Congratulations to Joseph LaValla, who was chosen as the Rotary Student of the Month for April. Joseph is currently a senior at Suffield High School and has been very active through his four years here at Suffield High School. Joseph has been on our cross-country and indoor/outdoor track team for the past four years. This year he was chosen as the captain of the team for indoor and outdoor track. Joseph has maintained honors or high honors every quarter throughout his high school years.
It is with pride and great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Mr. James Blain as the incoming Principal of Suffield High School. Mr. Blain was interviewed and approved by the Board of Education after a rigorous process. Three finalists were interviewed by a committee of 19 members including BOE members, students, parents, an administrative assistant, faculty, and school and district administrators. The process included focus groups to characterize the desired candidate qualities, a structured interview, a performance task and interview, and small groups to engage in conversation. Mr. Blain’s authentic leadership skills and passion for educating the whole child make him a great fit for Suffield Public Schools.
Congratulations to James “Jimmy” Casella who is our Rotary Student of the Month for May. James is a senior at Suffield High School who has challenged himself throughout his four years with many AP and Honors courses. Jimmy is planning to attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the fall to study robotics engineering and develop robotic technologies. Jimmy is very active at Suffield High School. He has been a member of our SWAT Support Team for the last three years.
On April 24 I was honored to participate as a panelist in the 2018 Special Education in Connecticut Summit sponsored by the Klebanoff Institute and the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education. The keynote speaker, Dr. Renee Bradley, Deputy Division Director, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, presented “Equal Access to Opportunity: Do We Have What It Takes?” She asked questions of us that I often ask. Why are we doing what we are doing? Some of our problems in public education have been here for decades. What are we currently doing to address the problems?
At McAlister Intermediate School on April 27, the Suffield Garden Club, on the 50th anniversary of its generous yearly tradition, gave a sapling tree to every fourth grader in the school.
Administrators, teachers, and staff at McAlister Intermediate School have been working hard to live and breathe the Suffield Public School District’s mantra this year of “Know Your Students.” My colleagues and I are inspired by the Responsive Classroom philosophy and how many opportunities it provides us with creating a classroom community and getting to know our students. Every single day students are greeted as they enter our classrooms, participate in a community building morning meeting to set the tone for the day, and are provided closure and reflection during Closing Circle at the end of the day. Even specialists and service providers join classrooms for Morning Meeting daily in an effort to connect with the students within our school, even if they don’t have the privilege of working directly with them. Once a month certified staff is participating in a faculty meeting utilizing the Morning Meeting model to help build our own professional community and to improve our school climate by supporting the idea that “it takes a village” and we are all in this together. Various staff members take turns leading this Morning Meeting and sharing ideas that can be immediately implemented in our classrooms.
Staff members K-12 were invited to participate in a book club facilitated by our Director of Special Services Natalie Donais and high school psychologist Kelli Conroy focusing on the book, Lost in School by Dr. Ross Greene.
In the six weeks allowed for designing and building, the Suffield/Windsor Locks High Schools’ team in the FIRST Robotics Competition created a sturdy, capable robot and developed good skill in operating it. Aces High did very well in their first three meets. In the team’s favor is the general high-tech environment of this region, and the very favorable circumstance that WLHS provides the team with a well-equipped meeting space and a competent machine shop including up-to-date computer-aided machines. This year the team’s chief mentor is Peter Davis, the WLHS teacher in charge of those facilities in his day job. There are about 40 students on the team – high school level and a few middle school – with a majority from Suffield.
The Suffield Public Schools is very proud of the young men and women who participate in the ACES High Robotics team. Most recently they competed in the New England District Championship and qualified for participation in the World Championships in Detroit! Below is a descriptive summary of ACES written by Steve Autieri, our 6-12 Science Curriculum Leader and ACES advisor. The ACES High Robotics team 176, comprised of students from both Suffield High School and Windsor Locks High School, recently competed and were named Connecticut District Champions in Waterbury, CT on March 9-11, 2018. The team finished the qualification matches ranked seventh out of thirty-two teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey competing that weekend.
The gymnasts of Suffield Middle School presented their annual exhibition in the school gym on April 4, with applause for notable performances from the proud audience of family and friends. For an hour and a half, the 32 students participating, singly and occasionally in pairs and small squads, demonstrated almost everything from somersaults and cartwheels to graceful floor events on the big mat and impressive feats on the balance beam, the uneven bars, suspended rings and vaulting horses. The gymnasts comprised 16 sixth graders, five from the seventh grade, and 11 from the eighth grade. As a finale, the whole crew marched out and assembled on the big mat in rows for each grade, with one member of each grade at the lead, holding a tall staff topped with a simulated Olympic torch. Perhaps someday one of them will be holding the real flame.
Wouldn’t it be great if every dysfunctional family could be harmonized by a magical visitor like Mary Poppins? That’s what Julie Andrews as Mary did for the Banks family in the 1964 film, and this reviewer remembers Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews well in that film and still occasionally sings the music to himself. Now he may still sample “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” or “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” but he’ll be thinking of Olivia Grimard as Mary, whose voice in the SHS musical production was certainly outstanding. Perhaps even supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The three performances of Mary Poppins in mid-March were replete with Mrs. Banks’ uncertainties in her wifely role, Mr. Banks’ repressive dissatisfaction as a banker, and their children’s calamitous misbehavior – all happily healed by Mary, the magical nanny.
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