Friday Announcements Date: April 2, 2004
Dear Parker Families,
Just about a year ago, I was sitting in the library office, reading email while chatting with the four parent volunteers who were in that day. It was a Wednesday morning, kids were engaged in a variety of Choice Block activities; the library was buzzing. The volunteers were also “on task,” processing a cart of newly cataloged books and repairing broken book spines and torn pages.
“Hey, Laurie?” asks one Parker Mom, “Have you ever done a fund raiser for the library?” she asks, looking up from her work. Her daughter is new to Parker this year- the entire family seems filled with enthusiasm and energy. “Well..” I hesitated with my response. “I’ve thought about it, but I never seem to have any extra time” my voice trails off. “Hmm… yeah.” It’s quiet for a few moments. “I’d be willing to do it!”
And so, it all began with this group of four women. We all stopped what we were working on, and in a little over an hour, we came up with a fun and meaningful fundraiser for the library. We brainstormed the logistics and decided on a name. BUCK$ for BOOK$ was born that day!
This April marks our 2nd Annual “Buck$ for Book$” fund raising program for the library. We hope you will consider participating this year! Here’s how it works:
During the month of April, Buck$ for Book$ forms will be attached to Friday Announcements. You are invited to contribute money toward the purchase of books or educational videos for the library. This donation can be made in honor of a particular teacher or teaching team. Each teacher so honored will be given a “gift certificate,” identifying the family and the amount. The teacher may then select an item for the library, or they can ask me to select one for them. Either way, a permanent book plate is placed in the book. Alternatively, donations could be made directly to the library to purchase books we’d like to add to our collection. You may also opt to select a favorite subject area or genre (i.e., science or current fiction) or suggest a particular book.
Last year, I was overwhelmed by the donations that came in… I was literally in tears! We received over $2100, nearly doubling the library book budget! I hope you will consider making a donation, dedicated toward building our library collection, and in support of our children’s education and personal growth!
Thank you!
Laurie Nehring
Librarian
COMING SOON
April, 2004
Wednesday, 7 - College Admissions Panel from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, 7 - Senior Project Exhibition Night at 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, 8 - Parker Road Race and Springfest meeting at 7:00 p.m.
CALENDAR
PLEASE MARK THESE DATES! (Subject to change)
April, 2004 (Continued)
Monday, 12 - Graduation Committee meeting at 7:00 p.m. in Room 1
Tuesday, 13 - Parker Matters, Session III - Homework… HELP! Part II
Wednesday, 14 - Café Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.
Friday, 16 - Early Release (noon dismissal)
Monday thru Friday, 19 - 23 - Spring Recess
Wednesday, 28 - Parker Road Race and Springfest meeting at 7:00 p.m.
May, 2004
Wednesday, 12 - Parker Road Race and Springfest meeting at 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, 13 - MCAS Make-up day for Grade 7
Sunday, 16 - Parker Classic Road Race
Tuesday, 18 - Friday, 28 - MCAS and Stanford 9 tests for grades 7, 8, 9 and 10
Friday, 28 - Early Release (noon dismissal)
Monday, 31- Memorial Day - No school
June, 2004
Wednesday, 2 - Café Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, 9 - Noon dismissal - Graduation, 6:00 p.m.
Friday, 18 - Last Day of Classes - The Big End
Monday through Wednesday, 21 - 23 - Faculty Work Days (or earlier)
College Admissions Panel
Wednesday, April 7th
6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Come one, come all to the 2nd Annual College Admissions Panel discussion
Deans of Admission and other admissions representatives from a variety of local New England colleges will be here to inform us about how they review our non-traditional transcripts. They will also provide us an overview of what their schools have to offer. Why not make it a night, and enjoy the Senior Project Exhibition that will also be underway?
SAVE THE DATE!
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Senior Project Exhibition Night
at 7:00 p.m.
Don’t miss this chance to see this year’s senior projects
and to give feedback on the work still in progress.
We encourage parents and students from ANY division to attend!
PLEASE…
Sign up to be a Juror for a
Senior Project Exhibition!
(You need not be an expert in the fields related to the project
for which you are a juror. Even a little knowledge or a
genuine interest in learning more is all you need!)
Thursday, April 29
Friday, April 30
Monday, May 3
Tuesday, May 4
All Essential Questions are posted with dates and times on the web.
Go to www.parker.org and click on Senior Projects.
If you are interested in being a juror,
please contact Nicky Dudensing at (978) 772-3293 or Nicola@parker.org
Thank you to the family of Kate Ellenberger and the other anonymous donors for their contributions of snacks and supplies to the nurse’s office. All contributions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks to the family of Markus and Will Schober for the donation of pencils for MCAS testing.
