional development day for teachers and paraprofessionals. A variety of activities were held to equip them for the new school year.

On Tuesday, we held our opening day convocation for all staff at Belchertown High School. We welcomed 18 new staff members, celebrated with 9 teachers who achieved Professional Teacher Status, and honored staff who have achieved longevity milestones: 9 employees with 10 years of service, 10 employees with 15 years of service, 12 employees with 20 years of service, 9 employees with 25 years of service, 3 employees with 30 years of service, and 2 employees with 35 years of service. The longevity of our staff is a tribute to the fact that the Belchertown Public Schools are a great place to work and learn! The theme of our opening day was "Know Thy Impact," which comes from a book our Leadership Team began studying this summer, Visible Learning for Teachers, by John Hattie. This book presents research on instructional practices and their impact on student learning. We discovered that the #1 impact on learning is students' own expectations of themselves. Our job as educators is to make learning visible to students by making our intentions clear, setting challenging expectations, and instilling confidence in students to achieve those expectations. Students make their learning visible to us when they achieve success in meeting those expectations, even if they have to work through errors to get there.

On Wednesday, the children arrived! Although our summer was jam-packed, it was great to see our schools full of students again. When I arrived at BHS for a check-in on how the day was going, Mrs. Vigneux, the principal, was meeting with the seniors. At the end of their session, they posed for a picture in their class t-shirts.

The Class of 2014 poses for their first official group "seniors" picture!

New administrators on board

We have hired two new administrators as part of our Leadership Team this year. Mr. Douglas Daponde joined the BHS staff as the new Dean of Students & Athletic Director. Mr. Daponde is a former high school teacher, coach, and assistant principal and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, which also includes military service, to our district. His first week was this past week and we are pleased to have him with us. Please be sure to stop and say hello if you should meet him in the hallways, on the field, or on the court.

Swift River Elementary School will welcome a new assistant principal next week, Ms. Eileen Farrington. Ms. Farrington comes to us from the Holyoke Public Schools and has a wealth of experience as a teacher, Education Team Leader, and teacher mentor. Ms. Farrington's experience is at the elementary level and we are looking forward to her sharing her knowledge and expertise with us. Take a moment to stop by SRE next week and extend a welcome to Ms. Farrington.

Adjustments to morning bus times

The first week of school always brings some adjustments to the run times of our buses, as we see how everything works with students on board. The following buses will be starting 5 minutes earlier, beginning on Tuesday, September 3rd: buses 1, 2, 14, 16, and 19. Bus 9 will start 5 minutes later, beginning Tuesday, September 3rd. These adjustments will ensure that our students will be on time for the start of their day. Thank you for your cooperation with First Student, our bus contractor.

New web site

Our web server crashed last weekend, causing our IT department to try and get a web site up and running from a backup copy - spending much of the weekend getting the job done. In the interim, they have put together a new web site on a new server, which just went live late today. Please take a moment to check it out at www.belchertownps.org. If you have any comments or suggestions, click on the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the main page and you will find a link to the webmaster's email on the page of contacts at the bottom.

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

Enjoy the long weekend! Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

Farewell to the 2012-2013 School Year

The end of the 2012-2013 school year has arrived. The last day for the children is Monday, June 24th, which is a half day for the students. It seems like this year flew by! We've accomplished a lot. Our teachers worked hard to complete curriculum writing projects under the direction of Mr. Brian Cameron, our Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning. All content areas, except for 2, now have standards-based, School Committee approved, coordinated K-12 curriculum guides that provide the framework for classroom instruction. The Physical Education curriculum is due to come before the School Committee at their July meeting. The last content area that needs work is science. We are waiting to see how the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will respond to the Next Generation Science Standards, which is a multi-state effort, recently completed, to strengthen science education across the United States.

Our Office of Information Technology has worked tirelessly to upgrade classroom technology across the district. A proliferation of digital projectors, laptops, document cameras, and the like have filtered into classrooms in every school. All of our schools now have wireless access, enabling staff and students to make use of the rich resources of the Internet to implement our curriculum.

We are also working on measures to enhance our security systems, making our schools as safe as possible for our students and staff. A School Safety Task Force will be convening this summer that will involve administration, law enforcement and emergency responders, and others in working together to ensure that our schools are safe places for students to learn and staff to work.

This past week has been a week of good-byes and looking forward to the future. Our students who will be transitioning from one building to the next engaged in a step-up day to visit their new schools. The culminating event of the week was the eighth grade celebration, held on Friday, June 21st, at Belchertown High School. Each eighth grader was recognized with a certificate of achievement for having completed their middle school studies, followed by their Aloha! Dance in the BHS cafeteria, an opportunity to say good-bye to JBMS and hello to BHS. There will be an orientation evening on August 20th for incoming freshmen and new students to BHS. More details will be forthcoming soon.

