Bulldog News

Unity is Strength

Hello Butler Learning Community!

I hope this newsletter finds you all well. It is hard to believe that we are winding down, our seniors graduate next week, and summer is upon us.

This newsletter is intended to help us continue to partner and work together in the best interest of all - students, staff, and community. I continue to be very proud of the Butler School District's efforts throughout this school year as we dealt with the many challenges facing us. We worked diligently to create a plan that would allow us to ensure that our students grew academically while taking care of the social and emotional aspects that have weighed heavily on children during the pandemic. We worked to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff during these times as well. We have remained committed to ongoing communication to try to be as clear and transparent as possible with all decisions. I acknowledge that not every aspect was met with 100% approval, but I am confident that every aspect was decided upon with the best interest of children, our staff, and our community in mind. Together, we have:

Provided In-Person Education since September;
Provided necessary services to students to help deal with social and emotional health;
Provided technology resources to assist in helping make all meet with success;
Provided clearly defined and shared protocols for sanitation and cleansing of our facilities;
Provided opportunities for our students to remain connected and involved with our schools through ongoing efforts to continue our programs, including: In-person ceremonies such as NHS/NJHS inductions, in-person concerts, field days and picnics, the prom, the 8th grade dance, and many others.

In addition, we have remained committed to our vision of making Butler the premiere small school district in the State, and, as such, we have continued to work on enhancements, despite circumstances, so that our students are given the best educational opportunities possible. Some examples include:

Adding in multiple, semester-based elective courses at Butler High School;
Revising curricula in Math and ELA, including updating resources;
Creating programs to help all students remain in district with their peers, including programming at the elementary level and a post-graduate program at BHS;
Enhancing the technology in district through the expansion of our 1:1 program to K-12, updating our WiFi and Firewalls, and updating our broadband capabilities;
Updating our facilities, including a new playground at ADS, new roofing and windows at RBS, and updated cafeteria equipment at BHS;
Adding in concurrent enrollment options for our students through a partnership with William Paterson University.

This past year, our efforts have been recognized, as we have been awarded the following:

Aaron Decker School was named a National School of Character;
The Butler School District was named an EverFi Champion School for our social/emotional efforts;
Butler High School was named a Top High School by US News and World Reports;
Dr. Johnson was awarded the Friends of Public Education award from MCCEA.

We have been deep into our planning for the '21-'22 school year. We are confident that we will build upon our successes of this year, as well as continue to offer our Bulldogs the best experiences possible.

We thank you for your support, input, and partnership!

Be Well

Dr. J.

Butler School District '21-'22 Planning Survey

As we have done in the past, we are asking all within our learning community to please complete this short survey to help inform our decisions as we plan for September. In addition, your feedback regarding your experiences during this past year will be helpful as we plan for intervention strategies, whether those are academic, social, emotional, or a combination of some or all of those components. Your feedback has been so incredibly helpful to us throughout this process, and we thank you in advance for taking time to complete the following Google Form.

https://forms.gle/sfUA3nM54YpUTw719

forms.gle

Transportation

As we begin to think about our return to a more traditional school experience in September, we have begun to receive inquiries regarding bussing within our District.

As a brief overview/history - the Butler School District eliminated courtesy bussing approximately six years ago. Due to the size of our town and the central locations of our facilities, the district was within all guidelines regarding this decision.

When courtesy bussing was eliminated, parents within the community banded together to work with Jordan Transportation to coordinate subscription bussing to assist. This was done on an annual subscription basis and existed outside the purview of the Butler School District.

Jumping back to present time, we have been informed by Jordan Transportation that they will not be able to continue this practice. Please note - during the pandemic, Jordan went from being a locally owned company to becoming part of a national corporate company, which predicates some of their operations and decisions. We have talked with Jordan, as well as NRESC and Morris County Ed Services Commission to see if there were any companies who would be willing to work with our learning community to continue subscription bussing. To date, we have not had any company willing to offer this service. They have sighted a variety of concerns as to why this is not longer being offered including trouble with collecting the subscription fees, issues with bus stops, and regulations imposed during the pandemic.

As a district, we continue to try to find a way to offer some sort of solution, as we believe we can always try to find a way. At this point, we are attempting to work with Jordan on a solution. What we are trying to work through would be to offer parent(s)/guardian(s) the opportunity to purchase seating on bus routes already being run by Jordan that may not be at their full capacity. In reviewing all of the policies set forth by the State, this would seemingly be a viable solution. Available seats would be on a first come, first served basis. We are attempting to see what the impact of this might be, as well as the ability to add in a couple of additional bus stops for students. Once we finalize any plan, we will be certain to communicate this out to our community. If this were to occur, parent/guardian sign ups would be through Genesis and would start in July.