Congratulations and many thanks to all our parent volunteers. As of this date we have logged in 1,217 volunteer hours for the year. If you would like to document your volunteer hours yourself you can do so by logging on to the Parker website and going to the Volunteer section. If you would prefer, you may give your hours to Bridgit in the office.
DIVISION III UPDATE
Division Three students heard from three different presenters at Career Day this Wednesday. Ask your student to tell you which professions they learned about. Students are in the thick of the semester, so everyone should have plenty of work to do. At this point in the year, all students should be thinking about how to do their best work to build their portfolios!
Senior Project products are due April 14, so all students should be working towards completion. Please join us next Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. for Senior Project Exhibition Night. We encourage families from all divisions to attend. Finally, to parents of seniors: if you haven't yet sent in your "page" for your student in the yearbook, you need to get it in. Although the $15 late fee applies, we will still accept entries. Pretty soon, it will be too late altogether, late fee or not.
In Trigonometry students have just completed a deep investigation of the Sine Function. They explored different changes that could be made to the function and wrote a report explaining: 1) each change, 2) why it happens and
3) how it would relate to a real-life example. The piece will be assessed for mathematical communication. All students are not only experts on the Sine Function, but are also part of a group which has investigated one of the other Trigonometric functions. Students are presenting their functions to each other and helping each other solve problems relating to their area of expertise. After break students will be working on using their Trigonometry skills to design and build a geodesic dome (for examples of domes from last year you can look at the ceiling in Room 28).
In Computer Science students are finishing up their unit on Karel the Robot with a Robot Olympics! Each student is using arrays, abstract classes and loops to design an army of robots who are able to perform different problem-solving tasks. Some of the tasks include jumping over 'hurdles,' clearing beepers from a box, controlling a group of Robots who act differently when given the same command ('synchronized swimming') and making decisions depending on clues in their environment. On Monday we will begin working with the same kind of code, but using the standard Java commands instead of the Robot-related commands we were using to learn.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES (A/H)
Division I A/H
Students have shared their activism research sculptures with each other today by viewing room "exhibitions." This was a busy week with MCAS, roller skating and setting up studio space for students to create their sculptures. The result was very exciting and informative. Hopefully, you are now having an opportunity to see what your student created, since all sculptures were supposed to go home with them at the end of the day!
Next week, it's on to the Constitution!
Gateway Alert!!! Please keep reminding your prospective June gateway students that Friday, April 30 is the cutoff date for revisions! Students need to be turning revisions around as soon as they are assessed and returned to them. (This is Not an April Fools joke!!!)
The Division One homework sites are up and running again. To access them, go to the Parker website and click on the Division 1 link on the table of contents. Then follow the links to the sites of different domains and/or teaching pairs. Please check them out to see what homework is assigned and when it is due!
Division II A/H
In addition to our ongoing research into the Great Depression, our 10th graders spent Tuesday taking the Composition portion of the MCAS. In-class preparation was provided for all students prior to the exam. Thank you to all parents who have assisted in obtaining book sources from local libraries. Now that some of the inter-library book requests have arrived, many students are learning new information about their topic and making progress towards a "working thesis." Over the weekend, they should begin the actual writing process and will submit a rough draft on Monday. Lastly, students were introduced to some of the history, concepts and techniques that will support our upcoming Documentary Photography work.
MATH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MST) UPDATE
Division I MST
The warm temperatures and abundant rain in the past few days may make the next few nights excellent times to view frogs and salamanders on their yearly trek to a vernal pool to mate. Head outside with a flashlight--listen for calls (wood frogs sound like ducks!) and try to see them for yourself. Hundreds of salamanders and frogs may be swimming,
dancing and laying eggs in nearby water. These pools can be the size of a big puddle to a small pond. Please take photos and bring them to your classes! Enjoy, and watch out for amphibians crossing the road!
In class we have been exploring acceleration on graphs and in practice. We've began to investigate how the force of gravity causes objects to accelerate toward the Earth. Revisions for COW 12 were due today. COW 14 will be handed out next Thursday.
Division II MST
In science, each class is studying the fossil, anatomical and biological evidence for evolution. The assessment is a protein lab which examines proteins between aquatic organisms and a chicken. All classes have completed the lab by this time and students should be working on completing the lab write-up. Due dates vary depending on class, so students should check in with their teachers.
Students are studying statistics by examining scatter plots, lines of best fit, learning about correlation and residuals. Students will be using their graphing calculators a lot during this unit and should carry them to and from school daily. Students have received their assessment for this unit and should be working on it as they learn the material. Everyone
should have picked their data by now and should be completing work for the second check in (next week) and third check in on Thursday, April 15, 2004. Dates may vary depending on class, so students should check in with their teachers.
Students should buy new batteries for their graphing calculators since many indicate "low battery."
