FROM: Alexa Kontes and Pat Mccall s1

10

TO: Secondary Students and Staff

DATE: December 7th, 2015

FROM: Alexa Kontes and Pat McCall

Meetings this week include:

Mon, Dec 7 No meetings

AEC Rachel Dubuque

Tues, Dec 8 8:30am IEP Transfer for CJM, K. Katulak and A Caron, Michele’s office

9:45am CR for MS led by S. Grove, 11W

9:45am CR for LP, Communication In-service, led by C. McDonald, Jodi’s room

1:20pm Advisory, 11W

3pm – 5pm Trustee Mtg, Thorndike

5pm – 7pm Trustee Dinner, Thorndike

7:30pm Holiday Concert, Dwight Hall

AEC Joe D’Ottavio

Wed, Dec 9 First gift giving day for SS

7:30am – 8am and 10:10am – 10:40am Drop-In trainings on Google Drive with B. Sennott, IMC

11:30am ILC, 11W

12:35pm Staff Book Club, GCST, contact Alexa

3:15pm to 4:15pm ECC Forum – Social Interaction Skills

3:15pm RSP Campus wide mtg

AEC Bryce McKnight

Thurs, Dec 10 Second gift giving day for SS

9:45am Planning mtg for RY led by J. Potter, 11W

10:10am – 10:40am Drop-In trainings on Google Drive with B. Sennott, IMC

10:40am Pre-Eval, led by C. Underwood and J Rines, 11W

11:30am Oliver Behavior mtg

1:20pm Brooks Cottage mtg

2:30pm Fisher Behavior mtg

4pm – 6pm MFA trip

AEC Joe D’Ottavio

Fri, Dec 11 Third gift giving day for SS

AEC Rachel Dubuque

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.

Starting Tuesday, December 1st and continuing until the Winter Break, there will be a sale of ornaments in the museum area of the Howe Building. Ornaments will be sold Tuesdays 1st period and 6th period, and additional times to be announced. All proceeds will benefit the Perkins senior class.

Perkins School for the Blind

Secondary Program

Warmly Invites You To Our

Annual Holiday Concerts

Featuring:

The Music Makers

Hand Bell Ensemble

Secondary Chorus

Chamber Singers

Perkins Orchestra

Vocal Soloists

Sunday, December 6, 2015 - 3:00 PM

Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - 7:30 PM

Dwight Hall

1-  The 2nd Holiday Concert is Tuesday, 12/8 @ 7:30 – All are invited to enjoy the Music

2. All student performers must be in Arnie’s room by 6:45 to prepare for the concert.

There will be a special event "Learn to Play Hockey for Free Day for Adaptive Hockey" on Sunday,February 21, 2016 from 6:00pm-9:00pm atthe New England Sports Center, Marlboro, MA. This will include: Blind hockey, Standing Amputee and Sled Hockey.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The air is frigid, the trees and flowers are dead or dying, and snow will soon cover our streets and trap us inside for days. And personally, I can’t wait! Despite all the hassles of winter, these next couple months are undeniably lovely, some might even say magical! Show your holiday spirit and love for all things seasonal by joining in our door decorating contest!! Pat McCall will be touring the halls of Secondary during the week of December 14th to select the best decorated door! A winner will be announced on Friday, December 18th and will receive a beautiful holiday plant from our very own Horticultural Center! Whether you design an intricate masterpiece or simply throw a bow on your door, we hope everyone will participate! For more information please contact Kate Katulak or Marion Myhre.

Annual Senior Class Fundraiser

Howe Building Museum Area During Holiday Concerts

Sunday December 6 2-4:30PM

Tuesday December 8 6:30-9PM

Perkins Clothing:

Adjustable and Knit Caps

Drawstring Backpacks

Long Sleeve Mock Turtle Neck Shirts

Fleece Scarves

Fleece full zip Jacket

Tee Shirts

Flannel Pants

Full Zip Hooded Sweatshirts

Three Quarter-Zip Pullover With Tower Logo * New

Holiday Plants:

Mistletoe

Flowering Holiday Cactus Plants

White Flowering Chrysanthemum Plants

Choose your own Chanukah and Christmas decorations for the plants.

For More Information Please Contact Senior Class Advisors:

Margie Carney

Deborah Krause

The 16th Annual New England Regional Braille Challenge will be hosted by the Carroll Center for the Blind on Saturday, March 5th, 2016. Students in grades 1-12 are welcome to participate. This is a festive and stimulating event for students, parents, teachers, volunteers and friends to have fun and learn together!

