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. Our Lincoln-Eliot FORJ contact is parent Lanni Isenberg: lanni_harris@yahoo.com.

Here is an opportunity to engage in the work in Newton this week.

This Wednesday, September 16, at 7pm the City Council’s Programs and Services Committee will consider a resolution to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day on the city and school calendars.

To support Indigenous People’s Day Newton, you can write to the City Council.

For more about the issue, please see this template letter from parents/guardians, and this student template letter from the Student Ignition Society (go to page 10).

If you’d like to participate, send your message to citycouncil@newtonma.gov

Meeting Information

The Programs & Services Committee will hold a virtual meeting on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at 7:00 pm. To view this meeting click HERE at the above date and time.

#351-20 Resolution to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The complete Committee Agenda for this meeting is available HERE.

Newton’s high school robotics team, the LigerBots, has started an online mentor/tutoring program this fall as a free resource for parents and kids.  In order to offer support to elementary students during these difficult times — as well as provide teaching opportunities to high schoolers — they’ve created a program in which high school mentors are paired with elementary kids over an online platform (Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facetime, etc.).  These mentors can tutor, give homework help, or just play games and do crafts with younger students.

Interested parents and mentors should fill out these forms:

For interested parents/elementary students: https://forms.gle/GpuUN7eNRsXqhLRp9

For interested high school students: https://forms.gle/x7a39zEyCJF8fCJo6

Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas for community-building this week!  We’re going to leave the form open and keep posting it in the newsletter all year long, so please feel free to write in any time you have an idea or suggestion.  We also added a space on the form where you can submit feedback or questions for the PTO — and please note that the name/email sections are optional, so if you’d rather write in anonymously, you are always welcome to do that.

Ideas/Feedback Submission Form

Our email inboxes are always open, too, if you ever want to reach out directly or have something you’d like us to add to the weekly newsletter:  president@lepto.org and secretary@lepto.org

Thanks again, and good luck to everyone this week!

Hello Lincoln-Eliot families,

We know this is a stressful time for everyone, with so much uncertainty and anxiety about what the coming school year will look like.  We also know that Lincoln-Eliot is full of amazing kids, families, teachers, and staff who care about each other and our school.  The PTO is committed to keeping everyone connected, whether hybrid or DLA, and to building our community this year in whatever ways we can!

With that in mind, we are trying to brainstorm creative community-building ideas, and we would love to hear from you!  We’ve set up a submission form for sending in ideas here, or you can email anyone on the PTO board anytime.

We’re open to suggestions, so please share anything that comes to mind!  And if you think of anything you’d be interested in helping with, or if there’s something you want to spearhead, please reach out to us at president@lepto.org or secretary@lepto.org — we’d love your help!

Thanks so much, and please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you, too.  We miss you all and want to do our best to make this a fun, special year for all our kids.

Your Lincoln-Eliot PTO

We know it’s a really strange year to be joining a new school, so we’re hoping to make it a little easier with a welcome project for all our new families and kindergartners — and we need some student volunteers to help!  We’re looking for friendly Lincoln-Eliot kids to write a letter or postcard to one of our new students, saying hello and welcome to our school.

Sign up using this form and we’ll send you the name and grade of one of our new kids, plus more instructions on what to do next!

Thank you for your help making our new families feel welcome to our wonderful school!

We are looking for a Distance Learning Academy liaison for the Lincoln-Eliot PTO — if your family has chosen the Distance Learning Academy and you would like to be part of the PTO board, we would very much appreciate your help!

As the DLA liaison to the PTO, you would participate in a coalition of DLA Liaisons from all the elementary schools in Newton.  As a group, the DLA Liaisons will advocate for the specific needs of the DLA to Newton Public Schools.

Please reach out to the co-presidents of the PTO at president@lepto.org if you are interested in this role.

With most of our communications having to be virtual this year, it’s more important than ever to join our Lincoln-Eliot school directory at Membership Toolkit.  Even if you think you’re already in it, please sign in and double-check your information!

* Go to lepto.membershiptoolkit.com and click on “Login”, then follow the instructions from there.

* Make sure all your students are listed, in the correct grades, and that your contact information is up to date!

* Email secretary@lepto.org for help anytime!

Please note: Everyone who has chosen the Distance Learning Academy for the year is still a part of our Lincoln-Eliot community — we want all our kids to stay connected.  The PTO is working on ideas for creative community-building, but we can only reach you if you’re in the directory — so please make sure you’re signed up!

