March Newsletter

Hello Barrington Families;

Buckle your children into your vehicles and head over to the Barrington Middle School Cafetorium on Tuesday, March 14th to cast your votes! The School District and Town budgets and warrant articles are up for voter consideration and we need your support. The School District is presenting 6 Warrant Articles for voter consideration. Article 1 is relative to the election of one school board seat. This office is currently held by Mr. Garth Svenson who is running unopposed this year. Article 2 is the District’s general operating budget. Article 3 is a new negotiated paraprofessional contract which enhances salaries and benefits in order to be competitive with surrounding school districts. Article 4 is requesting the ability to reconsider Article 3 if it were to be defeated as written. Article 5 is requesting, using unreserved fund balance, that additional funds be added to the Facilities Capital Reserve Account and Article 6, also using unreserved fund balance, is to support a new Civics Experience Capital Reserve Account. If you have not had the opportunity to see the proposed budget you can find it here with the presentation from the February 11th Deliberative Session.

While you are voting you can also teach your children the importance of voting by having them participate in a special ballot coordinated by Town officials. Students can also cast their votes on March 14th for the following: 1) The upcoming dog tag color 2) The name of the new van for the Recreational Department 3) The name of the new dump truck for the Highway Department. Thank you to the Town for this fun and educational opportunity for our students.

At the March 7, 2023 School Board meeting the Board approved the 2023-2024 school calendar. There are many moving pieces that are in play when creating a school calendar. Some of my goals and priorities when building next year’s calendar were: increasing student instructional time, providing ample teacher workshop days in order to address mandated yearly training requirements as well as curricular professional development needs, close alignment with our partnering high schools and complying with state mandated calendar requirements as it relates to Career Technical Centers. I feel as though we were able to encapsulate these needs with our 2023-24 calendar. If you would like to see a more detailed explanation of my calendar proposal here is the justification shared with the School Board.

Thank you all for your participation during our first Remote Learning Day. I know that there are mixed feelings and opinions regarding remote instruction however, I would like to applaud our staff and families for positively engaging in this online learning day.

Are you looking for some family fun or do you have a competitive edge? Please consider participating in the Peeper 5K Run/Walk which is being held on Saturday, May 6th at 9am at the Barrington Elementary School. This is a sanctioned race for those of you who are competitive runners and for the rest of us it is a morning of camaraderie and fun! To register, jump on the Barrington Chamber of Commerce website. Peeper-5K The monies collected at this race go toward funding scholarships through the Barrington Chamber of Commerce. You can sign up as an individual or create a team and encourage family and friends to join you. I look forward to seeing you there!

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend. It has certainly been nice this week to enjoy some milder temperatures and weather patterns. Don’t forget to move those clocks ahead an hour!

Respectfully,

Deannah Rae

Superintendent

drae@sau74.org

Good Afternoon Barrington Families,

All our students and teachers have been working diligently throughout this year on many aspects of learning. It is wonderful to see all the great instruction, discussions, and projects happening in our schools!

Attached is a graph of the district growth we saw in our iReady testing from the fall 2022 to the winter 2023. For the iReady assessment, students are tested on end-of-year grade level expectations. In other words, a student who has scored in the high green range during the middle of the year is already proficient for this grade level, a student who scored in the yellow range is approaching end-of-year expectations, but with expected growth will be proficient by the end of the year, and students who scored in the red range are one year behind grade level expectations and require further interventions to become proficient.

Students are doing well as we see less students in the red range and more students moved into the green range areas on the graphs for all grade levels. We still have more work to do, but we can celebrate our scores for the middle of the year! Teachers and administrators have been looking at this data and making instructional decisions that best meet the needs of all our students. I am excited to see the iReady scores at the end of the year to see all the hard work come to fruition.

Take care!

Sarah E. Rollins, PhD

Curriculum Coordinator

srollins@sau74.org

Hello Barrington Families,

I always love this time of year, the days are getting longer, the sun is shining more, and our buildings are bursting with students making progress. We are about to wrap up our second trimester on March 17th, which means you will see progress reports shortly on your child's IEP goals. I have been listening to the special educators and related service providers “bragging” about their students and the gains they are making, some small and some huge. Our kids are making progress!

We recently met as a leadership team to review our progress with the LEA determination process. As a reminder, we were required by the state to submit a corrective action plan because the district exceeds the standard for the amount of time that students on an IEP are removed from the general education classroom. I am thrilled to report the district has made some great headway in the areas of;

• Enhancing the Tier 1 Math and Reading instruction occurring in the regular classrooms by collectively honing curriculum and instructional practices.

• Providing targeted interventions with greater fidelity in regular education settings to support students struggling to meet grade-level standards.

• Refining our special education practices to ensure that students with disabilities are more able to remain in the regular classroom to the maximum extent possible.

This work will continue to be ongoing but the district has made some great strides this year in providing more effective instruction, interventions, and best practices to support student learning.

Lastly, the extended school year program is shaping up. We are beginning to get some paperwork back from families, keep it coming!

With appreciation,

Katie Kukesh

Director of Student Services

kkukesh@sau74.org

Our recent weather related remote learning day went off with relatively few technical challenges. Please reach out to your school's front office staff to report any problems you may have had so that we can continue to improve the remote learning experience.

The Art Room at BMS will be getting a TouchView interactive display! The display will be mounted on a mobile cart to facilitate an enhanced creative design learning environment. Click the graphic to learn more about TouchView Interactive.

We all need to be aware of privacy and personal information theft that is on the rise. Phishing is a main source of this danger. What is it and how do you prevent it? This site, courtesy of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) has a wealth of information to help keep your online activities safe. Click the graphic to learn more.

Particularly popular lately are scams that create a sense of urgency. BEWARE OF THE BLUE BOX embedded in an email that screams "click me". DONT DO IT! DELETE the email.

Be safe. Happy Spring Ahead!

Jeff DeLangie Sr.

Director of Technology

jdelangie@sau74.org

Susan Willliams

freshpickscafe@sau74.org

Thank you Ms. Williams for providing such thoughtful, healthy, and tasty options for our students at BMS. We are hearing rave reviews!

Costs for the 2022/23 school year are as follows: