It is hard to believe that we are heading into our last few days of school. We've had many celebrations and end of year activities over the past weeks. This week we had 11 Byam athletes and partners join 98 district wide participants compete in Chelmsford's Special Olympics on Tuesday. It was a great event and a huge success for the Chelmsford Public Schools. We moved our field day from Thursday to Friday and were treated to fantastic weather and a action-packed day of field events. Thank you very much to all of our volunteers who made this day possible. Next week our 4th graders will have their celebration day on Monday. We are looking forward to sending them off in style as they move to middle school next year. On Tuesday we will be celebrating our accomplishment of receiving over 5000 roars over the school year. During lunches each grade level will have our Byam Block Party where students get to eat lunch outside, listen to music, play yard games, decorate our sidewalk and blow bubbles. On Wednesday, we will have our traditional clap out celebration to close out the school year.

As this school year comes to a close, we want to express our sincere gratitude for a great year and our continued partnership wit our Byam community. We wish everyone a wonderful summer and we will see you in the Fall for the 2024-25 school year.

A reminder the last day of school is Wednesday June 12th, an early release day. Dismissal on Wednesday is 11:45 am. Also a reminder the first day of school for our 2024-2025 school year is August 27th for grades 1-9 only, that same day on August 27th is the district wide Kindergarten short visit orientation in Kindergarten classrooms, and All students Preschool through Grade 12 are back at school on August 28th. Below is a four month snap shot of the academic calendar. The complete 2024-2025 calendar is at the end of this newsletter.

Families will receive classroom/teacher placement information via email and US mail at the end of June. We will also send out communications throughout the summer regarding any transition events.

We currently have 146 responses to our family survey! Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the family survey. We are so proud of the support our families share with our staff and students. We know we can reach an even better percentage of family respondents! So we need your help! If you have not completed the family survey, please share your feedback. The survey is anonymous and closes at the end of next week on Friday June 14th. We want to hear from you! Thank you again in advance for offering your feedback on what is going well and what we can improve on here at Byam School for our students and families.

Family Survey Link Click Here: https://surveys.panoramaed.com/chelmsfordma/family24/surveys

If you have multiple CPS school-aged children, please feel free to fill out multiple surveys to represent each individual child’s experience. The first question on the survey will be a dropdown to select which school you are filling the survey out for.

We thank you in advance for your thoughtful responses. If you have any questions about the survey administration, please don’t hesitate to contact us, your building Principals.

If you're reading this newsletter from your computer, you can use the below QR code with your Iphone or Android to easily complete this short family survey as well! QR Code below.

Our fourth graders will be celebrating at school with a schedule of events on Monday June 10th. Thank you to all our Byam parents on the fourth grade celebration committee who organized and planned this upcoming event! Our fourth graders are so excited!

We are so proud of all our fourth graders and can't wait for them continue their 3R's and peer relationships in middle school. We look forward to seeing them again at our Boo Bash and Walkathon and all community opportunities in between!

Thank you to our P.E. teacher Ms. Quinn for all her hard work planning and organizing our Byam field day, and thank you to all our parent volunteers who volunteered to help on Friday. Field Day can not be a success without all of our parent volunteers helping, and P.E. teacher Ms. Quinn and all of us here at Byam are truly appreciative!

Congratulations Byam School on an AMAZING job returning your library books!! I am proud to share that we circulated 20,309 books this school year, and thanks to YOU, almost every one of them was returned in excellent condition. We're down to the last 2 books to be returned or paid for. That's TWO BOOKS, or .0001% of the books that were checked out this year! That's an incredible statistic. No other school in town comes close!

Over the summer, I hope that you will visit the Chelmsford Public Library frequently to borrow books and other materials (ask your children to tell you about Playaways, Wonder Books and the Library of Things!) Also, there are MANY fun programs and activities, including the Summer Reading Challenge, and ALL of it is FREE.

Thank you for being so supportive of the Byam School Library. I deeply appreciate your donations through the BSA for replacement books and beanbag chairs, book donations for our prize cart, and over 100 library class volunteers! Watch for my communication in the fall for ways you can continue to participate. And as always, I'm happy for you to email me at driscollb@chelmsford.k12.ma.us with any questions you have about our library. Have a great summer!

Betsey C. Driscoll

Byam School Librarian

Pick Up of Medications

All medications need to be picked up from the Nurse’s Office by a parent/guardian or other responsible adult on the last day of school, Wednesday, June 12, between 8:30am – 11:30am, and 12:30-3:00pm. Items not picked up by 3:00pm on Wednesday, June 12 will be disposed of per district policy.

Asthma, Diabetes, Allergy, Seizure (and Other) Health Plans with Medication Requirements

If your child has asthma, diabetes, allergy which requires epinephrine, seizure, or other medical condition that requires special care or medication, each school year the condition related health form must be completed and returned to the health office by the first day of school.

