Weekly Update
Monday, November 18-Regular School Day
Tuesday, November 19-Regular School Day
New Teacher Check In meeting with Kristen
Wednesday, November 20-Regular School Day
Thursday, November 21-Regular School Day
Friday, November 22-Wear jeans and your Gator Gear!
Saturday, November 23: Littleville Craft Fair
NHS Boot Drive
*Required Mandated Training-Please complete ASAP*
Every three years, we must comply with an audit from DESE for different programs in our district. These audits are called "Tiered Focus Monitoring" or TFMs. The TFM requires us to meet different criteria, and if we don't meet the criteria, we are given an improvement plan where we need to do reports on a regular basis to show we are making adjustments to comply with the criteria.
One area we did not complete fully is a special education training for the full staff at the start of the school year. This will be added to our mandated trainings.
To comply with the requirement for this year, please review the attached slide deck and complete this google form by November 18 to indicate that you understand the contents of the presentation. Kurt Garivaltis, Chris Tamburrino and Steph Conway are available to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you!
Unwanted solicitors/scammers
The district received notified that there are people visiting sites in Massachusetts, falsely claiming they are representatives of the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company (BMLIC).
The district does use the services of BMLIC, however they typically notify their clients in advance of any site visits.
If someone visits our buildings claiming they are representative of the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company, Ms Kuhn asks that you do not let them in the building, and contact her directly at x1014 to determine if they have a pre-scheduled appointment.
Teacher of Excellence Grinspoon Award Nomination
It is a pleasure to work in a district that has amazing educators at every level.
The Harold Grinspoon Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award is an opportunity to honor one Gateway Regional staff member for making a difference to our students. The award winner gets a number of fantastic prizes, but most importantly the public honor of being recognize for the hard work they do. Criteria is determined by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation.
Nominee must:
- Be certified by the state of Massachusetts as a teacher
- Be currently employed as a full time teacher in a PreK-12 school
- Spend the majority of their school day in direction instruction of students
- Rating at least Proficient in most recent evaluation (don't worry about checking this)
Nominees Additional Criteria:
- Utilize excellent teaching practices
- Be effective and creative
- Have a profound impact on students
- Support and positively impact other teachers' practices
- Participate in professional development
- Have evidence of going above and beyond in the classroom and school community
Please nominate a teacher who you believe meets this criteria. Nomination forms should be submitted no later than December 20, 2024. Winners will be announced in late January/early February of 2025.
Please complete this nomination form.
Past winners are not eligible to win again (even though they are amazing), and they are:
2005 Cathy Servaes, Dawne Piers-Gamble
2006 Cyndi Jensen, Sue Luppino, Bill McVeigh
2007 Ashley Brogan, Mary Jo Bender, Linda Stephens
2008 Melissa McCaul, Joyce Hanousek, Joe Hough
2009 Lane Meskevich, Heather Cabral, Diane Uliana
2010 Tim Tichacek, Elaine Zimmerman, Paul Sawyer
2011 Jen DalyLynn Gebo, Cheryl Wright
2012- Terriann Emerson, Eileen Kos, Marilyn Durken
2013 Susan Rhoads, Avery (Lavigueur) Wing, Gail Gingras
2014 Jess Rida, Sheila Green, Kristin Baker
2015Asher Rotenberg, Emily MacDonald, Steven Andrews
2016 Rodney Kleber
2017Daniel Shea
2018Denae Dostal
2019Taylor Simpson
2020Kristina Schultz
2021Rachel Millin
2022-off year
2023-Jenna Kakimoto
2024-off year
2025-TBD!
District Data for your review
I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.
I have been asked about the district's federal grant allocations that are used to support our budget. These are our entitlement grants and the amounts we received this year--in other words, we can count on them year to year because of our demographic information (other grant are competitive grants that we can't count on).
Here are the total amounts for our federal entitlement grants:
IDEA (Special Education) $313,693
Early Childhood $13,515
Title I $332,557
Title IIA $23,252
Title IV $25,058
These grants have strict guidelines regarding what we can spend the funds on, and we currently allocate these grants to expenditures including staffing, professional development, meeting our obligation to provide homeless students transportation, supplies and stipends.
