MARSHFIELD MATTERS
Superintendent's Newsletter: 10/11/2024 #WeRMarshfield
EDUCATOR OF THE WEEK
Congratulations to Mr. Mark Talacci, fourth grade teacher at Governor Winslow (GWS), who is this week's Educator of the Week. Mr. Talacci's unique teaching style pushes students to think outside the box and invest in their own learning. Mark develops individual relationships with each of his students, so they can learn in a way that is best for them. Students in Mr. Talacci's class also experience the power and joy of altruism through the B Tru program that he brought to GWS. Our school community loves practicing selfless acts of kindness and concern for the wellbeing of others under Mr. Talacci's leadership.
Just a reminder to please drive carefully and slowly on our school campuses. Over the past few weeks, we have had reports of fast moving cars during drop-off and pick-up, and we wanted to remind you of the importance of driving carefully so that we can ensure a safe environment for all. Thank you for your help.
SUPERINTENDENT'S GOALS FOR 2024-2025
GOAL #1: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will create an entry plan in order to gain familiarity with stakeholders, to identify effective past practice and potential areas for improvement, and to facilitate a successful transition into the role of Superintendent.
GOAL #2: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will focus the District on student voice and engagement through the theme of “Through the Eyes of the Student.”
GOAL #3: Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will collaborate with district and school leaders, staff, parents/guardians, school committee members, and students to create a “Belonging Team,” which includes Social-Emotional Learning, Wellness, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subgroups, set goals for the district and team in these areas, and begin to implement these goals within the school community.
Goal #4:
Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, I will collaborate with leadership, and when appropriate, the Marshfield Police Department and Marshfield Fire Department, to foster effective protocols, procedures, and systems throughout the District.
The complete presentation, including the Strategic Actions and Benchmarks for each goal, can be found below by clicking on SUPERINTENDENT GOALS.
I look forward to collaborating with the entire Marshfield School Community to realize these goals.
Sincerely,
Patrick Sullivan, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Marshfield Public Schools
CURRICULM CORNER, DR. ELLEN MARTIN, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT
Massachusetts STEM Week 2024
Mass STEM Week 2024 will take place from October 21–25 and is a statewide collaborative effort organized by the Executive Office of Education and the STEM Advisory Council in partnership with the state’s nine Regional STEM Networks, which plan and coordinate activities with local school communities, community leaders, and business partners. Visit the STEM Week webpage to learn more.
Educators and students are invited to participate in one of the STEM Week 2024 Design Challenges
- Wade Institute for Science Education- Extreme Zoo Makeover: A STEM Approach to Habitat Design
- Kids in Tech - STEM Goes Green: The STEM Challenge
- The STEM Education Center at WPI - "I Am STEM" Lesson Library
- Museum of Science – Environmental Engineering Challenge
- PBLWorks - The Future of Work
Great Learning Happening Throughout the District
I loved meeting with staff this week at the Superintendent Check-In Meetings!
Great teaching and learning in action!
An important element of great teaching includes allowing students opportunities to assert their voice within the learning environment. The enhancement of student voice in the classroom leads to deep student engagement in the learning and helps students take agency in their educational and life paths.
We can consider the following continuum of student voice provided by educators Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey. Their continuum points to ways that we can move a classroom, school, and District Culture to be as learner driven as possible.
This continuum moves in the following way:
Expression: where students offer opinions, answer questions, and create Personal Learning Profiles
To Consultation: where students provide input and feedback, share their personal learning profiles, and work on that profile with their teachers
To Participation: where students attend activities with a role in decision making and articulate action steps to meet learning goals
To Activism: where students identify problems, generate solutions, and advocate for change inside and outside of school
To Leadership: where students guide groups as leaders of change, co-plan and make decisions, and accept responsibility for their outcomes
Student "Voice and Choice" in the learning is something we are all striving to create. It has been wonderful to see this in action!
Our Learning Walks this year will revolve around Deep Student Engagement, Task Development, and Learning Environment for Students. The District Leader established look-fors are inspired by Amy Berry and her book Reimagining Student Learning, From Disrupting to Driving. This is a multi-year focus, which will involve all stakeholders.
