FORJ: Martin Luther King Day and Upcoming Events

Newton’s 53rd Annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration
MONDAY JANUARY 18th at 9:30am
Our theme for 2021, in the words of the Reverend King will be: “Keep Moving Forward.” This event will be virtual, but we know we will feel the closeness of our community.

A detailed program will be forwarded closer to the event, but highlights will include musical selections, a reflection and sermon led by Newton Interfaith Clergy Association’s Reverend Devlin Scott and Rabbi Allison Berry, a Social Justice Roundtable featuring some of Newton’s key players, an NPS Student Voices Montage, and a “Spotlight” featuring Myrtle Baptist Church.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kZ_O4zJ6RnyKNdbRW9pKSA


RALLY & MARCH: We Can No Longer Look Away
Monday, January 18 at 3pm
Rally & March on Monday at 3 PM. Begin at Madison Park High School in Roxbury, and march to the State House. Organized by Violence In Boston. Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/240283810989307 and https://www.violenceinboston.org/. The organizers request masks and safety precautions, and we request everyone think carefully about what activities will be safe and fulfilling for your families during this difficult and tense time.


UPCOMING FORJ CITY-WIDE MEETING
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 27th, 7pm – 9pm
Discovery Speakers Series hosts Beverly Tatum: Talking to Kids about Race & Racism (Zoom) with FORJ Breakout Session
We are canceling the City-Wide Meeting on the 21st. Instead we invite you to sign up to hear Beverly Tatum, who will be joining the conversation at the Discovery Museum 2021 Speaker Series.  FORJ will hold a 30 minute break out session after the event.  You will want to fill out two RSVP’s to attend both parts of the program.

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College, is a clinical psychologist widely known for both her expertise on race relations and as a thought leader in higher education.  Her thirteen years as the president of Spelman College (2002-2015) were marked by innovation and growth and her visionary leadership was recognized in 2013 with the Carnegie Academic Leadership Award.

The author of several books including the national bestseller Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (now in a new 2017 20th anniversary edition) and Can We Talk About Race? and Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation (2007), Tatum is a sought-after speaker on the topics of racial identity development, race and education, strategies for creating inclusive campus environments, and higher education leadership.

A civic leader in the Atlanta community, Dr. Tatum is engaged in educational initiatives designed to expand educational opportunities for underserved students and their families.  She holds a B.A. degree in psychology from Wesleyan University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan as well as an M.A. in Religious Studies from Hartford Seminary.

More information and REGISTER HERE if you want to attend:
https://26033.blackbaudhosting.com/26033/Discovery-Museum-Speaker-Series-2021-Featuring-Dr-Beverly-Tatum

** If you want to attend this, you NEED to RSVP with the hosts so they can manage their event with info about participant interest and send you a Zoom link.

To sign up for the FORJ BREAKOUT SESSION, please RSVP HERE.


21 Day Racial Equity Habit Challenge
Reminder this month: check out Dr. Eddie Moore Jr’s “21 Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge”©: https://www.eddiemoorejr.com/21daychallenge/#act

As families, we are often working on doing for our kids or others. This challenge is a chance to center ourselves in the work, learning and action against racism.  It’s something you can start any time – it’s not date specific and the articles, podcasts and activities can be reviewed at your own pace.


FORJ is looking for the next City-Wide FORJ Coordinator
For the 2021-2022 year, Newton Public Schools authorized a stipend to hire a FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) Coordinator.  For information regarding FORJ, please visit www.forjnewton.com.

Applications are due to FORJ by February 12, 2021.

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

Bertucci’s PTO Fundraiser

Lincoln-Eliot community:

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, February 3rd for our Bertucci’s Fundraiser!

On February 3rd, enjoy all of your favorites at any Bertucci’s location (delivery, to go, or dine in) and present the following flyer or enter the unique code 229-633-235 when ordering online and Lincoln-Eliot’s PTO earns 15% of the proceeds!

Bertuccis Fundraiser Flyer

Pass the code along to all of your family and friends, as this code is valid at ANY Bertucci’s location on February 3rd from 11am-9pm.

