Author Archives: LEPTO Admin

Principal / PTO Update 5.2.21

Dear families,

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and the PTO is working on several ways to express our gratitude for our wonderful teachers and how amazing they have been in this extraordinarily challenging year. We hope you and your student have a chance to contribute to our thank-you Padlet (please reach out to us at president@lepto.org if you have any questions about it)!

A few parents and kids will also be outside the school at 5pm on Thursday (in masks, socially distanced!) to decorate the sidewalks with chalk in celebration of our teachers; we welcome anyone who would like to join us! We’ll also leave the chalk out for people to add to the art on Friday, if you’d like to.

Families with incoming Kindergarten students for the 2021-2022 school year, please start the registration process through this website: https://cas.newton.k12.ma.us/cas_NewtonMA/login. We look forward to meeting our newest Lincoln-Eliot students!

Have a great week!

Principal Morrissey & the PTO

Cookie Monstah Truck Coming FRIDAY – Pre-Order Now!

As part of teacher appreciation week we have lined up the Cookie Monstah truck to come to Lincoln-Eliot this Friday, May 7 from 2:30-4pm! The PTO will purchase cookies for all teachers able to attend and provide dessert certificates to those unable to come that day.

Because of COVID, this will be a pre-order event, so we must order cookies ahead of time and pick them up at the event. We need a minimum of $400 in pre-orders, so if you are interested in participating please consider placing your order as soon as possible!

You can find the ordering menu here: https://foodtruck.pub/order/menu.aspx?busid=3296

While this is not a L-E PTO fundraiser, we’re happy to support a local business while celebrating our teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. Thank you to our teachers for everything you do!

One Book, One Community: Wishtree

We are so excited about the launch of Lincoln-Eliot’s One Book, One Community initiative, and we want to especially thank Jeanne Conley, L-E’s Literacy Specialist, for her amazing work putting this together! Over the next month, everyone in our school will be reading Wishtree, by Newbery Medal-winning author Katherine Applegate.

We hope you’ll take a moment to check out the L-E Wishtree website the literacy team has put together, which is also where you can find the daily read-alouds. (If you have trouble accessing them, please try logging in as your student!)

Thanks to support from the PTO and Frugal Bookstore, each family in the school has received a copy of the book. Over the next few weeks, students will be listening to a few chapters a day, read aloud by members of our teaching community. As a reminder, please only read or listen to the chapters for that day — don’t read ahead, so we can all experience the book together!

Highlights of the initiative:

* L-E wishtree website

* Listening to chapters read by members of our teaching community each day

* Watching the bulletin board change each day (pictures are linked on the google site daily)

* Creating our own Lincoln-Eliot Wishtree right outside of our school in May

We hope you all enjoy the book! Happy reading!

Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood “wishtree“—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighborhood.

You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, this is Katherine Applegate at her very best—writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view.

Boston Red Sox Most Valuable Educator Program

The Red Sox are proud to honor local educators with their Most Valuable Educator Program.

Students have the opportunity to nominate an educator (teacher, coach, guidance counselor etc.) for a chance to be recognized during a pregame ceremony before Saturday home games. Each honoree will receive a pair of tickets and a personalized jersey. The student submitting the nomination will also receive a pair of tickets. (Parents and other school administrators can also submit nominations.)

Nominations can be submitted to communityrelations@redsox.com. In 400 words or less students should describe why this educator deserves to be honored. Submissions should also include contact information for the nominated educator. Winners will be selected by the Community Relations Department.

FORJ: May Updates

Recent FORJ Meeting – School Chapters In Action
Last week, FORJ representatives from Newton schools met to review accomplishments, pool resources and discuss challenges. Participants noted the ability to expand FORJ participation with the use of Zoom. This year, schools hosted multi-cultural nights featuring engaging pre-recorded cooking demos and cultural demonstrations by kids. Peirce Elementary held a family storytime and art projects on activism and the Harlem Renaissance. Countryside Elementary School hosted a listening circle after the murders in Atlanta in March. Lincoln-Eliot hosted our FORJ Kids Book Clubs. More information on the June L-E FORJ Book Club coming to you this week!