In a nutshell, we will focus on those elements in the classroom that move students from disrupting to driving learning, while also focusing on the development of strong tasks to engage the students within a culturally responsive climate that promotes inclusion.
These lookfors are being unwrapped at staff meetings across the district.
COLLEGE PLANNING RESOURCES
Here our some excellent College Planning Resources from Mrs. Goff, High School Guidance Director, and team from our recent MHS College Planning Night. Thank you, Mrs. Goff and team for these resources.
8th ANNUAL MARSHFIELD ELEMENTARY XC INVITATIONAL
The 8th Annual Marshfield Elementary School XC Invitational, sponsored by the Marshfield Boys & Girls Club, Marshfield Road Runners Youth Track, Furnace Brook XC/Track & Field, and Marshfield District-wide PTO will take place Wednesday 10/23/2024 at the Marshfield Boys and Girls Club (37 Proprietor's Drive, Marshfield) with check-in beginning at 3:00 PM. Races begin at 3:30. A fun, free event for all Marshfield Elementary students! Free registration here and share with your friends!
RACE SCHEDULE
3:30 PM GIRLS GRADES K-2 * 0.62 MILES
3:45 PM BOYS GRADES K-2 * 0.62 MILES
4:00 PM GIRLS GRADES 3-5 * 1.24 MILES
4:15 PM BOYS GRADES 3-5 * 1.24 MILES
WEAR YOUR SCHOOL COLORS!
DWS – WHITE, EWS – RED, GWS – MARSHFIELD GREEN, MES- DARK GREEN, SRS –BLUE
TROPHIES FOR TOP SCHOOL TEAM IN EACH RACE (5 MUST FINISH TO SCORE)
MEDALS TO TOP FIVE ELEMENTARY STUDENTS IN EACH RACE, PLACE RIBBONS TO 6 - 20 AND PARTICIPANT RIBBONS FOR ALL FINISHERS! AWARDS WILL BE PRESENTED AT 4:30 PM
ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE EMAIL: MRRYOUTHTRACK@GMAIL.COM
SCHOOL NURSES' CORNER
Our School Nurses work to ensure the health and safety of all students across the district by providing medical care, education, community referrals and resources. We encourage you to reach out to your school nurse for any concerns or changes in your child's medical needs, including behavioral health. School attendance is critical for success and school nurses work with you to ensure that your student can be present each day.
In the coming weeks there are several opportunities to support our students and families who work through medical challenges each and every day, all while doing their very best!
Consider joining Wally at BOSTON COMMON on Saturday, October 5th at 10 a.m....It's going to be an AMAZING day supporting the PAN/PANDAS students and families!! Register/Sponsor/Donate: https://givebutter.com/lookwalk
On Saturday, October 19th at 1pm on the Cape Cod Canal, join the walk to support our Type 1 Diabetic students! Learn more about this and South Shore Action For Hope by clicking here
FOCUS FOR THE YEAR
Our targets for this year are developed from the Strategic Plan and Vision of the Graduate and are informed by on-going data gathering, including my ongoing entry-plan work. As a District, these will be our targets and focus for the year. I realize that this year we will not finish our work in any of these areas, but the goal is to make measurable improvements in all of these areas by the end of the school year.
Family and Community Engagement: All buildings will explore Joyce Epstein’s 6 Dimensions of Family Engagement looking at the communication, community collaboration, learning at home support, parenting support, volunteering, and family input in decision-making in each building.
District and School Culture: Each building will look at the level of voice and choice of staff in each building, types and reasons for celebrations, processes for collaborative decision making, structures for collective responsibilities and governance, and traditions within the school.
Student and Staff Equity Belonging and Wellness: As a district we will be reformulating the Social Emotional Learning, Wellness, and Diversity / Equity / and Inclusion teams as subgroups under one expanded Equity Belonging and Wellness team. This team will include students and families from across the district and will function as ambassadors for the work throughout the district.