Forms may be found on the school website under Department “Health Services” then “Health Forms.” Medication for school use must be turned in to the health office by a parent or responsible adult and not by your child. Please make sure all forms are completed, front and back sides. If you have any questions, please contact the nurse during school hours.

A Message for current Grade 2 Parents

In accordance with Massachusetts General Law (Chapter 71, section 57) and related amendments and regulations (105 CMR 200.000-200.920), Chelmsford requires all 3rd grade students to have a current physical on file in our health office. Please keep this in mind when making appointments over the summer for physicals.

Incoming 3rd graders should have a physical dated January 2024 to December 2024 and a copy submitted to the health office by December 2024.

Byam seniors and staff had a wonderful time connecting at the first Byam Senior Breakfast this past Tuesday morning. Thank you to our BSA for sponsoring and for the many senior and senior parent volunteers who organized a great event!

Dear Parents and Guardians,

School bus registration for the 2024-25 school year is underway. We need to begin to collect data on K-12 riders for the fall, so efficient routes may be developed for the start of the school year.

An “early bird” payment discount is available for registrations completed by June 30, 2024. Information pertaining to school bus transportation may be found on the Chelmsford Public Schools website at the following link: https://www.chelmsford.k12.ma.us/domain/90.

Also, please see the attached flyer and registration directions for more details. It is very important that every student is registered to ride the bus regardless of if there is a fee. Registering now allows the transportation department to begin building routes for optimum efficiency, and if you are required to pay a fee it saves you money by registering early.

A few reminders about student transportation:

• ALL K-12 STUDENTS who desire to ride the school bus to or from school MUST REGISTER EVERY YEAR, even if they are not required to pay a fee.
• ALL REGISTRATIONS AND PAYMENTS are processed ON-LINE using MySchoolBucks
• When registering, each student must be entered separately in MySchoolBucks. This means for families with more than one child riding the bus, a registration must be completed for each child.
• MySchoolBucks will provide assistance for using their on-line registration system if needed during the registration process. MySchoolBucks may be reached directly at (855) 832-5226.

REGISTRATION PROCESS

You will need to look up each student in MySchoolBucks and add each student to your account. Looking each student up will require name and LASID or birthdate. Each student must be registered separately. New students to the district please allow 24 hours prior to registering on MySchoolBucks.

A Big Shout out to all our staff who planned and helped organize Unified Game Day, and to all our students who participated in the Unified Games Day event at McCarthy School.

Thank you to our 4th Grade Families for their fourth grade gift to Byam...a Byam Buddy Bench! The bench was gifted in memory of our wonderful recess lunch aide Emily Dilworth. A second buddy bench will be installed soon that was gifted to Byam from the Joseph Middlemiss Big Heart Foundation.

Care Solace has created and shared a family summer newsletter, below as a PDF.

We're looking for another great person to join our Byam recess lunch aide team! We provide the training, position is 3 hours a day, 10:50 am to 1:50 pm. Call Byam office for more information!

Link for more information and to apply online below:

https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=e2ca549a4421b486&utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

We are looking forward to another great year in 2024-2025! For those interested and able to substitute as a paraprofessional or substitute teacher intermittently, please contact Betsy Dolan for more information.

Our 4th graders hosted Byam's annual "States Festival" on Wednesday. The students displayed their knowledge of their adopted state and acted as tour guides as they brought families on a trip across America. They also performed some songs to highlight all they've learned.

NRT has continued to seek bus drivers to fill vacancies, if you or someone you know would be interested in finding out more about being a Bus Driver for Byam School and other schools in CPS please contact NRT at below information.

https://gobeacon.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/beaconmobilitycareers/details/School-Bus-Driver--Paid-Training----Chelmsford--MA_REQ-2023-942?hiringCompany=75ac96f70b89010c2b7e649c4e6d0000

• 8/28/24: Back to School Social 5:30-7:30PM
  

No-cost Registration for Byam Events:

*Financial concerns should never stand in the way of families participating in school events. If you are interested in any Byam activities please contact Lyndsey O’Neil, our school counselor, to register at no cost: oneill@chelmsford.k12.ma.us

Want to get involved? BSA Help Needed

Here are some openings the BSA is currently seeking help on, reach out the bsa.chelmsford@gmail.com if you are interested in any of these positions!

Stay Connected to the Byam School Association, Click on the live links below for more...

Please keep in mind the district School Wide Lunch calendar options are subject to change based on availability. The link is below.

https://chelmsfordschools.org/

2024-2025 School Wide Academic Calendar

2024-2025 School Year Dates and Times

Office: Secretary Dossin dossina@chelmsford.k12.ma.us

Clerk/Attendance: murphys@chelmsford.k12.ma.us

Assistant Principal Dolan dolane@chelmsford.k12.ma.us

Website: https://byam.chelmsfordschools.org/about/
Location: 25 Maple Road, Chelmsford, MA, USA
Phone: 978-251-5144