Facebook Virtual Affinity Space FORJ Families of Color
FORJ Members created a Facebook page for Families of Color to connect and communicate. You don’t have to be a member of FORJ to join the group. Families of Color and families with children who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color are encouraged to check it out: https://www.facebook.com/groups/293432345707888

Newton METCO Family Council – Connections & Social Space
Families in the METCO program can connect with each other with the Newton METCO Family Council. If you’d like to participate in a social before summer, contact newtonfamilycouncil@gmail.com

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration Location Petition – October 11, 2021
The BAA rescheduled the 2021 Boston Marathon for Indigenous Peoples Day, October 11th. This decision was made without consulting Indigenous people. Because of the Marathon, the City of Newton said that city resources are strapped and the Indigenous Peoples Day event must move to Newton South High School, not an optimal location because it’s not near public transit and is not a highly visible locale. If you’d like to join the effort to move the event to Albemarle Field, which is equidistant to Newton South, but more visible to the public and accessible by transit, please reach out to Mayor Fuller and your Ward Councilors to let them
know. You can write your own letter, or just copy and paste this letter!

(Click here if you are not sure who your Ward Councilors are.)

If you would like to sign the petition urging the BAA to change the Marathon date, click here.

District Update: Staff of Color Affinity Groups in Newton Public Schools
Staff of Color in Newton Public Schools (NPS) represent a small percentage of the overall school population. This may present challenges of isolation, exclusion and lack of community. The hope is that providing affinity spaces will offer a place for support and safety which will positively impact experiences in NPS. With support from Newton Schools Foundation, FORJ has launched district-wide affinity groups for all NPS staff who identify as BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/Person of Color).

Staff will meet bi-monthly with their grade cohorts, as well as be invited to district-wide events held at the beginning and end of each school year.

Planning will prioritized needs and feedback from BIPOC staff with these objectives in mind:

Offer safe spaces to meet other staff of color with similar responsibilities and challenges
Create opportunities for staff of color to discuss and support daily challenges of microaggressions and racism
Learn and share strategies to implement in support of inclusion, diverse curriculum and school-based activities
Develop networking and mentorship opportunities to support career advancement

For more information, visit: https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/3877

NPS Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has a webpage
Please visit this page to stay informed of updates and events in the district and to access resources: https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Domain/1438

Mark your calendars for upcoming FORJ City-Wide Meetings:
Tuesday May 25th 7:30pm-9pm – Looking at the how and why of advocacy and how to avoid common pitfalls. More information to follow.
Wednesday June 16th 7:30-9pm – End of the year celebration.
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Newsletter to follow with more information.

JOIN A FORJ SCHOOL CHAPTER!
The Bigelow Middle School FORJ chapter is looking for more members. If you’d like to join their chapter this summer or in the fall OR the Lincoln-Eliot FORJ chapter, please contact L-E FORJ Coordinator Lanni Isenberg at lanni_harris@yahoo.com!

FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) is a coalition of school-aged families in Newton coming together to teach our children – and ourselves – how to stand up for racial equality.

Principal / PTO Update 4.18.21

Dear families,

It was so great to see everyone who turned out for the Science Fair this week! I couldn’t be more impressed with the variety of projects and the wonderful presentations by our young scientists. It was lovely to see all your faces and all the excitement for science!

This week is our April vacation break; we hope you all get a chance to enjoy some spring weather and peaceful family time, and thank you for all your patience with the schedule changes during the last couple of weeks.

The Newton Free Library has a special program this Wednesday that kids might enjoy:

Li Liu, Acrobat–Performance and Q&A: Wednesday, April 21 at 4:30pm. Watch award winning acrobat Li Liu perform in her one-woman show celebrating the history of acrobatics in China. Li performs amazing feats such as hand balancing, plate spinning, trick cycling and ribbon dancing. A Q&A will follow the performance. Online Registration is required. A Zoom link will be sent the day before the program. This program is made possible by the Nancy Lurensky Swidler Memorial Fund.

And the Highland Street Foundation is once again providing a week of fun free events, StoryWalks, and museum admissions throughout Boston; click here to find out more: https://www.highlandstreet.org/programs/community-events/spring-week

Have a restful and restorative April vacation, and we’ll see you next week!

Principal Morrissey & the PTO

Thank You for a Wonderful Science Fair!

