District Newsletter September 2024

~Mission~

We empower our community of learners in a safe and supportive environment to nurture compassion, cultivate curiosity, and inspire innovation.

~Vision~

The Barrington School District strives to be a community learning and growing together; giving students roots and wings.

Hello Barrington Families;

Happy new school year everyone! We are so excited to have all of your kiddos back in our school buildings for this action packed 24/25 school year. It promises to be a busy yet productive one.

In an effort to make the monthly District newsletters a bit more palpable and user friendly I will be pairing many of them with audio and/or video clips so that you may simply listen to my overall message and then go back to the print when time allows. So, take a minute to listen while you are in those drop off and pick up lines or traveling to sports, extracurricular, or family events.

Math and English Language Arts continue to be our main areas of academic focus for this year. We are in year two of our new math program(s) implementation and we are in the pilot year of our English Language Arts program selection which will lead into a year one implementation in the upcoming school year (25/26). A lot of major decisions are being made by these curriculum teams and I thank them for their time and expertise.

September is school attendance month. Your child’s academic and social awareness and integration has its roots in solid school attendance. Please take a moment to thoroughly read this attendance brochure. Did you know that truancy in New Hampshire is defined by 10 half day absences or in other words, missing just 5 days of school? This is how important your child’s attendance is to their overall progress. Just like we all can feel overwhelmed when returning after a short absence from work, students feel the same when trying to get caught up in the classroom. Please keep your children home when they are not feeling well and make every effort to get them to school otherwise.

As we march through the days of September and the weather turns from bright and sunny to chilly and more variable it is essential that we have your current contact information in our system. We use School Messenger through Power School which is our student information system to send out notifications such as these newsletters along with inclement weather notifications. If your phone or email changes during the school year please contact the main office of the school in which your child attends so that this information can be updated. In an upcoming newsletter I will explain in detail how school delays and cancellations are determined. For now, let’s hang on to this beautiful weather for as long as we can!

Parents of 8th graders, please complete this required residency paperwork no later than January 24, 2025. Your child may not have selected a high school yet and that is ok! We do, however, need your residency affidavit and supporting documentation by January 24, 2025. This is a new policy for 8th grade as of last year and remember, this is required each year that your child is enrolled in high school. Given that we pay tuition to three high schools (Dover, Oyster River, Coe Brown) for each enrolled Barrington student, we want to ensure that Barrington taxpayers are only paying for Barrington students. Thank you all for your prompt attention and cooperation in this matter.

Lastly, I would like to continue to inform you and thank you for adhering to the changes that we have made to access to the Elementary and SAU campus via the gate located on Mallego Drive. This gate is now being closed after bus arrival each morning and is remaining closed during the school day. In the upcoming weeks we will initiate the final step of this gate closure by also closing the gate after dismissal thus prohibiting vehicle entrance during the after school or evening hours as well. As a reminder, this entryway was never intended to be a through-way for two way traffic and it is certainly not wide enough to do so safely. Private vehicles may use this access for exiting the property during arrival and dismissal times only. This access is not to be used as an entry point for private vehicles at any time. Please use the main entrance on Route 125. Buses and Emergency vehicles only may use this access for entry. We are working on updated signage to more clearly communicate these traffic control patterns.

Thank you all for partnering with us and for demonstrating such support and interest in your child’s education.

Respectfully,

Deannah Rae

Superintendent

drae@sau74.org

Good Afternoon Barrington Families,

Welcome Back!! We had an exciting summer with both the STEM and Nature Camps. Our theme this year was The Science of Super Powers where students learned about engineering and the design process to develop prototypes, hands-on building projects, use concepts of math, and collaborate in teams...all while having great fun! We also partnered with the Four Winds Nature Institute to host a Nature Play Exploration Camp this summer. The students were able to play and explore the nature areas around BES rain or shine! A HUGE thank you to Tracy Ramsey and Karly Wilcox for spearheading Nature Camp this year and to the STEM Camp Team: Ms. Arroyo, Ms. Halla, Ms. Ludwig, Ms. Maziarz, Ms. Proulx, Ms. Storie, and Ms. Tessier...amazing teams!