Thank you for your support!
Lincoln-Eliot PTO

January 2021 PTO Meeting Recap

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for our PTO meeting via Zoom on Tuesday, January 12th!  If you missed the meeting, you can review the minutes and slideshow at these links:

January 2021 PTO Meeting Minutes

January 2021 PTO Meeting Slideshow

We are always open to ideas to help build connections throughout our community, especially between our hybrid and DLA kids, so please reach out anytime to president@lepto.org or secretary@lepto.org with suggestions or any questions!

Our next PTO meeting will be in March; we look forward to seeing you then!

Principal / PTO Update 1.10.21

Dear families,

We hope you had a restful and restorative winter break and are staying safe.  We miss you all and hope that 2021 brings us all together again.

This Tuesday, Jan. 12th, at 6:30pm we’ll be having a virtual PTO meeting — please keep an eye on your inboxes for the Zoom link, and join us if you can!

This Thursday and Friday we’ll have the 5th round of DLA pickup.  DLA families, please stop by the school on either Thursday, January 14th from 9am-12pm or Friday, January 15th from 12:30pm-3pm to pick up your child’s supplies.

Also, please note that next Monday, January 18th, is Martin Luther King Day, so there will be no school.

And finally, we hope you all saw the email from Superintendent Fleishman about the Supporting Your Child in the 2020-21 School Year forum on Wednesday, January 20th, at 7:30pm.  As he wrote:

“We know that supporting elementary students in hybrid and remote learning is not easy given the pressures adults face in their daily lives, as well as the inevitable conflicts and tensions that arise when working with young children. At the same time, we know that the pandemic has offered children and families newfound opportunities for shared learning and greater student independence.

To provide you with additional support as you navigate this challenging year, I am writing to invite you to a forum that will focus on supporting you and your elementary students’ school experience. The Supporting Your Child in the 2020-21 School Year forum will take place on Wednesday, January 20 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Zoom.

We have gathered together four Newton educators who have extensive experience working with elementary school students and are elementary parents themselves. The forum will feature:

  • Becca Brogadir, Principal, Ward
  • Dr. Lynn Chachkes, Psychologist, Cabot and Zervas
  • Dr. Arthur Fergusson, Coordinator of Therapeutic Services
  • Jesse Krotick, Coordinator of Elementary Support and Stabilization

They will share with you their expertise in elementary education and social emotional support structures, as well as provide advice and recommendations for supporting your student’s learning this year. They will also answer questions you may have related to helping your student in both hybrid and remote learning environments.

Please register in advance for this forum via this Google Form. You can also use the form to submit questions to be answered during the presentation or the Q&A session.”

We wish you all a happy new year and hope for better times ahead!

Principal Morrissey & the PTO

PTO Meeting: Tuesday January 12th at 6:30pm

Please join us over Zoom for our first PTO meeting of 2021 this Tuesday, January 12th, at 6:30pm.  A Zoom link will be sent out via email on Monday or Tuesday, so please look for it in your inboxes (or email secretary@lepto.org if you don’t receive it!).

We will be providing an update on our fall events and talking about more community-building activities for the rest of the year.

If you cannot attend the meeting but have a question or a suggestion for us, please submit it to us using this form or email it to president@lepto.org.  We will post the minutes from the meeting in our next newsletter.

Thanks very much, and we hope to see you there!

Wednesday Lunch Bunch / Zoom Socials for January

It was really great to see all the kids who joined us for our book fair storytime socials, and we’d love to keep that going with lunch bunch / social snacktimes to connect our DLA and hybrid kids!  Based on the survey that went out, the best time for most people is Wednesday lunch, so we’re going to set up some Zooms for 1pm on Wednesdays in January and February, and see how they go!

In order to run any of these, though, we need at least one parent chaperone — so if you’re available and willing to volunteer, we’d appreciate it so much!  Please visit our SignUp Genius to choose a grade & time slot:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E44ABA72EA2FD0-lincolneliot3

We’ll provide a Zoom link from our PTO account, so you just have to sign in and keep an eye on the kids.  You can decide the length — the slots are an hour long, but if you’d like to make it a half-hour chat, or whatever amount of time works for you, that’s OK, too!  If you’d like to read to them or organize a game, that would be great — but it’s also fine to sit nearby and let them chat; we just need to make sure there’s an adult presence.