MATH TEAM
Varsity Meet #4 is on Wednesday, April 7, 2004 at Bartlett High School. Topics include: 'Elementary Number Theory,' 'Algebra I,' 'Open Geometry,' 'Logs, Exponents & Radicals' and 'Trigonometry.'
Practices are during Choice Block with Dina in Room 17 and Mondays after school with Dina and Amy in Room 24. Please see Dina or e-mail dinaz@parker.org for more information.
SPANISH UPDATE
Emily and Damara's classes did a reading assessment on a version of "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse". They will begin to learn about the Puerto Rican countryside and the city of New York next week.
David's 7th graders are working on learning the parts of the body in Spanish and his 8th graders are writing their tejano song.
In Lisa and Janice's Division 2 classes, students finished the opening phase of the unit about the "Crisis of Coffee," and were asked to bring together what they have learned from the speaker, film, articles and statistics presented in the past few weeks in a Speaking piece, which was done on Thursday and Friday. Next week, students begin the independent phase of the unit. They will be conducting independent inquiry projects which will help to better answer "What is behind a cup of coffee?”
In Division 3 Spanish, students continued to make their way through the Isabel Allende novel "De Amor y de Sombra," studied grammar relevant to the text and had student-led discussions about important themes in the text.
WELLNESS
Starting this week and
next in Wellness, we will be beginning a new unit on Emotional Health,
focusing on grief, loss and change. We will explore different ways that
people respond to a loss, ways that cultures or religions have structured
traditions around death and grief and discuss healthy responses that we can
have to death or loss in our own lives. Our guest speakers will include
funeral directors and hospice workers. Although we are learning about grief
and talking about death, we will also be focusing on loss as a natural part of
life that encompasses "life changes" such as friends moving away, divorce in a
family, changing schools, break-ups, etc.
We know that this is a sensitive topic and for some students, exceptionally
so, and we want to be sure to be aware of any students who have experienced
recent or life-changing losses in their own lives. If you have concerns or
questions about the unit, or about your child, please contact your child's
Wellness teacher, Advisor or Joan Shulman, School Counselor, or Mary Ann
Gapinski, Wellness Domain Leader, this week or next. Thanks for your support!
This week in Alan's classes:
In Alan's classes, we started a new unit on Emotional Health with a start by looking at loss and grief. We will begin class by listening to "Keep Me In Your Heart" by Warren Zevon. Students will then brainstorm losses and think about external and internal loss. Following this, we will discuss in groups questions like: What might be the gains of some of these losses? For physical activity, students tried a sling shot relay, played capture the flag and wiffle ball.
This week in Deborah’s classes:
This week in Deborah's Health classes, we began our last unit of the year, Emotional Health. We will be focusing on death, loss and grief. Today in class we came up with a list of different types of loss. Students then worked in small groups to look at a host of questions surrounding loss. Next week we will look at children's books surrounding loss and grief. In physical activity classes, we have continued to play indoor soccer and paddle ball.
This week in Laura’s classes:
This week in Laura's classes, students in Block 1 had a choice between track and field, yoga and soccer on Monday and in Block 2 we practiced the high jump. Other activities for the week included "2-ball soccer," DOINK, manhunt and outdoor games. In Health class, we began to look at the range of reactions to a loss and read a variety of children's books addressing grief and loss in pairs. We will continue this activity through next week.
FROM THE NURSE’S OFFICE
Parent Resource Network Line: Many parents struggle to get help for their child's mental health needs. The Parent/Professional Advocacy League (PAL) has a statewide, toll-free Parent Resource Network Line that provides information, referrals, and support to parents of children with mental health needs. This network can provide information to parents on how to access insurance and government resources. Trained family advocates staff the PRN line. All information is kept confidential. The PRN Line phone number is toll free (866) 815-8122. You may find further information about PAL and the PRN Line, on their website at www.ppal.net, or call Mary Ann at the school for more information.
