Greetings Lowell Families:

I hope everyone is having a relaxing and restful vacation enjoying another beautiful summer. I realize how fortunate we are to live in a historic and charming part of the world. I have been able to spend much of my time off enjoying quick get-aways on the Cape and spending time reading, running, and enjoying time with family and friends. This week we welcome back our staff with three days of rich and robust professional development. Next week we look forward to welcoming our students back for another academic year, which starts on Tuesday, September 3rd. Lowell School continues its long tradition of having tremendously dedicated staff focused on teaching the whole child. We host an active PTO, a wonderful volunteer community, and a strong leadership team working to support and educate each child one at a time. It gives me great pleasure to welcome our new and returning students as well as staff, whose absence I missed over the summer.

This fall, the Lowell School welcomes 99 new pre-k and kindergarten students to share and begin the enjoyable experience of joining the Lowell family. In preparation for opening our doors, we have spent many hours collaborating, learning, and planning for an envigoring new year.

Warm regards,

Stacy

Back to School Logistics For Grades 1- 5

Day 1

• Day 1: Students in grades 1 and 2 will be lining up outside by the Carlton Terrace door (#7) between 8:00 AM and 8:20 AM. You will have the opportunity to meet your child’s teacher at that time briefly. Students are dismissed at 2:30 pm from this location.

• Day 1: Students in grades 3, 4, and 5 will be lining up outside the Orchard Street door (#6) between 8:00 AM and 8:20 AM. You will have the opportunity to meet your child’s teacher at that time briefly. Students are dismissed at 2:30 pm from this location.

• There is no Drop-and-Go Line on Lowell Ave. The first day of school.

Day 2

• Starting from day 2, all students will enter through the Lowell Avenue entrance between 8:00 and 8:20 AM.

• Procedures: Drop-and-Go line on Lowell Avenue.

• Please pull your car down to the second crosswalk, make sure you do not block the crosswalk.

• Continue on your way as soon as your child has safely exited your vehicle and stepped onto the sidewalk.

• If you are walking your child to the doors of the school, please park your vehicle.

• Drop off lane is restricted to live drop off only this is strictly enforced.

• During the drop off period of 8:00 to 8:20 AM, we have over 400 students entering the building. It is for student safety and we ask for your cooperation and adherence to these procedures.

Visiting Day for Prek & K: September 3, 2019

Students and parents visit Prek and kindergarten classrooms, and times are assigned.

First Day of School for PreK & K: September 4, 2019 (1/2 Day)

Beginning at 8:00 am, K students arrive at Lowell School and report outside the main entrance on Lowell Ave. Students will line up by class. PreK students arrive at Door 3. PreK parents may accompany their student into the classroom on Wed., Thurs. & Fri. Drop and Go does not begin until Thursday, September 5th for K students. Beginning on Monday, September 9th, parents of PreK students should bring their student to Door 3 for Drop and Go. Wednesday, September 4th is an early release day for Prek & K; they will eat lunch and then be dismissed at 12:15 at Door 3 (PreK) and the kindergarten doors (K) near the small playground on George St.

September 5, 2019 (Full Day)

First Full Day of School for Prek & K. K students will arrive at the main entrance on Lowell Ave. Students will line up outside the main doors by class. PreK students will arrive at Door 3.

Students are dismissed at 2:30 pm outside the kindergarten doors near the small playground on Geroge Street (K) and Door 3 (PreK).

September 6, 2019 (Full Day)

K Students will line up outside the main doors by class.

September 9, 2019

Beginning Monday, September 9th students will be entering the building on their own. Staff are positioned from the front door all along the route to the kindergarten classroom. Parents do not need to accompany their students.

As one of Lowell's School Improvement Goals this year, we are using literature to teach our core values of equity, excellence, and community. We begin the school year reading All Are Welcome. Classrooms from Pre K to Grade 5 have all received a copy to read aloud on the first day of school.

