Hello families!

We are racing toward the end of the year – it’s hard to believe there’s less than a month of school left!  There are a lot of exciting events coming up, so please read through this whole newsletter to make sure you don’t miss any of them.  In particular, please mark your calendars for our last PTO meeting on June 5th and Family Art Night on June 8th, and please sign up to volunteer for Celebration Day!

One note about upcoming events: unfortunately, this year, we are pausing Multicultural Night (also known as International Night) for the spring, with the hope of possibly bringing it back in the fall.

Multicultural Night, previously scheduled for Wednesday, May 31, has been a labor of love brought to us entirely by the Lincoln-Eliot staff for many years.  It requires a significant amount of time and resources outside of the school day in order to plan and prepare for the event, and we are so grateful to our teachers for dedicating their energy and enthusiasm to keeping it going all these years.

As you may know, Newton educators are currently in contract negotiations with the School Committee.  In an effort to have a successor contract signed before the current contract expires, Newton educators are participating in a number of actions, including one-day-per-week work-to-rule.  You may have seen Lincoln-Eliot educators walking into the school together, in their NTA t-shirts, on Wednesday mornings, right at the start of the contractual work day.  One-day-a-week work-to-rule means that, on Wednesdays, they are working only the contractual hours and not before or after those hours.

This means that a number of events scheduled in the last weeks of school were adjusted to ensure our community could still have as many of our usual end-of-year events as possible!  The staff made accommodations for our wonderful 4th and 5th grade concerts this week and will also make sure Celebration Day runs as planned, while Family Art Night was moved to a Thursday.  Multicultural Night was the only one that had to be paused altogether, due to the amount of work and outside time involved.  But it is an event beloved by the staff and community, and we look forward to holding it again as soon as possible!

For more information about the contract negotiations, please see this flyer or contact our Lincoln-Eliot Newton Teachers Association representatives, Lynn Penczar and Ariana Foster.

The PTO is also hoping to hold an end-of-year picnic on the playground in late June with a smaller version of the wonderful International Night potluck – stay tuned for more information, and if you’re interested in helping to make that happen, please reach out to us at secretary@lepto.org!

Upcoming Dates to Note:

* Monday, May 29th:  No School (Memorial Day)
* Thursday, June 1st:  Lincoln-Eliot Fun Run
* Friday, June 2nd:  5th grade field trip to the Ecotarium
* Monday, June 5th:  PTO meeting (via Zoom)
* Wednesday, June 7th:  Celebration Day!
* Thursday, June 8th:  Family Art Night!
* Friday, June 9th:  Step Up Day for 5th grade
* Thursday, June 15th:  5th grade graduation
* Monday, June 19th:  No School (Juneteenth)
* Wednesday, June 21st:  Last day of school (Half day; 12:10 dismissal)

Have a great long weekend!

Your Lincoln-Eliot PTO