SPORTS INFORMATION
Sports Schedule
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Dismissal |
Bus |
Game |
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Date |
Parker Team |
Practice/Game |
Location |
from class |
Leaves |
Time |
Pick-up |
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Mon., 4/5 |
HS Baseball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:30 at field |
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HS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:30 at field |
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MS Baseball |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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MS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:00 at field |
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Track |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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Tues., 4/6 |
HS Baseball |
Away vs. Ayer |
See website |
2:35 |
2:45 |
3:30 |
5:45 at school |
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HS Softball |
Home vs. Ayer |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:30 at field |
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MS Baseball |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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MS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:00 at field |
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Track |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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Weds., 4/7 |
HS Baseball |
No practice |
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HS Softball |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:30 at school |
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MS Baseball |
No practice |
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MS Softball |
No practice |
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Track |
No practice |
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Thurs., 4/8 |
HS Baseball |
Away vs. Monty Tech. |
See website |
2:20 |
2:30 |
3:30 |
6:00 at school |
|
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HS Softball |
Away vs. Monty Tech. |
See website |
2:20 |
2:30 |
3:30 |
6:00 at school |
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MS Baseball |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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MS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:00 at Willard |
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Track |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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Fri., 4/9 |
HS Baseball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:30 at field |
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HS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:30 at field |
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MS Baseball |
Practice |
School |
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3:30 |
5:00 at school |
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MS Softball |
Practice |
Willard |
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3:30 |
5:00 at field |
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Track |
Practice |
Ayer High Sch. |
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3:30 |
5:30 at school |
The Baseball, Softball and Track season is here. Please be sure that your student athlete is prepared to participate.
To start practice all athletes must have:
· A parental permission/ health information form
· Current physical exam on file in the nurse’s office and
· $175 (payable to the Parker School) Sports User Fee paid before the first game. See below for more information.
Parents/ Guardians: Please note a change in the collection of Sports User Fees:
To participate in all after-school sports programs, students must have their sports user fee paid to the school office (attention: Cathy Pearlman) before the first scheduled game. A change has been made in the collection of this fee because of the number of students with unpaid user fees. The sports user fee is $175/ sport/ per student with a family cap at $700. Financial assistance is available through the Student Assistance Fund. (Contact Mary Ann Gapinski, the School Nurse, for more information concerning financial assistance). If financial assistance is required, a request must be on file in the Nurse’s Office prior to the first game of the season for your student to play.
PARKER SCHOOL – ENROLLMENT FOR 2004-2005
We have received 265 applications from students wishing to attend Parker for the 2004-2005 school year! Of course we will be taking in a new class of “seventh graders” but we also have students on the waiting list for “grades 8, 9 and 10. We are asking the parents of our current students to help us by indicating whether or not your child will be returning to Parker in the fall. Please return the form below or telephone the office as soon as possible. All information is for enrollment purposes only and will be kept confidential in the office. Thank you – Pat Tuzzolo
Student’s
Name: ____________________________________________________
(Please print)
____ Will be returning to the Parker School in September, 2004
____ Will not be returning to the Parker School in September, 2004
____ Not certain at this time
Please reply! If we do not hear from you we will need to contact you by telephone.
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LOST AND FOUND
LOST AND FOUND- left in the library:
"Atlas de Colombia" - is it yours? Since last fall, we have been trying to find the owner of an oversized atlas: Atlas de Colombia, 1977. If nobody claims it by Friday, April 9, I will donate it to "Hands Across the Water" to send books overseas.
Please check the Lost and Found box in the lobby, it is overflowing again.
Littleton High School presents Bye Bye Birdie –
April 1, 2, 3 in the Performing Arts Center at the high school
Parker students Eric Shethar and Zack Berger are in the cast
Shows are Friday, April 2 and Saturday, April 3 at 8:00 p.m. at the Littleton High School Performing Arts Center, 56 King Street, Littleton. For further details, please contact
Martha Shethar (978) 486-9574.
FROM FRANK’S CAFE
As you may be aware, a school lunch program needs to be self-supporting. In order for Parker’s food service program to become self-supporting, we are implementing some changes to our food service program. Some of these changes will address the financial aspects of running Frank's, some will address nutritional issues and others will be implemented to improve service.
Effective Monday, April 5, we are lowering the price of our full lunch to $3.50. However, with this price decrease we are also eliminating the "a la carte" style of serving lunch, and will instead offer the hot lunch priced as a whole unit. Students will have the choice of purchasing a "full meal" but may refuse any two out of the five items offered with each lunch. This is in alignment with the USDA guidelines for lunch service in secondary schools. As in the past, peanut butter sandwiches, bagels and cream cheese, and salads will also continue to be available. We are considering adding a few new items to the daily menu, such as sandwich wraps, that will be priced separately in order to give students a wider choice of lunch options.
Also in the works is a "lunch ticket" program, which will speed up service in the checkout line by allowing students to pre-pay for their lunch. Watch future Friday Announcements for this and other new developments! Thank you for your continued support of Frank’s, Parker’s food service program.
To decrease time spent in the cashier line, we are also changing our “Borrowing” policy. As of Monday, April 5, we will loan lunch money for a full meal ($3.50) to any student who has forgotten their lunch or their lunch money. Money must be paid back before the student may borrow a second time. No other loans will be made. If you owe lunch money at this time, please pay it back by Friday, April 9. As always, we welcome your comments, suggestions and concerns. Please come and visit me in the kitchen or email me at KarenH@parker.org.
Menu for Week of April 5