WPS/Lowell Goal: Equity

Establish systems and structures that ensure all WPS students receive what they need to develop and achieve their full academic, social, and emotional potential.

Engage all WPS faculty and staff in embracing anti-bias and inclusive practices that promote equity and ensure all students feel valued and supported in their learning.

Summary from the publisher:

A warm, welcoming picture book that celebrates diversity and gives encouragement and support to all kids.

Follow a group of children through a day in their school, where everyone is welcomed with open arms. A school where kids in patkas, hijabs, and yarmulkes play side-by-side with friends in baseball caps. A school where students grow and learn from each other’s traditions and the whole community gathers to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

All Are Welcome lets young children know that no matter what, they have a place, they have space, they are welcome in their school.

All Are Alexandra Penfold wrote welcome and illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman. Alfred A. Knopf published it in 2018.

Visitors:

For the safety of all children, the school doors lock 5 minutes after arrival time. Visitors may use the intercom at the front door to speak to the main office and gain admittance. All visitors, including parents and volunteers, must provide a picture ID and sign in at the reception desk or main office during school hours. Visitors are asked to wear a visitor badge, supplied at the sign-in location, throughout your visit. All visitors are required to sign out when they leave the school building. This procedure is in effect for the safety of the children, staff, and visitors. The front office must be aware of all persons in the building should an emergency arise.

As part of the WPS district security plan, we are adding a layer of security at Lowell School. We are implementing the RAPTOR visitor management system this fall. RAPTOR screens and tracks everyone coming into our school. The RAPTOR system screens for sex offenders, custody violations, and provides reporting of all visitors. Our highest priority is the safety of our students and staff. Additional information regarding RAPTOR will be provided to parents and guardians, once school begins.

The number of food allergies in young children has increased significantly over the past few years. The school has established specific protocols to create a safe, allergy sensitive environment for children with life-threatening allergies. There are children in the classes listed below who have severe food allergies. We need your help in making their classrooms allergy-sensitive environment for children.

Since there is no cure for most food allergies, the best way to keep students safe is through avoidance. For SNACK as well as Prek and Kindergarten lunch, please do not send any peanut butter or foods containing any PEANUT products, or ANY TYPE OF NUTS. Students will be eating snack and Prek and Kindergarten lunch in the classroom which is our primary learning environment.

Students in grades 1-5 will eat lunch in the cafeteria where we have designated allergy-sensitive tables for children with food allergies. We do not serve peanut products to the cafeteria for lunch.

We are taking many steps to keep everyone safe and healthy:

• Washing before and after snack.
• Washing before lunch.
• Washing down the tables after snack and at the end of the day.
• We also have a "No sharing/snack" rule.

Please talk to your child about not sharing food in school. We will keep stressing this information in school. If you have any questions or concerns, you can email me or your classroom teacher, send a note, or call the school nurse 617-926-7770. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation with this very serious matter.

Here are the classrooms and the type of food allergies in them.

Teacher/ Room/ Allergy

PreK

LaBella room 018 Allergies: Egg, Peanut, and Peas

Kindergarten

Altobello room 139 Allergies: Tomato and Milk, Tree Nut, Cashew, Pistachio, Egg White, Shrimp

Connors room 024 Allergies: Peanut, Tree Nut, and Egg Allergy

First Grade

Tresca/Mannix room 101 Allergies: Egg, Peanut, Cashew, Sesame, Nuts, Peas, Potatoes Eggs

Talamas room 103 Allergies: Tree Nuts

McDonough room 123 Allergies: Eggs, Salmon

Second Grade

MacLellan/Curtin room 204 Allergies: Peanut and Bee Sting

Hudon room 201 Allergies: Peanut, Milk Allergy, Walnut, Almond, and Egg White

Seward room 110 Allergies: Peanuts, Pistachio, and Tree Nuts

Third Grade

Walsh room 206 Allergies: Peanuts

Moriarity room 217 Allergies: Cherries and Cherry Flavoring

Fourth Grade

Antonellis room 233 Allergies: Peanuts and Peanut Butter

Garabedian room 228 Allergies: Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Sesame