Please email Elizabeth or Tui at secretary@lepto.org anytime with any questions, and thank you so much for your help!

Join Us for Virtual Trivia Night: Jan. 22nd!

Mark your calendars: We will be having our first ever Lincoln-Eliot Virtual Trivia Night on Friday, January 22, at 7pm, and we’d love to see you there!  It should be a really fun night and a chance to see friends we haven’t seen in a while, at least virtually.

The format will be Stump! Trivia (https://www.sporcle.com/blog/2020/05/what-is-stump-trivia).  Families will be put onto teams and will be able to discuss questions with their team in breakout rooms.  Children are welcome to join in (and teachers, you’re invited, too!).

Please RSVP here so you can be emailed the Zoom link before the event:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3fkue7WLxA_d-WQ5BfKTBaVEaNjjxtMGHKAzHeU8dwRPYkQ/viewform?gxids=7628

Hopefully see you there!

FORJ January Updates

21 Day Racial Equity Habit Challenge

This month, check out Dr. Eddie Moore Jr’s “21 Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge”©: https://www.eddiemoorejr.com/21daychallenge/#act

As families, we are often working on doing for our kids or others. This challenge is a chance to center ourselves in the work, learning and action against racism. It’s something you can start any time – it’s not date specific and the articles, podcasts and activities can be reviewed at your own pace.

FORJ Book Club

If your child is in 3rd-5th grade and would like to join our FORJ Book Club, where we read and discuss diverse books (over Zoom) for this age range, please email secretary@lepto.org to be added to the book club email list!

FORJ is looking for the next City-Wide FORJ Coordinator

For the 2021-2022 year, Newton Public Schools authorized a stipend to hire a FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) Coordinator. For information regarding FORJ, please visit www.forjnewton.com.

Applications are due to FORJ by February 12, 2021.

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

Principal / PTO Update 12.20.20

Dear families,

We hope you all enjoyed the snow day on Friday and had a chance for some wintry fun!

K-2 Extended Day
On January 4th we begin the new extended day schedule for our kindergarten, first, and second grade students.  Please remember to pack a morning snack and lunch for your child.  I’d like to remind you that lunches are free for all students.  The monthly menu can be found on the NPS website.

Holiday Travel
As our partners at Newton HHS shared at Thanksgiving, and share now again for the winter holidays, all families are expected to comply with the Massachusetts travel order.  Details can be found on this webpage: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-travel-order

In order to return to school after traveling, you must either:

  • Quarantine for 14 days OR

  • Produce a negative COVID-19 test result (molecular PCR) that has been administered up to 72-hours prior to your arrival in Massachusetts. (The test can be taken upon return, but the individual is required to quarantine until a negative test is obtained.)

  • A test taken prior to leaving MA and returning within 72 hours does not comply with the order. The test must be taken while traveling out of state or upon return to Massachusetts.

This travel order DOES apply to day trips to “high-risk” states (visiting family, skiing, etc.). Please note all states except Hawaii are deemed “high-risk” as of today.

Ventilation Project
We are nearing completion of a comprehensive Ventilation Action Plan in which we have inspected, remediated, and improved the ventilation in all of our school buildings.  The documentation of the work, as well as the status of each room in the district, can be found on this webpage: https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/3804.  On the “dashboards” created for each building, you will see green and yellow coded circles.  Green indicates testing is complete for that particular room.  Yellow indicates work is ongoing.  For yellow spaces, you will also see notes to indicate specific remediation steps, mitigation measures, and timeline for completion.

There will be no school December 24 – January 3 — we wish you a safe and happy winter break!

Principal Morrissey & the PTO

Last Day for Online Book Fair!

Today (Sunday, December 20th) is the last day to shop our online book fair and have 30% of the profits go back to Lincoln-Eliot — if you haven’t had a chance to check it out, here’s the link!:

https://www.childrensbookstore.com/welcome/lincoln-eliot-elementary-school/

After today, we’ll get 15% instead, but you can still shop the online fair  — so please feel free to bookmark the link and keep checking back for books you need, or to buy books for our wonderful teachers!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s purchased books and everyone who came to the Zoom storytimes, plus our awesome storytime readers!  We hope you have a safe, cozy, joyful winter break — happy reading, everyone!  🙂