We had such a wonderful time seeing everyone at our Lincoln-Eliot Science Fair this week! Lincoln-Eliot students from every grade did a fantastic job sharing slides, posters, videos, and live presentations. We were so happy to see so many teachers show up to celebrate the kids, too! You can still visit our Science Fair Padlet Page and see all the amazing work everyone did by clicking here:

Lincoln-Eliot Science Fair!

Students made lemon batteries, volcanoes, small motors, robot hands, slime, eclipse models, and rockets; taught us about scientists like Ynes Mexia and France A. Cordova; demonstrated how to build a compass, swing a pendulum, make a rainbow, or create a floating stick man; measured how much sugar is in our snacks, what numbers come up the most in dice rolls, and how high people can hear as they age; and prepared presentations on Minecraft biomes, Skittles, mold, and four-stroke engines — and so much more! We loved the projects and conversations about bird beak differences, surface tension, and acid rain that went along with the experiment kits generously provided by Merck.

Pilot Josh Haddad also gave us a super-fun “Build a Paper Airplane” Zoom activity on Wednesday, and our “Ask a Scientist” parents and guardians told us about new science discoveries in recent years and answered everybody’s burning questions.

If you missed the “Build a Paper Airplane” activity, you can find the instructions in this video:

A big thank you to our amazing Science Fair committee and brilliant scientist parents for all their hard work making this happen: Brigitte LaMarche, Foster Hoyt, Fernando Vieira, Spencer McMinn, Brett Isenberg, Heather and Kwok Yu, Josh Haddad, Fhynita Brinson, David Proia, Casey Hayward, Jennifer Monopoli, Julie Loh, Leah Chan, and Felicia Wilburn — we really appreciate you!

FUNDrive Clothing Donation Drive!

Fundraising for the PTO has been tough this year, given the restrictions with COVID, but we are kicking off a socially-distanced and environmentally friendly fundraiser to close out the last few weeks of school and we need your help!

Did you know that 26 billion pounds of clothing and textiles pile up in landfills each year? 95% of which could have been re-worn or repurposed? Or that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to make just one new pair of jeans?

This Earth Month, there are lots of things you can do to reduce your environmental footprint, like buy only thrifted items for the month or remember your reusable bags. But because the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters in the world, hosting this FUNDrive® can make a big impact on our planet.

By hosting a FUNDrive®, we are not only helping to keep 700 million pounds of usable items out of landfills every year, but we are raising money for the Lincoln-Eliot PTO! And because we don’t have to sell anything door to door, like wrapping paper or chocolate bars, our FUNDrive® earns our PTO money without adding waste to landfills in the future. The wins just keep coming!

Start by asking friends and family if they can help out by donating any clothing or household items they no longer use. Savers West Roxbury location will weigh those items on our drop-off dates, pay our PTO by the pound of donations collected, and give others the chance to love your gently used stuff.

So if we set a fundraising goal of $1,000 we would only have to collect approximately 220 lawn-sized trash bags of donations in order to reach that goal!

What better time to tackle your Spring cleaning and kick-off this environmentally friendly fundraiser than Earth Month!

Ready to reduce, reuse, and raise money!

Details:

Savers FUNDrive® Clothing Drive

Dates:

Donation collection begins NOW thru May 29th (one week before the drop-off date at Savers – tentatively scheduled for Saturday, June 5th).

Approved Items for Donation:

Gently used clothing and footwear of all sizes (babies thru adult), including socks, bathing suits, undershirts and bras. Doesn’t have to be seasonal, they are accepting winter clothes too.
Jewelry & accessories (belts, purses, wallets, bags, fanny packs, ties, scarves, hats, gloves, etc)
Bed and bath items: linens, curtains, pillows, towels, tablecloths, blankets, sheets

Items NOT accepted:

stuffed animals
furniture
appliances
books, magazines or media (CDs, DVDs, etc)
sports equipment

Collection location to gather donations: TBD, more details on scheduling a pick-up or drop-off location to follow in future newsletters. Please collect in lawn-sized or kitchen-sized trash bags at home for now.

