SPS Weekly Newsletter

This week's header photo features the inductees to the Stoughton High School chapter of the National Honor Society. More than 60 SHS students were inducted into NHS during a ceremony held at the SHS Auditorium on Tuesday. Congratulations!

The Stoughton Town Meeting commenced on Monday, May 6th and continued on Wednesday, May 8th of this week. To date the Town Meeting members supported by a 2/3rd vote the opportunity for the voters of Stoughton to consider approving the New Elementary School project in a special election on June 11, 2024. SPS is thankful to the Town Meeting members. You can read more about the Town Meeting vote here. The School District budget will probably be taken up next week on May 13th or 15th.

I also had the honor of attending the Stoughton High National Honor Society induction ceremony on Tuesday. It was a tremendous evening. It is great to hear about our outstanding students. A picture of the inductees is featured at the top of the newsletter.

This time of year features many appreciation days and weeks on the calendar. Administrative Professionals Day was at the end of April; School Principals' Day was on May 1; School Lunch Hero Day was last Friday; School Nurse Day was on Wednesday this week; and this week was also Teacher Appreciation Week. These days and weeks are good reminders for us to recognize the many dedicated staff and faculty who make a difference every day for our students and families. Thank you for all of your hard work.

And finally, speaking of appreciation days, let’s also take a moment to recognize the many wonderful mothers in our Stoughton Public Schools community this weekend.

Happy Mother's Day!

Joseph F. Baeta, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Stoughton Public Schools

Dr. Baeta will be available for a virtual meeting with SPS families on Wednesday, May 15, 2024 from 12:30-1:30pm. Use this link to join: bit.ly/DrBOfficeHours. Please note this meeting was originally set for May 14 but needed to be moved to May 15 due to a scheduling conflict. Additional virtual meeting dates and times can be found here.

Attention Stoughton Public Schools families looking for bus transportation for the 2024-2025 school year: The registration period for bus transportation for 2024-2025 will open Monday, May 20, 2024 and run through Friday, June 28, 2024. Please keep in mind that no applications will be accepted after June 28 and there will not be a waiting list.

Once again, there is no cost to families to ride the bus next year. Bus transportation is available for students in grades K-12, but there are limited seats. Students will be placed on the bus in the order the applications are received. The registration form will be available on the PowerSchool Parent Portal starting May 20. Families will need to complete and submit an application for each child who will be riding the bus.

An email will be sent to families next week with instructions on registration. If you have any questions, please send them to Transportation@stoughtonschools.org.

The next community forum about the new elementary school building project will be Tuesday, May 21, 2024.

• There will be a virtual forum at noon via Zoom. Click here to register for the virtual forum.

• There will be an in-person forum at 6:30pm at the South Elementary School, 171 Ash St. Tours of the current South School building will be provided following the presentation and question and answer session at the in-person forum.

If you would like to learn more about this project, you can watch this video about the project scope and budget and watch this video about the consolidation plan. You can also visit the project's website by clicking here.

Congratulations to the O’Donnell Middle School students in the 8th grade drama class for receiving a gold medal at last weekend’s Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (MTEG) Middle School Festival! Stoughton performed The Struggles, a one-act play. In addition to the group award, OMS students received several individual all star awards:

• Ivy Dunn, Isley Vale, and Riyaz Shrestha - Excellence in Technical Theater

• Andrea Udeh, Izzie Bukhenik, and Stella Cobb - Excellence in Acting

Stoughton was one of the host sites for the festival, with more than 250 middle school students plus directors, chaperones, and audiences from Rowley, Hamilton-Wenham, Weston, Cambridge, and Tyngsborough joining OMS at Stoughton High School.

“It was truly a beautiful day of theater and community building for our students and the visiting schools,” said Kevin Hallock, SHS and OMS drama teacher and theater director. “Our high school theater students and 8th graders acted as hosts, festival coordinators, timers, runners, checkers, and social media personnel for the festival. They all were complimented by everyone on their welcoming spirit, generosity, and professionalism. This event would not have been possible without them and my amazing group of parents who helped with ticket sales, lunch and dinner, and concessions. Specifically, Kate Dunn, my drama liaison, went above and beyond for our kids and visiting schools.”