Barr Foundation Work: School Updates
Gateway Regional
The Gateway Regional group has developed a 6-12 plan of student learning experiences that will help to prepare students for life after high school, including educational opportunities, career interests, and planning. Some of these experiences will be piloted during this school year, while others will kick off next school year. The current plan includes:
Grade 6: Welcome to Gateway (learn about school opportunities, visit communities)
Grade 7: Team-building activities
Grade 8: Explore options - visit community colleges, learn about high school programs
Grade 9: Career exploration - experts from different fields present hands-on workshops
Grade 10: Visit 4 year colleges
Grade 11: Go to a local college fair, learn about life skills
Grade 12: Senior celebration (banquet), students lead activities with younger groups
Littleville
The Littleville team has been working on a number of different experiences, including both school-wide projects and single-grade events. These include:
Grades 3-5 will participate in a Hartford Wolf Pack School Learning Day on Nov. 19 to apply their understanding of physical science to a fun, real-world setting.
Kindergarten students are participating in a String Instrument Workshop with Daniel Rose and members of the Springfield Orchestra on Nov. 15.
An “Author’s Experience” will take place on March 24th involving students in grades K-5.
https://authorvisitsandassemblies.godaddysites.com/daryl-cobb
There are plans in the works to match high school students with elementary students for mentoring and support which will be an exciting, multi-year endeavor.
As always, Littleville continues to host their annual Holiday Craft Fair, this year on Nov. 23. Student vendors and artisans from GRS will be presenting some of their fantastic crafts and goods!
Chester
The Chester team is working on a number of school-wide projects, including:
Trout program - A tank and chiller were borrowed from Mass Wildlife. Trout will be raised in this tank (located in the math intervention room) and later released into the river. Westfield River Watershed Association is reimbursing us for the other equipment and supplies. All grade levels will be invited to participate.
Composting program - Chester is starting a composting program. Composting bins are being placed in each classroom and students are learning how to compost.
Media Club - The group is developing a plan for a media club.
Willy Wonka play - 5th grade will put it on, with assistance from 4th grade
Science night - Whalemobile
District-Wide
A process is being developed to coordinate with individual grades on planning events. Staff members are encouraged to share great ideas for Barr funds for projects.
Instructional Vision Challenge! (Yes, there are prizes!)
Starting in November, the district will be inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the first two bullets in the instructional vision are:
- Gateway students will engage in their school community.
- Gateway staff will know and reach every student.
Staff are invited to fill out a brief (2-3 sentences!) summary of how you are implementing this part of our vision. It can be specific or general, and it should clearly describe how your actions are moving this part of our instructional vision forward.
Here is the link to share!
https://padlet.com/ksmidy1/november-instructional-vision-fgh330en8pjf38o4
To add to the board, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner and write in your submission. Finally, hit Publish and voila! You're done!
Staff who share how they are implementing or supporting implementation of November's focus area of the instructional vision by November 30 will be entered to win a $50 gift card to one of the following locations: Carms, Common Table, Moltenbreys, Amazon, Big Y, Dunkin or at a place of your choice that I can get a gift card with relative ease 😂
Skills USA Community Service
The 24th-25th of this month is the SkillsUSA Fall State Leadership Conference. This year the SkillsUSA community service project is partnering with the "Haulin' for Hunger" food drive and they are asking that we participate by bringing Ramen Noodles and packages of new children's socks with us when we go to the conference. If anyone can contribute by donating these items to the SkillsUSA students in EEC it would be greatly appreciated! We will be collecting between November 15th and November 22nd. If you are able to donate any of these items, you can give them to Mrs. Bartolo(SkillsUSA Advisor), Addison Green(SkillsUSA Secretary), or Leah Fulton(SkillsUSA Community Service Coordinator).
Thank you for your consideration!
Leah Fulton, Community Service Coordinator
