Bates Family Newsletter

Wow...that came fast! As we welcome Spring on Tuesday, we're looking forward to warmer weather and more opportunities to be outside!

Mr. Mac thrived in week one!

Mr. Macarelli, or Mr. Mac, as the students are calling him, thrived during his first week at Bates! We are thrilled to have him with us, and he has already started to develop some great relationships with our learners and staff. Way to go, Mr. Mac!

Bates Creates

A reminder that, "Bates Creates: A Celebration of Learning" honoring all things literacy, math, science, engineering, and art kicks off tomorrow! The theme things year is around making mistakes. Did you know that some of the things we use in our everyday lives were created by mistake? Ask your student what some of those items might be! We're going to have some fun😃

Parent/Caregiver conferences

We look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday, March 20, for parent/caregiver conferences from 12-2pm and 5-7pm!

A Pizza Party for a Cause!

Tuesday, March 19 - 4:00-10:00pm

American Flatbread
311 Derby Street, Salem

Whether you dine in our take out, a part of every flatbread sale during this event will be donated to the Bates PTO to help provide educational and recreational opportunities for our students. We will have Bates merchandise for sale and a 50/50 raffle at the door.

This past Friday, we honored our beloved Mrs. Reardon at her retirement party. For those of you who haven't heard, Mrs. Reardon will officially retire from her service as our loyal and caring school secretary on March 28th. Mrs. Reardon has been employed by Salem Public Schools for 34 years, and we wish her all the best as she enters this new, relaxing phase in life! She will be sorely missed.

Bates Creates: A Celebration of Learning (formerly the Literacy Festival) will begin Monday, March 18th through Wednesday, March 27th.

Our theme this year is "Learning from Mistakes"!

What do your students have to look forward to?

• Classroom door decorating contest based on one of our featured books depicted in the graphic above. The winning classroom will receive a set of books for their classroom library!
• Poster and writing contests
• A special art-related project, "A School of Care and Wonder," with a focus on community building imagined by our artist in residence, Claudia Paraschiv. Who is Ms. Paraschiv? See below! During art classes next week and Town Hall on 3/20, students will create a personalized leaf that will hang from a spectacular art installation in the Bates lobby.
• The famous Character Parade, 3/22 @ 8:15, and flashlight reading

AND...

The Bates Creates Celebration Night - Save the date! Bring the whole family!

Wednesday, March 27, 5:30 - 7:00 pm

With a spaghetti dinner sponsored by the PTO including math, science, and literacy-based activities, a 21C table, the SPS librarian, and artwork displays by our very talented Bates Beacons facilitated by our equally talented art teacher, Mr. Bleckley!

Claudia Paraschiv is an architect by trade and was last year's Artist in Residence at Artists' Row in Salem. Read more about her work here! She will be our Artist in Residence this month. Claudia concentrates on community art and place making and will help us continue to grow our mission: Believe. Be You. Belong...at Bates.

It's time to start thinking about MCAS, so we're sharing our testing dates with you!

RSVP in FB event - https://bit.ly/BatesBeautification

SIGN-UP for task - https://bit.ly/BatesBeautificationVolunteers

During morning announcements this week, students discussed the importance of coping with disappointment. We heard from lots of insightful students around how they use strategies like thinking about all the positive things in their lives to balance out what might seem disappointing. This week, we'll talk about "mindset" and how some of the things we use in everyday life were actually created by MISTAKE!

The school menus are posted on the SPS website. Find them here.

22.4% -- Chronic absenteeism

Our goal is 18.2% or under in the "Chronic Absence" category. We saw a little dip in chronic attendance rates this week. Keep it up:) If your student is healthy, please make sure they come to school! If you need any assistance, please reach out to Rosalyn Guevara, Family Engagement Facilitator at rguevara@salemk12.org.

At Bates, we take great pride in having the finest educators around! It only makes sense that our teachers learn from one another in something we call "unconferences". During many of our professional development sessions, teachers engage one another in mini clinics where they share best practices with one another. It's distributed leadership at its finest. Here are some pictures of our staff members meeting with their peers!

Spotlight on putting events in chronological order in grade 2, learning about where our food comes from in PreK, and a visit with an unexpected guest. It seems that Ms. Bissell's class "welcomed" Sally the Centipede into their room and made the best of it. Please note that Ms. Smith was not present during the visit and would have had to work very hard to not panic. 😅

Did you know you can earn money for our school just by scanning your grocery receipts? All you need to do is download the Boxtops app, and scan those receipts! Don't want to scan? No worries, you can always send receipts into school with your student in an envelope marked, "PTO Boxtops".

Again, we're stressing that if you MUST leave your car during drop off, pull up past the school entrance and drive as far down the sidewalk as possible. Adults are exiting vehicles close to "the rock" causing cars to back up into the street. This is unsafe. Please follow the drop off rules.

Our Bates spirit rock is available for weekly rentals. Celebrate your student's birthday or other accomplishments by painting a message on our rock. Please click here to rent the rock!

Bates Elementary School, in partnership with our families and community, will provide all students with a culturally responsive, student – centered, and equitable learning experience that celebrates our students’ diverse backgrounds, creative pursuits, and their academic, social, emotional success.