Data Driven Decisions: We will continue to build our data structures throughout the district, engage in data dialogues, and analyze and explore data to make needed changes.
Rigorous Curriculum Development: We will be firmly establishing the stages of our district-wide curriculum review cycle and engaging in curriculum adoption, including the new elementary ELA curriculum district-wide.
Financial Stability: We will be looking closely at capital and operational budget priorities and working collaboratively with existing budgets as we firm up our curriculum review cycle.
Efficient and Effective Protocol, Procedure, and System Development (including safety): We will look closely at all our procedures and protocols (at least as many as we can) through a systems thinking lens and make any needed improvements.
Collective Teacher Efficacy (which is another way of saying our ability to work effectively together in teams): This is an important focus for us. Emphasizing the importance of educator collaboration is certainly nothing new; however, through research of John Hattie in New Zealand, we now can confidently say that working well together is the most important initiative in which we can engage to produce strong academic and social emotional achievement for our students. Hattie researched over 1000 meta-analysis, 50,000 quantitative and qualitative student and teacher peer-reviewed research reports, and data covering over 250 Million students world-wide, and found that the largest effect size on student achievement is made through collective teacher efficacy. Schools and districts where educators collaborated best had the highest achievement growth.
Student Voice and Engagement in the Teaching, Learning, and Leading: Also featuring prominently in effect size are strategies that make learning visible and explicit to the students. That brings us to our theme for the year, “Through the Eyes of the Student” and our greatest focus for the year, which is student voice and engagement in the teaching, learning, and leading throughout our schools. There is nothing more paramount and important this year than continuing to foster an environment that places students first and which provides them with a culturally responsive and inclusive environment that promotes student agency and voice.
ELE UPDATE
The first English Learner Parent Advisory Council (ELPAC) informational meeting will be held on October 17th from 6:30-8 at Martinson Elementary School. All are welcome!
EL PAC flyer
The first English Learner Parent Advisory Council (ELPAC) informational meeting will be held on October 17th from 6:30-8 at Martinson Elementary School. All are welcome! Email Kate Lyons Mailloux at kmailloux@mpsd.org for more details.
MHS ATHLETICS
It was another very exciting week in athletics here at Marshfield High School and I’m not just talking about the Northern Lights lighting up the skies around MHS. Eleanor Angeles Whitfield and Graham Heinrich, on the same day, broke the MHS School and Course record in Cross Country. In a big match up with Hingham, Eleanor and Graham took the leads in their races and never looked back. It was a great way for both Seniors to end their last regular season run in the Pitts. The Girls Team would go on and capture their 5th straight Patriot League Title, while the Boys Team lost a close Meet to Hingham.
The highlights continued on the Golf Course as well. Senior Owen McCall hit a Hole in One on the 9th and final hole of his regular season Match against Hanover. It is the first Hole in One hit by an MHS Golfer that we know of in the last 14 years. The Rams went on and won the Match and will now head to the State Tournament next Wednesday. Good luck to Coach Murphy and the Team.
Thank you to the MHS Volleyball Team who hosted their annual Dig Pink Match yesterday against Silver Lake. This yearly tradition raises money and brings awareness to those impacted by Breast Cancer.
The Girls Soccer Team honored their Seniors this week against Plymouth South. The Rams beat P/S and tied a very tough Hingham Team. Kayla DiPasquale, Rowan Malvey and Cam Picard were the goal scores against P/S. Good luck to the Seniors as the finish up the regular season and make a push to the State Tournament.
The Boys Soccer Team also had a big win against Plymouth South. Owen Cregan and Brady Hanson had two goals apiece, while Joe Ciocca, Brendan Kiziuk and Nolan McDonough also chipped in a goal apiece for the Rams in the victory.
Field Hockey had to travel for both their games this week. The Rams were able to take home a 2-0 win over Plymouth-North. Anna Lang and Mae Murphy scored for Marshfield in the victory. The Rams played well but fell in defeat to Hanover on Wednesday.
The Football Team will return to action this week when the travel to Silver Lake for their 1st Patriot League matchup this Friday night. The Rams finished non-league play 3-1 as the head into their League Schedule now.