Stezzi/Blackwood room 234 Allergies: Tree Nuts and Peanuts

Fifth Grade

Brodeur room 232 Allergies: Tree Nut

Sudbay/Walker room 229 Allergies: Peanut, Fish, Lentils, Milk, and Shrimp

Park 230 room Allergies: Peanuts, Nuts, Dairy, Sesame Seeds

Sept 2: Labor Day Holiday, School Closed

Sept 3: First Day of School

Sept 3: Kindergarten/PreK Visiting Day (by assigned time)

Sept 4: Kindergarten/PreK Early Release 12:15 pm

Sept 5: First Full Day for Kindergarten/PreK (dismissal 2:30)

Sept 10: First PTO Meeting at 6:30 in the Library

Sept 12: First School Site Council (looking for new members) 3:00 pm in the Library

Sept 13: Family Movie Night and Ice Social

Sept 19: Back to School Night 6:00-8:00

Sept 25: Early Release 12:15

We would like to welcome all our new families at Lowell School. On Thursday, September 5th we are hosting a welcome coffee for all new parents immediately following student drop off.

Please join us at 8:15 in the Library after you've dropped off your child.

It's just a quick meet and greet with Mrs. Phelan, Mrs. Whitmore, and Mrs. Jacovides who is our school's guidance counselor.

Please join us as we kick off a new school year! The meetings are open to everyone. Come to the meeting and meet our PTO leadership and hear about how you can get involved.

We have our first Site School Council on September 12th at 3:00 in our school library. If you are interested in joining the council or want to learn more about being a council member, please come to our first meeting. All are welcome.

We will also review our School Improvement Plan 2019-2020.

As always SSC meeting is an open meeting.

Back to School Night

September 19th

6:00-8:00 pm

You will find all the information for Back to School Night by clicking the link below:

https://www.smore.com/kp8vu

Saturday afternoon, Judy Fallows met Lowell students and families in the garden for a day of work. They put down cardboard and mulch and spent time weeding and cleaning up.

Over the summer Judy met volunteers from summer camps as well as incoming and past students to work and learn. If you ever get a chance to stop by when Judy is in the garden, you won't be disappointed. Every minute is spent learning about the wonders of mother nature and the creatures who share our garden.

Lowell is fortunate to have an incredibly engaged parent community. Our school is a place where is everyone is welcome and encouraged to visit.

We also want to be respectful neighbors to our surrounding neighborhood. We ask for your cooperation in the following:

• Do not block driveways
• Park your car in legal parking slots
• Do not block crosswalks
• Please follow the one-way signs around our school, even if they are blown down or missing
• Respect our crossing guards
• Do not drive around cars in the drop and go line
• Please do not pull over and wait for someone who is walking a child to the front door of the school
• Please do not park in accessible parking spaces unless you have a permit

We thank you in advance for your kindness and cooperation

Classroom Assignments

A typical summer involves both new enrollments as well as some withdrawals. These transitions can impact classroom rosters slightly. However, class placement letters were sent out at the end of the year. Your child should have received a letter from their homeroom teacher naming their teacher and room number. If your child was absent or you did not attend the Welcome to Kindergarten event, one should have been sent home via mail. If you did not receive this information, please call the school during office hours 8:00 am-2: 00 pm and someone will help you.

If you were granted a transfer to Lowell by Superintendent Galdston or recently enrolled in WPS, you would not receive your child's placement until August 28th. Our guidance counselor will notify you by email or phone. We appreciate your patience!

Email: Stacy.Phelan@watertown.k12.ma.us
Website: https://lowell.watertown.k12.ma.us/
Location: 175 Orchard Street
Phone: (617) 926-7770