What we need:

Volunteers – interested in helping organize this FUNDrive®, do donation pick-ups or drop-offs? Organizing a team? Helping to get the word out thru social media or advertising (promo materials will be provided)? Contact Ronda Morra: 781-589-7226 or rbmorra@gmail.com
Ideas: should we make this a competition with teams divided by grade? Ice cream party for the winning grade? Or something to make it competitive and involve the kids? We’d love to hear everyone’s ideas!
Storage location(s) for bags of donations until the drop-off can be made on June 5th. Do you have a garage or shed or basement/spare room that could be used as a donation collection point? Let us know!
A U-Haul or other van-sized moving truck for a few hours on the morning of June 5th to drop the donations at Savers in West Roxbury. Does anyone in our school community have a connection here that could get us the use of a truck donated for a few hours?
Donations of the approved items in kitchen-sized garbage bags or lawn-sized garbage bags ONLY

Stay tuned for more details as our plans come together, but start collecting items in your own home or ask neighbors, friends and relatives for donated items now!

FORJ: Upcoming Meetings

FORJ SCHOOL CHAPTER MEETING
Thursday, April 29th 7:30pm- 9pm
RSVP HERE to receive the Zoom Link

School-based FORJ groups will come together (Zoom) after a long while since they last met to learn about the work happening at the different chapters. Please join us on April 29th to discuss the new FORJ Chapter “Playbook”, which provides additional details on how to run a successful FORJ Chapter. The group will also meet with grade level cohorts (elementary/middle/high schools) to discuss ideas and connect. This meeting is open to anyone interested in running a FORJ Chapter, all welcome and definitely bring a friend 😉

Mark your calendars for upcoming FORJ City-Wide Meetings:

Tuesday May 25th 7:30pm-9pm – Looking at the how and why of advocacy and how to avoid common pitfalls. More information to follow.
Wednesday June 16th 7:30-9pm – End of the year celebration
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Neurodiversity and Race: April is Autism Acceptance Month (also called Autism Awareness Month)

Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy & Management hosted a 7-day Neurodiversity Inclusion Challenge, providing curated readings and other materials to inspire discussion, learning and ultimately, influence policy for our neurodiverse community. See Day 3 Readings on the topic of Neurodiversity, Race & Ethnicity: https://heller.brandeis.edu/diversity/learning/nd-challenge.html

Here are two of the voices raised: Kayla Smith, “Disability Rights in Black 2020” (Video, 2:09 mins) and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, “Autistics of Color: We Exist…We Matter” (Reprinted February 19, 2020)

L-E FORJ Kids’ Book Club
Please watch for a scheduling message for the June edition of the Lincoln-Eliot FORJ Kids’ Book Club. We’ll circulate info on the book to read and kids and their families can have a Zoom chat to discuss!

Books we’ve read include graphic novels New Kid by Jerry Craft and When Stars Are Scattered by Omar Mohamed and Victoria Jamieson and the novel Front Desk by Kelly Yang.

FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) is a coalition of school-aged families in Newton coming together to teach our children – and ourselves – how to stand up for racial equality.

Principal / PTO Update 4.11.21

Dear families,

We are so excited for our Lincoln-Eliot Science Fair this Wednesday and Thursday! Thank you so much to the amazing parents on our science fair committee for all their work on this event. We hope everyone can join us for the activities and presentations!

Young scientists, please upload your projects before Tuesday, April 13, 2021. Students can take a photo of their project, create a Google Doc or Google Slideshow, or make a short 2-4 minute video, and then upload it to our PADLET. All students will get an opportunity to share their project with a Teacher & Scientist team on Thursday April 15, 2021, our Student Project Day, although presenting is not required.

Dates, times and zoom links for the science event are posted below and also here: https://lepto.org/virtual-science-fair

We are also working on a clothing donation drive fundraiser, so if you’re spring cleaning, please save your clothes, shoes and linens for us — more info on that coming next week! (And if you’re interested in helping with this, please reach out to Ronda Morra at 781-589-7226 or rbmorra@gmail.com)

Lincoln-Eliot MCAS 2021 Dates

	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5
ELA	5/17	5/18	5/20
Math	5/25	5/27	5/24
Science	N/A	N/A	6/3

More information about the MCAS will be forthcoming as we await further guidance from DESE.

Have a wonderful week, and we hope to see you at our virtual Science Fair!

Principal Morrissey & the PTO