Amesbury Public Schools Update

Happy Summer! It sure has arrived! What fabulous weather we are enjoying this week!

I cannot be believe that another year has come and gone. This year, especially the end of the year, absolutely flew by. There were so many celebrations this month that highlighted and recognized the successes of our students. I hope that you were able to enjoy some of them.

At Monday's School Committee Meeting, the members of the School Committee voted on a new amount for the FY25 budget. As you may or may not recall, the School Committee voted on a budget that was higher than what the Mayor had recommended based on the city's available funding. At the June 11th City Council meeting, the City Council voted to support the amount allocated by the Mayor to the schools. Upon receiving this confirmation, we delivered official notification to those staff members impacted by this budget reduction. I have included the link to a presentation that summarizes the impact. On the positive side of things, there was an adjustment made to the cost of heating that allowed us to maintain a few of the positions that the School Committee added back. This information is included in the same presentation.

This summer our district and building level teams will be working hard to prepare for the upcoming school year. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Have a great summer,

Elizabeth McAndrews

Superintendent

During the summer, each school building will be open on Monday through Thursday from 8 am to 2 pm. The exception to this is Thursday, July 4th, a day on which all schools will be closed to celebrate Independence Day.

This year has been a year that involved a significant amount of change. The opening of Shay was something for which we planned for many years and about which we were (and are) very excited. A move of this magnitude was not without some unintended impact. For that purpose, we have created a transition survey which many of you have already completed. However, if you had a child that was in grade K through 5 this year, and you have NOT already completed the survey, please consider completing the survey to help us learn from this process. In addition, if you are a parent of an 8th grade student who is NOT going to attend Amesbury High School next year, there is an exit survey that we would love for you to complete as well. A huge thank you to those who have already completed it. Finally, there are two separate surveys for families who have choiced OUT of and choiced IN to our district. Here, too, families have already completed the surveys. If you have not, please do. Also, feel free to share with a family if you know that they have already choiced OUT and are no longer on our communications list.

Thank you in advance for your assistance with this!

Reconfiguration/Transition Survey - for families who had students in K-5 this past school year (23-24)

Exit Survey - for families who had students in grade 8 this year and are not coming to AHS

Choice OUT - for families who live in Amesbury and have decided to have a child/ren attend a different PUBLIC school

Choice IN - for families who do not live in Amesbury and have decided to have a child/ren attend Amesbury Public Schools.

Again, thank your for your help with this! It will help us to improve!

• Bus registration deadline is July 15, 2024

• To prevent bus overcrowding, bus routes are determined by your home address. All riders must ride on their home bus route. Early registration is essential to determine bus routes. Routes are created based on registrations received by the deadline. Late registrations result in potential bus overcrowding and routes needing to be redone which could result in your student needing to be switched to a different bus.

• Bus routes produced by Salter Transportation will be published in August.

• 2 mile distance eligibility (free) will be verified by Google Maps Walking Distance. ONLY STUDENTS IN Kindergarten through Grade 6 can potentially qualify for this eligibility.

• Free/reduced eligibility will be verified prior to a bus pass being issued.

• No passes will be issued until payment is received OR free category is verified.

• Past due owed: No student will be issued a 24-25 bus pass if there is an outstanding balance from the previous school year.

• Starting October 1st, ALL STUDENTS must have a current year bus pass to ride the bus.

Please take a moment to review the information about reductions and next year's budget and staffing. This presentation was shared at the June 24th School Committee meeting should you want to listen to this portion of the meeting.

At Monday's School Committee meeting, Holly Cole, MTSS Coordinator and Dyslexia Specialist, delivered a data filled presentation that highlighted the incredible progress that was made over this year and from last spring to this spring. Several individuals contributed the data that was used in this presentation. Those individuals include Literacy Coach Lisa Dupere, STEM Coach Jenn Donais, and Math Interventionist Beth Cavalier. The data is incredible and if you want to watch the presentation, you can do so once it is posted on ACTV. Please use this link to access the 6/24/24 School Committee video.

Over the course of this year, a group of teachers in grades K-4 volunteered to participate in a pilot program to test out four different math programs to determine which we would adopt as our core math curriculum. Currently, we us Go Math in these grade levels. The design of math curricula has evolved a lot over the past few years focusing more on conceptual understanding. To that end, we explored core curriculum (Tier 1) from four different sources:

Eureka Squared

Imagine Learning

Into Math

Amplify/Desmos

In short, we are very excited to begin the implementation process for Amplify/Desmos at the start of this upcoming school year. We will be making a presentation to the School Committee for the August 3rd meeting where we will explain the entire process as well as why we selected the program that we did.

This summer, we will be working on the creation of a new website for the district. There will be many new features and it will increase the ease of accessibility for all. It is my intention to offer opportunities for members of our community to provide feedback both on how the website will be organized as well as what content they would like to see on it. Please look for notifications about these opportunities a little bit later in the summer.

At Monday's School Committee meeting, 10 retirees were recognized. Please join me in celebrating the more than 216 years of experience of:

Hope Abramson - AMS ELA Teacher - 30 years of service

Peg Crissinger - AES/Shay Librarian/Paraprofessional - 8 years of service

Mary Ellen Graff - AES/Shay Pre-K Teacher - 25 years of service

Sheila Harney - AES/AMS/ and CES Teacher - 16 years of service

Catherine Hill - AMS Math Teacher - 23 years of service

Karen Myszkowski - AES/AMS/AIHS/Central Office Secretary - 34 years of service

Dawn Pelletier - AES/Shay Paraprofessional - 13 years of service

Kathleen Scott - AHS/AMS Counselor - 22 years of service

Geralyn Willett - AES/Shay Paraprofessional - 13 years of service

MaryAnn Wilson - AMS/AHS EL Teacher - 9 years of service

A huge thank you for each of them and best wishes to all!

On Friday, June 14th, 14th AIHS Seniors graduated. It was a wonderfully intimate ceremony that was well attended by family, friends, city dignitaries and school personnel. The evening was a celebration of all the different achievements and pathways that the graduates will take.

The Amesbury High School Interact Club attended a June Rotary meeting where they ran the entire meeting. Also at this meeting, the Rotary Scholarship winners and the valedictorian and salutatorian were recognized.

As you may be aware, Dr. Lynn Catarius will end her time in Amesbury on August 1, 2024. The position of the Director of Student Services is one that the School Committee hires. We had conducted two rounds of interviews to find a candidate that we could recommend to the School Committee for consideration. Prior to that happening, our candidate withdrew her candidacy for the position. While the School Committee will set a date for a meeting in July to discuss the next steps in this process, we have posted for an Interim Director of Student Services on School Spring and Indeed and I have reached out to the other Superintendents on my listserv to see if they can suggest anyone. I have received a couple of leads that I am in the process of tracking down. Please stay tuned for next steps in this process.

A small group of Amesbury educators, headed by Jenn Hawrylciw and Becky Reese wrote and received an AEFI Grant to build a fully accessible access point from the SGT. Jordan Shay Memorial Lower Elementary School to the Woodsom fields. It is a beautiful addition to the Shay campus and a wonderful tribute to Peter Hoyt who has given so much the Amesbury Public Schools and to Amesbury itself.