The MHS Cheerleaders will take part in their 1st Cheer Competition of the season as they travel to Durfee on Sunday. The Cheerleaders will host a Competition later this month (10/27) at MHS.
We hope to see everyone next week at Homecoming beginning on Friday, October 18th with home Volleyball and Field Hockey Games.
PTO UPDATE
SEPAC UPDATE
Save the Date - Navigating Aspen & Canvas for the Caregiver
Thank you to the Special Education Parents' Advisory Council (SEPAC) for their excellent work in supporting Marshfield Families. Here is an upcoming event for all families:
Navigating Aspen & Canvas for the Caregiver
When: Thursday, October 24, 2024, 6:30 pm
Where: MHS Presentation Center
Registration: Here
Learn how to access and get all needed information regarding:
- Daily school work
- Grading & evaluations
- Bus/teacher assignments
- Work flows
- Schedules and more
Presented by the Marshfield Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC).
For over ten years, Marshfield Education Foundation has provided opportunities for enhanced learning by working in partnership with Marshfield’s educators to fund grants that complement the social, emotional and academic development of our students.
As we enter the season of giving, we hope you’ll consider supporting the Marshfield Education Foundation with a donation to our 5th Annual Fall Giving Campaign. Donate Today!
https://givebutter.com/marshfieldfallgiving
Please click on the link to access information regarding the MEF. We are thankful for their amazing support.
AROUND THE DISTRICT
Dear Parents/Guardians,
We are excited to invite you to the 6th Annual Dance Camp hosted by the Marshfield High School Dance Team! This camp will allow your student to experience what it’s like to be an MHS Dancer, learn a fun routine, and perform with us during the halftime show at the Homecoming Football Game.
Camp Details:
- Date: Saturday, October 19th
- Time: 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
- Location: MHS Auditorium
- Participants: Grades K-8
- Cost: $30 (includes snack, t-shirt, & entrance to the game)
Performance Details:
- Game Time: 2:00 PM
- Location: Marshfield High School Football Field
- Admission: Parents/guardians must purchase a ticket to the game to accompany their student. Participating students are free (must wear t-shirt).
- Arrival: All participants must arrive by 2:30 PM at the football field gate closest to the high school, wearing their camp t-shirt.
- Performance: Dancers will perform during halftime. After the performance, they will be escorted back to the same gate for pick-up.
Important Information:
- All dancers must be supervised by a parent or guardian during the game.
- In the event of rain, a special performance will take place at 11:30 AM in the high school auditorium.
- Don’t forget to RSVP by October 10th using the QR code provided!
For any questions or further information, please contact Paula Minchello, Dance Team Coach at pminchello@mpsd.org.
Other Information
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IN THE COMMUNITY
Are you, or someone you know, interested in joining our fantastic team of educators? We would love to add you to our dedicated team of Substitute Teachers. We also have a few ESP, SESP & Tutor positions we are still looking to fill. Click the link(s) below to learn more:
BUS DRIVERS WANTED
IMPORTANT DATES
Oct 14 - Columbus Day (no school)
Oct 17 - ELPAC English Learner Parent Meeting (MES)
Oct 19 - MHS Homecoming
Oct 23 - District Wide Early Release
Oct 24 - SEPAC Navigating Aspen & Canvas for the Caregiver
Nov 3 - Friends of Music Mattress Fundraiser
Nov 5 - No school for students/PD for teachers
Nov 6 - Elementary Conferences (afternoon)
Nov 7 - Elementary Conferences (evening)
Nov 8 - MHS/FBMS Term 1 ends
Nov 11 - Veterans Day (no school)
Nov 15 - MHS/FBMS Report Cards
SCHOOL NEWSLETTERS
MPSD School Committee Meeting
Tuesday, Nov 12, 2024, 06:30 PM
Eames Way School, Eames Way, Marshfield, MA, USA
Contact Information
Email: psullivan@mpsd.org
Website: www.mpsd.org
Location: 76 South River Street, Marshfield MA 02050
Phone: (781) 834-5000