Butler School District

As we approach the end of the summer, I am excited to welcome back all of our students and staff members for the '22-'23 school year! We have been busy over the summer preparing for everyone's return, and we know that this is going to be a great year. This newsletter includes pertinent information regarding the start of the year, along with updates on exciting points of pride. Communication from your child's principal(s) will be coming out tomorrow, August 19th.

See everyone soon!

Dr. J.

We are excited to welcome new staff members to the Bulldog family. Please join me in welcoming the following individuals:

Aaron Decker Elementary School

• Ms. D. Ventrella - Media Specialist
• Ms. A. Kenny - 2nd Grade Teacher
• Ms. A. Economou - 1st Grade Maternity Leave Teacher
• Ms. L. Faust - 4th Grade Maternity Leave Teacher
• Ms. C. Goldsmith - World Languages Teacher
• Ms. J. Amato - Gifted and Talented Teacher/Interventionist
• Ms. A. Balistreri - Special Education Teacher

Richard Butler Middle School

• Ms. E. Fellman - Special Education Teacher
• Ms. K. Murphy - Health and Physical Education Teacher
• Ms. S. Quinn - English/Language Arts Teacher
• Ms. E. Vanderhoff - School Nurse
• Mr. T. Wheelwright - Social Studies Teacher
• Ms. E. Young - School Counselor
• Ms. L. Boscarino - Social Studies Teacher

Butler High School

• Ms. A. Phillips - Math Teacher
• Ms. D. Matias - School Psychologist

As you prepare for the start of the school year, you will once again be asked to review and acknowledge a variety of information within our Parent Portal. Included in this:

• The Butler School District's Acceptable Use Policy
• The Butler School District's Technology Agreement
• The Butler School District's Chrome Device Insurance Program
• The Butler School District's Media Consent Form
• Your child's school(s) Student Handbook/Code of Conduct
• The Butler School District's Meal Application

The above will assist our learning community in reviewing how to partner with our district to help ensure the success of our programs and your children. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this important part of starting the new school year.

The Butler School District will open the new school year following the COVID protocols that we used at the end of last school year. To review:

• Masks will be optional for students/staff. We will continue to work with all within our schools to respect the individuality of choice for all members of the Bulldog Family;
• If a member of our school community tests positive, they will be asked to remain home for five (5) days from the positive test. During this time, students should work through their Google Classroom to remain up-to-date on work. They will then have the opportunity to attend academic assistance and/or the Bulldog Hour program for assistance.
• Upon return, we recommend that the individual who tested positive wears a mask for 5 days;
• We will continue with our daily/weekly cleaning protocols within all schools.

We thank you for all of your help and understanding over the past two years as we worked through the pandemic. We look forward to continuing this partnership throughout the upcoming year.

We are excited to share some of the upgrades that we have worked on over the summer months.

We are excited to share the video above highlighting our Memorial Field project. As Bulldogs, we are proud of the Blue and the Gold, and we believe that our new field complex demonstrates this pride. We are excited to be able to bring this to our community, as we know that it will benefit our students in a variety of ways. We are also excited to share that we will officially open the field with a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on September 17th with a ceremony prior to our football game vs. St. Mary's. We invited everyone to come to this celebration!

We have also worked to completed HVAC projects at both ADS and BHS. This was an initiative that we started two years ago, and we are committed to fulfilling 6-10 classroom projects each year.

We have worked to update the Mission Honor Monument at BHS over the summer. In this, we have relaid the pavers, adjusted the flags and added lights, and we have mounted a new sign. We are proud of our town's strong pride for our Veterans, and we look forward to this monument remaining a prominent part of our high school campus.

We are proud to have partnered with the BBEA to complete the construction of a Robotics Lab at BHS. The BBEA has worked over the past five years to help Butler create a K-12 Computer Science and Coding program, allowing our students to experience a variety of coding and engineering opportunities throughout their time in our district. The BBEA first assisted us by granting monies to build the MakerSpace at ADS. Next, through the generosity of the BBEA and the McGoldrick Family, we constructed the McGoldrick ThinkCentre at RBS. The Robotics Lab is the last piece, completing the facility upgrades necessary to allow this program to match and exceed any other program in the State of New Jersey.

We have also completed a number of technology upgrades in our district. While these may not be as visible as the other facility upgrades, they have worked to solidify our backbone for tech in our District. These efforts included a complete upgrade to our infrastructure, our cabling, our back-up to the systems, and moved to a more secure cloud network. Through this, the internet for our students and staff will be more secure and reliable.

• September 6 - First Day of School - Welcome Back!
• September 7 - BHS Fall Tailgate and Pep Rally
• September 10 - ACT Testing at BHS
• September 15 - BHS Back to School Night @ 6:30 pm
• September 17 - Memorial Field Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
• September 19-23 - NJDOE Start Strong Assessment
• September 20 - BHS 9th and 12th Grade Parent Night
• September 21 - RBS Back to School Night @ 6:30pm
• September 22 - ADS Back to School Night @ 6:30pm
• September 22/23 - BHS Picture Day
• September 27 - RBS Picture Day
• September 29 - Hall of Honor Dinner and Ceremony