Friday, January 18, 2019

January 18, 2019 - Week 20

Greeting Dale Street Community! 


Bravo to the Dale Street Bands!  On Tuesday our fourth and fifth grades bands performed for their family and guests.  The music was outstanding and all of the attendees enjoyed the performance.  Thank you to Mr. Dexter and Mr. Murphy for their outstanding leadership.






On a visit to Ms. Hayes' fourth grade classroom this week, students created "lunch boxes" to gain a deeper understanding of open and closed circuits.  What a fun way to learn science!  


 



Last October, a creative writing contest, “Spooky Sagas” was posted in the cafeteria. Several Dale Street students chose to participate and submitted their 100-word mini saga to Jennifer Bassett, one of our reading specialists. Students used their writing powers to create a spine-tingling tale that used atmosphere and suspense. From things that go bump in the night to Halloween pranks, these students’ stories truly tapped into their imaginations. We recently received word from the Young Writers group that these students' entries were chosen for publication in Spooky Sagas-Massachusetts Stories! Congratulations!


Thank you to Casey in Mrs. Ross' fourth classroom for sharing his report about cats with his class this week. He did an excellent job!





Are you looking for a way to give back to Medfield public schools? Consider joining Medfield Coalition for Public Education (MCPE). In 2019, MCPE is particularly seeking individuals with accounting or graphic design experience, however ALL skill sets are welcome. We're looking for candidates who can commit to a 3 year term, attend Board meetings once a month and have an active interest in enriching their kids' education in Medfield Schools. Go to https://www.medfieldcoalition.org/volunteer-application-form for more information, or to apply today!

Save the Date!

February 6th 9:00-11:00 am
Wheelock School Cafeteria


A Presentation by Jessica Minahan


On February 6th, Jessica Minahan will visit Medfield Public Schools. In the morning, Jessica will present to parents on student anxiety and stress. She will present to elementary teachers later in the day.


Jessica Minahan is a licensed and board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA), author, special educator, and consultant to schools internationally.  Since 2000 she has worked with students who struggle with mental health issues and challenging behavior in public school systems.  She specializes in training staff and creating behavior intervention plans for students who demonstrate explosive and unsafe behavior. She also works with students who have emotional and behavioral disabilities, anxiety disorders, or high-functioning Autism. Her particular interest is to serve these students by combining behavioral interventions with a comprehensive knowledge of best practices for those with complex mental health profiles and learning needs.


Jessica Minahan is brought to Medfield through an MCPE grant and a donation from Medfield Talks. Thank you!
We look forward to working with Jessica Minahan and hope you are able to attend.
Jessica’s book, The Behavior Code will be available for purchase at Park Street Books.


Thanks to Cullen in Mrs. Dowd's class for reading today's book recommendation.  Cullen recommended Zero by Kathryn Otoshi, for "someone who has trouble being themselves."  Cullen rated this book '5 stars!'  Thanks Cullen!



Check out this week's PTO update.  Next PTO meeting will be held at Dale St on March 6 at 7pm in the Dale St School library.


It’s time to purchase your 5th grade yearbook! Click here to order. 

Congratulations and amazing job to the 4th and 5th grade chorus!  On Thursday, these students performed at the high school for their families and guests.  Their performance was fantastic! Thank you to Ms. Oxholm for her outstanding leadership with the Dale Street chorus and Mrs. Stover for all of her help.



Check this out......students in Ms. Bertschmann's fifth grade classroom continued to be innovative.  This week a group of students transferred the traditional "Guess Who" board game into a "Guess the Fraction" board game.  Wonderful creativity - great to see! 




SAVE THE DATE
March 1st - 6:30 p.m. here at Dale.

More information about practices/sign-ups to come.  

On a visit to Mrs. Lowerre's fifth grade classroom this week, students worked in groups to participate in a project-based lesson titled "Crossing the Atlantic."  This was such a fun way to kick off students' explorer unit.  



Unfortunately, this is an email that I received this week.  I will be looking into it further, but I wanted to make you aware as soon as I was made aware.  

Hi Steve,

We’re sorry to write with disappointing news. Recently, we learned that Verizon will be charging Remind a new fee that makes it impossible for us to continue supporting free text messaging for anyone who has Verizon Wireless as their phone carrier. Please read on for all the important details—we promise to keep this as short as we can.

What’s happening?
To offer our text messaging service free of charge, Remind has always paid for each text that our users receive or send. Now, Verizon is charging Remind an additional fee intended for companies that send spam over its network. Your Remind messages aren’t spam, but our efforts to resolve the issue with Verizon haven’t been successful.

As a result, the Verizon fee will increase our costs of providing text messaging by 11X—pushing our annual costs into the millions of dollars. This isn’t financially feasible for us to support, and it’s forcing us to end Remind text messaging for everyone who has a wireless plan with Verizon.

How will this affect you?
Beginning January 28, 2019, the people in your classes who normally get your Remind messages as texts will no longer receive these messages if they have Verizon Wireless as their phone carrier.


What can you do?
To make sure people in your classes continue receiving your messages, ask them to download the mobile app or enable email notifications—both of which are free of charge.


Additionally, our team’s working hard on a solution that allows your classes to continue to use Remind by text, and we’ll share more details with you before January 28. Text messaging will also continue to be available for organizations with a Remind School and District plan.

In the meantime, we’ll keep fighting to make sure educators, students, and parents have access to effective communication. To do this, we need your help: If using Remind has made a positive impact in your classroom, at your school, or anywhere in between, please ask Verizon to reverse the fee here: www.remind.com/verizon-fee
We’re very grateful for your support, and we’ll be in touch soon with an update.

Sincerely,
The Remind team


Have a wonderful long weekend and Go PATS!


Steve

Respect • Compassion • Collaboration • Continuous Growth 

No comments:

Post a Comment