The gold medal OMS received is the highest honor awarded at the competition.

“For our first middle school festival entry, this was a real surprise. The judges gave us amazing feedback and the audiences were left deeply moved by the students’ work,” Mr. Hallock said.

Two Stoughton High students placed in the upper division of the 18th Annual Israel Arbeiter Holocaust Essay Contest! Senior Heaven Rowell came in second and junior Sean Gabriel Biteranta came in third. Congratulations!

Their essays were chosen by a committee of readers who were "impressed with their thoughtful, sensitive, and passionate writing." The Israel Arbeiter Holocaust Essay Contest is a tribute to Israel “Izzy” Arbeiter, who survived the Holocaust and spent most of his adult life here in Massachusetts.

The students were recognized at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston's annual Yom HaShoah Holocaust Commemoration in Boston on May 5. Award winners are also invited for an all expenses paid visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. for a private tour in November.

Both Stoughton High students are pictured here with SHS English teacher Lori Cederquist. Mrs. Cederquist’s students enter the essay contest each year.

The Wilkins School Student Council, under the direction of advisor Mrs. Pearl, organized a food drive last month. Each grade at the Wilkins was assigned a different category of food to donate. Eight boxes were filled with non-perishables items that were given to the Ilse Marks Food Pantry in Stoughton. Student Council members are pictured here with the donations. Great job giving back to the Stoughton community!

South School fourth graders recently spent a week learning about different forms of energy through a series of lessons with the Science & Engineering Education Development program. The photos posted below show Dr. Pearl from SEED teaching the students about hydropower through a hands-on activity. Using a bottle, sticks, string, and tape, students were given a challenge to lift five washers off the table, using water as their source of power. This program was made possible through a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Stoughton High AP Chemistry students used a lab technique called chromatography to make t-shirts in preparation for the AP Chemistry Exam, which took place on Monday. This was the first week of AP exams, with exams continuing next week as well. Good Luck to all students on their AP exams!

The Stoughton Public Schools Spring Author Series resumes on Monday, May 13 from 5-6pm when Monica Acker comes to the Gibbons School (235 Morton St.). To learn more about Monica Acker, click here. For more information and to see a complete schedule for the Spring Author Series, click here.

* Please note Monica will be discussing her book, Brave Like Mom, that deals with a parent who has a chronic illness.

Stoughton High and O'Donnell Middle School spring concerts will be taking place over the next week. The full schedule is posted below. All SHS and OMS spring concerts are free to attend and will be held at the SHS Auditorium. POPS (Parents of Performing Students) will be selling commemorative programs for $10 and digital versions of the programs will also be available for no charge.

There will be a Multicultural Night at the Gibbons School (235 Morton St.) on Thursday, May 16 from 6-7:30pm. This event is open to all SPS families. To find out more, and how you can participate (we are looking for families to sign up and run a booth, run an activity, or volunteer), click here.

The Food Services department is in the process of returning money families have in their School Cafe accounts for school lunch since school lunch is free of charge. Since some families have set up their accounts to automatically replenish when it gets low, this feature will be turned off so the accounts don't replenish when the money is returned. Please note that School Cafe is used to pay for other things like AP exams and the funds in the school lunch account are separate from this. If you have any questions, please reach out to SPS Food Service Director Guy Koppe at g_koppe@stoughtonschools.org.

Another friendly reminder that with the school year underway, we want to make sure we have accurate and updated emergency contact information and health information for your child. Please log into your PowerSchool Parent Portal account, click on the forms link in the left navigation menu and update any information that is not accurate in the two forms - Current Student Information/Emergency Form and Current Student Health Information. When you have updated the information, please click on submit at the bottom of each of the forms. If your child's information is accurate, please click on submit at the bottom of each form to indicate that you have reviewed the data and it is accurate.

For updates throughout the week, be sure to follow Stoughton Public Schools on social media: