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TO: Secondary Students and Staff
DATE: September 1st, 2014
FROM: Alexa Kontes and Pat McCall
Meetings this week include:
Mon, Sept 1 Labor Day Holiday, no classes
AEC Pat McCall
Tues, Sept 2 8:10am School starts
AEC Joe D’Ottavio
Wed, Sept 3 10am Planning Mtg for TM led by M. Engelbrecht, 11w
AEC Ken Durand
Thus, Sept 4 10am CR for ZH led by S. Fox/P. McCall, 11W
AEC Dorinda Rife
Fri, Sept 5 AEC Ken Durand
Welcome back to all students and staff. I hope everyone had an enjoyable summer break. We are very excited about the new school year.
We are starting the year with 71 students. We have 10 new students. Please welcome:
Zachary Bennoui
Kaiden Coffin
Michael Daniels
Zachary Gousie
Melissa LeClerc
Alex Malnight
EJ Maldonado
Tyler Mulvaney
Jack O’Halloran
William Ramos
We have several new teachers
Alison Hawes
Kate Katulak
Mike McDonald
Laura Merwin
We have a new Speech and Language Pathologist Melanie Knight
Occupational Therapist Kelly Laurendi resigned. Jen Feinstein will be on a leave through the beginning of November. Please welcome Occupational Therapist Samantha Limner who will cover Kelly and Jen’s caseloads. We will be interviewing people for Kelly’s position in the next several weeks.
Please also welcome:
PT Coop Madison Munoz supervised by Maggie Emberlin
Music Therapy Intern Nicholas Hummel supervised by John Buchanan
SLP Intern - Jennifer Zuk - supervised by Terie Geary
TVI student teacher - Whitney Chapman, supervised by Kate Fraser
Congratulations to Steve Ramos who has been hired as the new Fisher CRL.
Mark Sawin and Liam Rutter have both resigned. Their last day will be September 5. We wish them the best as they pursue other endeavors.
Welcome back Danielle Grant. She will be working in Brooks.
JoAnne Spagnuolo has accepted a classroom position with Sherri Myers. She will be working out of Fisher.
NEW HIRES
Teaching Assistants:
Patrick Gilman (Oliver)
William Harney (May)
Deborah Cherniske (Fisher)
Monifa Salahu-Din (Fisher)
Christopher Parker (May; transitioned from Lower School having previously worked in an ACRL role)
Domestic Service Worker:
Gloria Coral Salas (Brooks; transitioned from Deafblind having previously worked as a DSW)
There were several classroom moves. Work Activities classroom (E128) is now the main Sensory room
Work Activities Center is now in the woodshop
Dan Dvorak W 112 moving to W116
Linda Ahern Roth W112 moving to W113 (involves multiple computers)
Randi James E116 moving to W112
EB18 (involves multiple computers) moving to E124 (Marla Runyan)
Steve Fox’s E128 to E116
If you would like to submit something for the newsletter, please email it to Alexa Kontes by Wednesday at 4:00. Any students interested in reporting for the newsletter should contact Alexa.
We will continue with the recognizing a student of the month. We will start that in October.
We will be promoting a Secondary theme this year that highlights characteristics and actions of a person in the Secondary Program, both students and staff. There are five standards that we will address throughout the school year. More information will follow as we will be organizing formal and informal activities.
We RESPECT each other, and we respect ourselves.
We HELP each other to become better citizens and to achieve our goals.
We CREATE and SUPPORT an atmosphere promoting high achievement and independence.
We are EMPOWERED to grow and advocate for ourselves.
We HONOR our rights and responsibilities as members of the Perkins community.
The Word of the Week is: bumfuzzle: to confuse.
Margie Carney has a monthly student birthday calendar posted on the West side. If you do not want your birthday on that list, please contact Margie by September 5th.
Margie will continue to collect redeemable soda cans and bottles. A plastic bag is attached to her classroom door room number West 114.
The Secondary program donated $120.00 to the Jared Branfman Sunflowers for Life Fund for Pediatric Brain and Spinal Cancer Research at Dana- Farber Cancer Institute. This money was raised from the redeemable cans and bottles. That means 2,400 cans / bottles were redeemed! Thanks you and keep the cans/ bottles coming.
Please stop by the Horticulture Center on Fridays at 11AM-12:15 PM for the Farmer's Market! Students in this class will be selling fresh organic produce and herbs each week grown and harvested in the student garden. The Farmer's Market will be in the garden weather permitting. If it rains, the sale will be in the Horticulture Center lobby. Produce will vary each week - including cherry tomatoes, sweet and jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, beans, chard, thyme, basil, mint, rosemary, sage, cilantro, parsley, hyssop, cut flowers. Please contact Deborah Krause fir further information or if you would prefer a delivery. The Market was very successful during summer school and we look forward to having it again throughout the school year.
The Scholastic print magazines are now available in the library. The braille version should be arriving soon.
If you received any in-kind gifts this month, please notify Amber MacDonald.
If you would like to assign your students to 4:00pm study hall, please contact Alexa. I will also be taking over Ed’s study hall. Until further notice, study hall will meet Monday through Thursday, but the schedule will be adjusted to accommodate student clubs.
Students who are interested in writing group or cello club should contact Alexa as soon as possible.
Notes for Staff:
If you received boxes of student math books from Houghton Mifflin/MBS Direct, please contact Alexa as soon as possible.
The 2014 APH Customer Satisfaction Survey is available at http://www.aph.org/products/gpra.html and on the APH website through Friday, September 20, 2014. If you have questions or require assistance with the survey, feel free to email Mary Nelle McLennan at .
Please be sure to wear your staff identification card at all times.
Enclosed is the link for various Special Ed. events throughout New England: www.spedchildmass.com w
Please complete the Bloodborne Pathogen training as soon as possible. Go to: http://gcntraining.com , then put in the organization no. (32780, then put in personal ID if you have one and click submit or “I forgot my ID” to retrieve it or “create a Personal ID” if you are new. Suzanne Conrad is able to track, through the online service, staff that have completed the training. It’s not necessary to print out your notice of completion at the end of the training.
Betsey is currently distributing Secondary iPads back to iPad users. Betsey will contact you when yours is ready to pick up. You will also receive the iPad Policy and be informed of the recent updates for Perkins iPads. Betsey will be contacting new teachers and clinicians about their iPad needs. For those that did not turn in your iPad in summer, Betsey will be contacting you soon to update your iPad.
App requests can be made by completing the app request form (accessed by the link below). App requests are not automatically granted. Each request will be reviewed separately by the program technology liaison or collectively by the school educational technology committee depending on the app cost. Staff may be required to justify the purchase of an app request with additional details.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10I31HXOTu8HEXa3YWv8kbISJCBMx8nZAUo0RQC5O-JQ/viewform
The iPad Policy and link to request apps can also be found on AskHowe at: https://askhowe.perkins.org/resources/ipad-policy-and-app-request-link
Tap dance classes are on Mondays in the Hilton Building Auditorium from 4:45 to 6:00. Classes are taught by Maureen Cosgrove of Boston Tap. Maureen has a low-key, fun style of teaching and believe it or not, you WILL learn. All levels of experience are welcome and NO prior experience is necessary. Classes begin on Sept. 15, 2014 go for 13 weeks until Dec. 15. Tuition is $195. Questions?
Call or email Pam Ryan @ x7505 or
And you can use up to $100 of the Perkins-sponsored wellness dollars to apply toward the cost of the class or the cost of your tap shoes!