Visit http://carroll.org/annual-new-england-regional-braille-challenge/for more information and registration.

The traditional Braille Brush-up Day has been scheduled for Saturday, January 23rd, 2016 at the Carroll Center in Newton. Students often use this as a means to review both the braille and the technology which will be used at the Challenge, though attendance at the Brush-up is open to any braille student whether or not they plan to participate in the regional Challenge. This event encourages positive social interactions, builds confidence in braille reading and writing abilities and exposes students to the role of braille and technology in their current education and future planning for their goals as adults. Register at http://carroll.org/forms/Brush-up-2016.pdf

Sherri Myers would love to receive cards and notes from everyone. You can drop them off with me, and I will get them to her. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Pat

Perkins has a new programdesigned to prepare young adults who are blind or visually impaired, ages 15-22, with the skills and expertise they need for employment.For students who are headed for college or competitive employment, this course would be a great fit. It begins January 16, 2016 and runs on 10 alternate Saturdays through May here at the Watertown campus. Perkins designed the course in consultation with Karen Wolffe, a nationally known expert in the area of Transition and Career Education.

If you have questions or are considering referring a student, please call or email Patrick Ryan at x7812 or .

Cello club will meet on December 17th at 4:00, weather permitting. Location TBD. Contact Alexa with any questions. Please note: You may not skip other school commitments in order to attend cello club.

Early Winter Enrichment Program

Starting this November, there will be a new 6-class enrichment program coming to Perkins. We will be offering Archery in the Howe gymnasium starting on Wednesday from 4:00pm-5:00pm (See the dates below). Since we have an off campus outfitter coming to help us, it is very important that we have a consistent roster for the class. No prior knowledge or experience needed for this activity.

Please share this with the students in your cottage and encourage participation. This is an exciting and unique opportunity to be a part of. If you have questions or want to sign up, please contact Matt LaCortiglia (7338) or Megan O’Connell-Copp (7267). Please sign up by Friday, October 30 in order to participate.

Howe Gymnasium

December: 2, 9 & 16

4:00pm-5:00pm

------

ARCHERY FUN Coming Soon!!

The Word of the Week is xenophile: One who is attracted to foreign things or people.

The Food Service Students have been working hard to become acquainted with the kitchen,practice skills, learn about sanitation, and test some new recipes. Soon we will be selling lunches and posting the lunch list. We will increase quantities as the students progress throughout the year. On Wednesdays, Anicia Almeida, Michael Cote, and Izzy Primeau prepare lunches 2nd thru 5th. On Thursdays, Aiden Stott, Alex Figueroa, and Mikolai Friendare block scheduled toprepare lunches. Zach Gousie assists during 2nd period. This is an on- campus paid work experience. We plan in advance for it, and order and buy food ahead of time for class. So, please do not schedule these students to participate in other activities during their food service class time without contacting Karen Keeler and discussing it 2 weeks ahead of time. This includes participation in assemblies, rehearsals, plays, meetings, sports activities, field trips, concerts, etc. Thank you for your cooperation. We are looking forward to a delicious year of serving you. Thank you, Karen Keeler

Reminder: Secondary now has an advice column called Howe and Why. If you have a question, or would like to sign up to be a columnist, contact .

New in Tactile Museum: Artery model; robin’s nest.

Margie has a bag on her classroom door, room 114 Howe West for redeemable cans and bottles. We recycle and donate the money to a good cause every few months. Please leave cans and bottles in the bag.

Margie recycles ink jet cartridges; please leave them in her mailbox or in the bag on her door.

If you are interested in delivering produce and herbs from the student garden to the Watertown Food Pantry, please contact Deb Krause. The pantry is open Tuesdays 10-12 and Thursdays 4-6. You can also harvest and prepare the produce or just pick it up at the Horticulture Center to deliver it weekly or occasionally. Tuesdays 2nd period can work well or Thursdays 7th period – we can discuss other options.

Please contribute to the Sunshine Fund. Donations can be given to Kendra.

We are an entirely NUT free school. No nuts at all, not even in private staff offices.

This year we will be focusing on two general rules for all students:

1.  Students are expected to be on time for class (teachers should keep attendance)

2.  Students should be prepared, including having technology charged and materials organized.

We will continue to focus on our Secondary Program standards in addition to the new campus-wide Core Values initiative.

Secondary Standards:

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.

Students who are interested in writing group or cello club should contact Alexa.