SRE Day

The students at Swift River Elementary School celebrated the end of the school year at SRE Day on Thursday, June 20th. The day was organized around a variety of cooperative games and activities with a PeaceBuilders theme. Thanks go to Mr. Baker and Mr. Quist, Physical Education Teachers at SRE, the rest of the SRE faculty and staff for organizing the day and to the CSSR PTO for all the volunteer work they provided to make it happen!

SRE students created a giant peace sign with the letters "SRE" in their PTO-donated t-shirts!

Children played cooperative parachute games during SRE Day.

Pennies for the Playground

On Friday, June 21st, the CHCS students celebrated a fundraiser for Jessica's Boundless Playground, which is a fully accessible playground we hope to build soon! The students raised over $750.00 for this endeavor, which was sponsored by Team Jessica in cooperation with the CHCS PTO. The fourth graders, who came in at 3rd place, had the opportunity to "silly string" members of the CHCS staff and "yours truly." Fifth graders (2nd place) got to throw pies in our faces, and sixth graders (1st place) got to slime us! It was a messy, but fun time!

Pies in the face for selected staff members!

CHCS Interim Principal, Dr. Irizarry, wears his slime with pride!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our administrators, faculty, and staff for your hard work during this past school year. You have taken on a lot of work, infused many state and federal mandates into an already packed work day, and have provided our students with the foundation to be productive thinkers and citizens in our society. I would also like to thank the many volunteers who have donated countless hours of time, money through fundraising activities, and support to the work we do. I am also grateful to our students' families who have supported their learning along the way. This truly is a group effort with the goal of ensuring that all of our students meet with success every day.

This will be the last weekly post of the 2012-2013 school year. Less frequent posts will be uploaded during the summer months. I would like to wish everyone a safe and relaxing summer! As always, please feel free to call me at 413.323.0423 or send me an email at superintendent@belchertown.org with any questions or comments.

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

CSSR PTO Fun Run a Huge Success!

On Saturday, April 6th, hundreds of runners and dozens of walkers gathered in the cold wind to help raise money for the Cold Spring Swift River PTO through their Family Fun Run/Walk. Runners ran through the streets in the center of town for a 5K loop, including members of the Jabish Brook Middle School Running Club. After the runners took off, participants in the one-mile Family Walk around the track  beside Chestnut Hill Community School started off to do our part! Vendors showed their wares and demonstrated their services at a Health and Safety Fair, as part of a festive atmosphere.

The result - approximately $7,000 were raised through runner participation and other donations! These dollars are used to support the teachers and provide a variety of activities for the children at Cold Spring and Swift River Elementary Schools. We are very grateful to the CSSR PTO for their hard work on this event and for all that they do for our students! Enjoy some photos from the day and see the results of the run below!

Runners lined up for the start of the CSSR PTO 5K Family Run

The Oriole Mascot leads the track team in cheering on the day's participants.

One-mile walkers get off to a rousing start!

Runners coming down to the finish line!

As always, if you have any questions about this post, feel free to call me at 413.323.0423 or email me: superintendent@belchertown.org. Enjoy the spring break!

Best regards, Dr. Judith Houle, Superintendent of Schools

CSSR PTO Family Fun 5K Run/Walk

Looking for something to do on what promises to be a beautiful, sunny Saturday this weekend? Join the Cold Spring Swift River PTO for their annual Family Fun 5K Run/Walk! This event drew 1,000 people last year and the PTO is working hard to ensure another successful event.

This is a major fundraising activity for the PTO, which does a tremendous amount of work to support our students at the Pre-K, Kindergarten, and primary grades. They support our teachers both financially and with volunteer power. We are very fortunate to have such a dedicated group of individuals willing to support the education of our students.

There is a 5K run through town for the ambitious and able, and a 1 mile walk around the BHS stadium track for those who would care to take that route. The fee for the run is $20 per runner and the fee for the walk for participants ages 3 and older is $7 per person (strollers free of charge).

The morning will begin with a health and safety vendor fair at 8:30 am. Registration for the walk will begin at 8:30 am at Chestnut Hill Community School. The run will begin at 10:00 am and the walk shortly thereafter. Even if you don't participate in the run or walk, come on out and support our runners - including the JBMS running club - and visit the vendors at the health and safety fair!

If you would like, you can download a registration form from the CSSR PTO web site, print it out and complete it, and bring it with you that morning. Registration forms will also be available at CHCS that morning. More information can be found on the CSSR PTO web site, including a map of the run route. Please note that online registration for this event is closed.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this blog, 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

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