Our Holiday Party is next week!

Join us in celebrating 2021 and ringing in the new year. All sharks are invited.

Please RSVP to Cristina no later than Thursday, December 2, 2021.

(Cash or Venmo to Cristina-Caruso-1)

MCB Principals, Supt. Abeyta, and others from the School Dept and City met last Monday to plan changes to make arrival and dismissal traffic safer for all. Here are the measures that we hope will help make for a smoother, less stressful, and ultimately safer experience for kids and adults coming to school every morning!

• Starting Monday: Three additional staff members (recruited from the Berkowitz) will serve in morning duty roles starting at 7:20. Two will greet cars and help students out of vehicles in the dropoff lane. The other will be along the walkway to the community entrance to direct students towards their respective schools. They will be wearing neon safety vests for easy visibility and recognition. We are looking for 1-2 more staff members to start at 7:20 and help with dropoff. If interested please let Nate know.
• Starting Monday: The cleaning contractors will start parking at a CPS locatio Time to update blue label on white background. Blue banner. Vector illustrationn on Webster Avenue, freeing up some on-site parking at MCB.
• Within the next two weeks: Construction should finally end, and the equipment stored in the staff lot will be removed. This will get 21 parking spots back in use as well as reopen all plazas and gates for normal pedestrian traffic flow, which we hope will mean more parents can drop off rather than park and walk their child to the more-distant entrances we’ve had to use recently.
• Within the next two weeks: Central, school, and NRT staff are working together to shift the small bus arrival location to the big bus lane, which will reduce congestion in the dropoff lane.
• Longer-term: The central team will work with the city Traffic Commision to push for additional flashing signage, traffic-calming measures on Crescent Ave, and adjustments to the stoplight at Crescent and Eastern to allow traffic leaving the Complex to cross Eastern even when the cross traffic is stopped for a train, a long-time issue increasing backup on Crescent.

If you have observations, feedback, or additional ideas as these new measures go into effect, please connect with Nate!

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
 – Oprah Winfrey

“If you can laugh together, you can work together” – Robert Orben

Hello Sharks,

As discussed during our last staff meeting, there are many proven benefits of posted objectives. Research* has shown that reciting learning objectives in kid-friendly language promotes students’ understanding of what they are working toward, ultimately optimizing learning. From an SEL perspective, posted objectives provide the predictability that some might need before engaging in learning activities.

Posting objectives is the first step. We can’t just stop there. It is critical that we explain the objective to students. This does two things. First, it allows students to prepare for the lesson. They have a focus on what is being presented to them. Second, it helps us keep the rigor of the objective at the forefront of our brains during the lesson.

Effective learning objectives answer 3 questions:

1. What is the intended learning (anchored on standards)
2. How will students learn (learning activity)
3. Which medium of language will be required (language demands: listening, reading, speaking, writing) – Please check THIS out for a quick explanation of linguistics equity.

Example of a General Learning Objective: Students will understand and use a variety of sentence types.

Example of Effective Learning Objective: Students will be able to say and write simple and compound sentences when writing a paragraph.

HERE are some resources on writing effective learning objectives. Feel free to reach out to a mentor, teammate, or any ILT member if you need support.

____

*A recent meta-analysis of 53 research studies (Marzano, 1998) found that when students were clear in advance about what they were learning, their achievement was, on average, 34 percentile points higher on tests used in these studies than students in the control groups. (McRel, 2000)

Looking for ways to have students showcase their ideas and opinions? Here are two voluntary opportunities:

1.Starting at school meeting next Friday (11/19), we will have students share book recommendations at each grade level using the format of a #30secondbooktalk. True to its name, this is a quick overview of a book that can get others excited to try it out! Here is a slide with information for both teachers and students.

If you have a student who is passionate about a book and willing to share their text live at school meeting, please let me know. It would be great to have students talk about books from the classroom library project so that others at their grade level would have access to the same book. I am happy to work with students to write and practice their book talk. I would love to have one student from each grade level present next Friday with the possibility of this becoming an ongoing way to promote our classroom libraries and literacy at our school!

2. Thinking WAY ahead, the Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest is back with the theme of: Justice for ALL: We are Tied Together. Initial information can be found here,  with  more resources being added as we get closer to the 12/22 deadline. 

Please reach out to Katie with any questions about the above opportunities or ideas of other ways to let our students’ voices be heard in the school and community!

There may be nothing more important in a child’s life than a positive and stable relationship with a caring adult. For students, a positive connection to at least one school adult — whether a teacher, counselor, sports coach, or other school staff member — can have tremendous benefits that include reduced bullying, lower drop-out rates, and improved social-emotional capacities. Rather than leave these connections to chance, learn to use relationship mapping and invest time in making sure that every student is known by at least one adult.

The Massachusetts Healthy Youth Consortium (MAHYC) is offering a free webinar on Thursday, Nov 11, 2021 at 03:30 PM.

REGISTER HERE