Please note: The library will close promptly at 4:00 on Tuesdays for the remainder of the school year. There will be no after school study hall or clubs on Tuesdays.

We, William and Stephanie, are doing a job called “Goodwill”. What we do is collect items such as, clothes, shoes, toys and books. We are going to donate these items to Goodwill and other donation spots. If you have any lightly used or new items please email Ms. Randi and we will pick them up as soon as we can.

Thank you for your support!

Notes for Staff

Position: Job Coach, “job assistant” for Adam Roberge at his position at the Alzheimer’s Association in Watertown. He needs to have someone with him from 11:00 – 2:00 for the next 5 Mondays to complete the semester. The association is requesting that we provide a Quality Assurance person to be with Adam. Pay is $18 – 20 per hour. The Reader would read/identify the text materials for Adam to set-up a collating sequence, ensure accurate assemblage and to provide reader support for Adam to correct errors. Please contact Denise Fitzgerald for further information.

Teachers AND Cottage Staff,

Can You Believe It! It’s Secret Santa sign Up Time!

Gift giving will start the week of Dec. 9th.

Plenty of time to shop and be creative!

Any questions, please call Rachael Noyes

Options for learning UEB, the forthcoming Unified English Braille Code:

Learn UEB

https://askhowe.perkins.org/announcements/transitioning-unified-english-braille

·  2015 UEB Training Calendar –File types:Word,print PDF

·  NLS Braille Transcriber Course –For information about the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) braille transcriber course:https://nfb.org/braille-transcribing

·  Introduction to Unified English Braille:Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired –http://www.wcbvi.k12.wi.us/outreach/ueb-introduction

·  CNIB Transcriber's UEB Course– File types:Word,print PDF,BRF, andDXB.

http://www.cnib.ca/en/living/braille/Pages/Transcribers-UEB-Course.aspx

·  The Hadley School for the Blind UEB Courses;For information on Hadley UEB courses, visithttp://hadley.edu/UEBTransition.asp

·  New Zealand UEB Manual–NZ UEB manual pdf tutorial

·  Unified English Braille: Australian Training Manual 2014–Australian Training Manual website

·  UEB Online– New onlineUEB coursefrom the RIDBC in Sydney, designed for sighted readers

Northern Illinois University: UEBOT . They have a federal grant so this one is also free. http://uebot.niu.edu/

The staff book group will meet on December 9th in GCST. We will discuss The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood.

Please do not attempt to update your Perkins iPad to iOS 9. Betsey will be doing this update and will contact you when she’s ready to update your iPad. Thank you.

Want students to use your computer, but not have access to your files, etc? You can have them log onto your computer with this log-in:

username: SecStudent

password: S3condary

Reminder to staff. All schedule changes should be submitted in writing on the schedule change request form and will go through Joan.

Reminder, please email the for any assistance with your phone, computer, ink printer, internet, server, wifi, or standard software issues such as Outlook, Word, Excel. Call the Helpdesk at 7669 if it is an urgent/work stoppage issue. IT Dept would like you to utilize the Helpdesk lines rather than contacting individuals unless requested otherwise by them. Please contact Betsey Sennott, Secondary’s technology liaison for any issues you may have with any assistive technology, iPads, and for the installation of Assistive Technology/specialized software. She will help you determine if it’s an issue she can address and provide support for, or if it should be addressed by the Helpdesk/IT Dept.

The brailler, embosser paper, and boldline paper is kept in 11w (w241). These papers are located on the bookshelves at the back of the room. The shelves have been labeled. Please try to only take what you need as you need it. The boxes have been labeled. If you need to open a box, please close it when done and try not to leave loose paper on the shelves. Dust on the paper results in brailler and embosser damage.

If you would like to assign your students to 4:00pm study hall, please contact Alexa. There will be no 4:00 study hall on Tuesdays from now through June.

Reminder: Please do not reassign students to the library during break unless you speak with Alexa first. Thank you.

All requests for new technology equipment (equipment, software, Assistive Technology) are submitted to Betsey Sennott, Secondary’s technology liaison, who then submits a purchase request, with Pat McCall’s approval.

App requests for Perkins iPads can be made by completing the app request form. App requests are not automatically granted. Each request will be reviewed separately by the program’s technology liaison or collectively by the school educational technology committee, depending on the app purpose and cost. Staff may be required to justify the purchase of an app request with additional details. Betsey will confirm your request with you. http://goo.gl/forms/87cM5T70YB