The PTO Council has pulled together this list of resources for what’s happening in Newton and ways to stay informed:

PTO Council website 
http://newtonptocouncil.org/ and http://newtonptocouncil.org/category/community/

Newton Neighborhood Area Councils — individual councils’ announcements and websites can be accessed from:  http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/neighborhood/default.asp

NPS District — subscribe to updates
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/2361

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s updates — subscribe to email list
https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001JdpTMeML5NJJRN91OZKcvcBpV5zJjWHYa7PtTKTmHTU5eJUuNAik5jBdUs0q8S9Wd7kZIqqwBAaF5F_tsnUTZtsMuiQgMtzTB8Ic2B-xfGGpwbvHINekICnsKhSW5u2kodWJs1hdnVyRwKwEEIBoaN1ng0_7437c

School Committee — subscribe to email list (at the bottom of the page)
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/domain/68

Newton City Council — email list sign up (in the middle of this page)
http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/aldermen/default.asp

Newton Arts calendar
http://newtonartscalendar.org/

Newton Arts — subscribe to email list
http://newtonartscalendar.org/index.php/mailing-list/

Families Organizing for Racial Justice — subscribe to updates
https://wordpress.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c51cc2422efddcf36ea2e341b&id=6de8d4000f

More sign up options for Newton Planning Dept areas of interest, Health and Veteran Services, etc.:
https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001JdpTMeML5NJJRN91OZKcvcBpV5zJjWHYa7PtTKTmHTU5eJUuNAik5jBdUs0q8S9Wd7kZIqqwBAaPvheR8oiokLzcsqmz-eWa3AEkOoXIDVYMb_vHQ7lHMyyHIZzYnztoMOT4Y-dMwvpItZNBiK6dMEjBcpzp-wwXeKRfFiT5PV6HE_hRIZZZ0cNZiV9u6Nbw

Planning Dept — subscribe to Weekly Updates & More
https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001JdpTMeML5NJJRN91OZKcvXnHqRczLn0jnW7OXyznhlN7C2I0CAPP069Un6V-RzDOFsPcsZ_fABOztKVje_qDNpaUls2d67EdnrlWYqwbGQ8%3D

Health and Human Services — subscribe to email list:
https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001JdpTMeML5NJJRN91OZKcvf8E5gCLjYfG7KlwbRyjeV0kFO07o8cI79LhTq9AYf9wwEUw-uM7S2ZzeW9zuIWSuJG_Y8hqSMlE7_bN00JTEZI%3D

Historic Newton
http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/historic/visit/info.asp

City of Newton phone directory
http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/38588

Newton STEM
https://newtonstem.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=534251fe0b69f0cc8d0f15ea8&id=17ba136648

Newton Cultural Alliance
https://us8.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d1ff7fc2d94479add3b6dc20f&id=981678cd6f

Newton Community Education

Green Cart Chronicle Quarterly recycling newsletter: To SUBSCRIBE please send an e-mail to maiser@mail.ci.newton.ma.us with this message in the BODY of the e-mail: subscribe greenbin

Green Newton
https://www.greennewton.org

Newton Cemetery Arboretum
https://www.newcemcorp.org/join-email

Bike Newton
https://bikenewton.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=187dc781724e10a997563bdb5&id=7835867bf2

New affordable housing opportunities in Newton as they become available for rent or purchase — sign up for updates: http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/planning/hcd/affhousing/current_affordable_housing_opportunities.asp

West Newton Square and Walnut Street updates

Riverside Development updates

NewCAL meeting notices
https://newcal.projects.nv5.com/contact/

Thank you to all the wonderful parents, guardians, students, families, teachers, and staff who make up our PTO!  We appreciate you very much, and we hope you have a healthy, safe, and happy summer!

If you are not already in our directory, we encourage everyone to sign up as soon as possible, especially so your friends can find you over the summer.  If you are, this is also a great time to sign in, check your information, and add any new incoming students to your account, so they can be included in summer playdate invitations and other kindergarten updates.

Being in the directory means you have access to contact information for fellow parents and teachers, a list of who else is in your class once teachers are assigned, emails about events and volunteer opportunities, and our weekly Sunday update about what’s going on at Lincoln-Eliot.

Go to lepto.membershiptoolkit.com to register or log in!  (When you first sign up, you’ll need to be approved by an admin before having access to the rest of the directory, which might take a few days — please email secretary@lepto.org if you need quick approval!)

And if you have any trouble registering or signing in, please email secretary@lepto.org; we’d be very happy to help!

We hope to see you all in the fall!  Thank you again!

Thank you to all of the L-E parents/guardians and L-E educators for taking an hour on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon to listen, learn and connect with one another for the June 16th Family Listening Circle.

L-E FORJ and the L-E Courageous Conversations About Race Team led group and breakout discussions on race and anti-racism with 20 families.  If you weren’t able to attend the conversation, watch for more opportunities in the coming year, and you can still view the presentation here.

If you participated in the conversation, please complete our feedback survey: https://forms.gle/hWpX7Hi7dgd7LW1PA
(For a scannable QR feedback link, see the final presentation slide.)

Please contact our Lincoln-Eliot PTO FORJ Liaison, Lanni Isenberg, lanni_harris@yahoo.com, if you’d like more information, if you’d like to be added to a mailing list about FORJ events and information, and if you would like connections to resources on anti-racism and talking with kids about race.

And thank you to everyone who filled out the FORJ Book Club form!  We’ll be reaching out with more details soon — if you haven’t had a chance to fill it out yet, you can still do so here:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfj97NyA73LrZtNbk5q-K5oIcUCESzkg9etyZl84GF-xT52IQ/viewform  (Or if you would just like to be added to our list for more information, please email secretary@lepto.org!)