We are excited to announce this year we are piloting two ELA programs, Imagine Learning and Into Reading/Into Literature. The ELA Committee has been meeting since the fall of 2022 to research and develop an understanding of the Science of Reading and be able to responsibly choose programming that meets the requirements of the Science of Reading as well as our needs as a District. If you would like more information on our pilots, please check out the links below.

September is Attendance Awareness Month for schools...Help us celebrate!!

Attendance is a key factor in a child's academic success, and it is important to build a strong foundation early for learning later in life. Students who attend school regularly achieve higher academic levels and develop stronger positive peer relationships. Please read the article below from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) regarding the importance of school attendance. We want to see all your children's smiling faces each day at school, let's work together to make this happen!

Take care,

Sarah E. Rollins, PhD

Curriculum Coordinator

srollins@sau74.org

Katie Kukesh

Director of Student Services

kkukesh@sau74.org

Hello Barrington Families.

I want to take the opportunity with our first newsletter of the school year to review our technology goals and objectives for the coming year.

Technology initiatives for the 24/25 school year

Redefining Tech Integrator role to include Systems Administration functions

My future planning includes adding a full time Systems Administrator as well as a full time classroom Technology Integrator. Our goal for the coming school year is to work toward that vision by adding additional capacity and skill set in those two important areas.

Technology Infrastructure Improvements

We also have a multi-year plan to refresh our technology Infrastructure and improve our software systems to make learning the best it can be. These are the areas of Technology Infrastructure that we will be focusing on this year:

• Classroom Projector Upgrades - Begin 9 year refresh cycle.
• Begin to replace teacher Macbooks with Chromebooks - Phase 1
• PowerSchool Performance Matters Early Warning System - Phase 1
• Implement PowerSchool Perform - Phase 1
• Pickup Patrol integration with Powerschool
• More Clever training/Standardize on it as an SSO solution.

Data Governance

And finally, our Data Governance planning for this year includes:

• Formalize software approval/procurement process
• Continue Formalizing the Data Governance Procedures - Phase 2
• Multi-Factor Authentication - Phase 2 - District Admin Staff

To learn (much) more about the BSD Five Year plan, visit the link on the District Web site.

Jeff DeLangie Sr.

Director of Technology

jdelangie@sau74.org

Hello Barrington Families,

Wow! What a summer. The weather has cooperated right through the month of September. We have been able to accomplish so much over the last couple of months. Everything from a new face lift in the front foyer of BES, paving sidewalks at the ECLC and BMS, taking down dead trees and limbs at the ECLC, to all of the summer cleaning, waxing, and readiness for teachers to access their classrooms.

I would like to thank the custodial and maintenance staff for all of the dedication and hard work over the summer months. Moving forward we are hoping to get a new BMS sign by the road, so when you see the old one being removed, please don’t worry there will be a new one incorporated with the old one going back in. I hope everyone likes what was done over the summer and look forward to a great school year.

Best,

Joe Williams

Facilities Manager

jwilliams@sau74.org

Hello Barrington Families,

It has been a delight to welcome learners back to school over the last several weeks! We are pleased to see students arriving on time each morning, and we truly appreciate the collaborative efforts of parents, guardians, and our amazing bus drivers in making that happen.

September is a perfect time to speak with your student about safety on the school bus and at the bus stop. Together, we can equip our learners to make good choices and travel to and from school safely!

We are actively working with the management teams at Dail Transportation and Student Transportation of America to reduce the length of our afternoon routes and create contingency plans that address driver shortages that better serve our community. We greatly appreciate the patience, understanding, and support of the Barrington Community during this time.

On a personal note, I want to express my gratitude for the warm welcome I've received in both the Barrington School District and the Barrington Community, I’m thrilled to be here!

Warmly,

Brigid Connelly

Operations Manager

bconnelly@sau74.org

Greetings Barrington Families,

The following is the Breakfast, Lunch and Milk cost for the 2024-2025 school year:

Breakfast:

$2.00 Regular

Reduced rate- Free

Lunch:

$3.25 Regular

$.40 Reduced rate

Milk:

$.65

Best,

Sue Williams

Food Service Director

Fresh Picks Cafe

Barrington School District SAU74

Barrington@FreshPicksCafe.com

www.freshpickscafe.com