Paw Prints – March 21

The recent murders of eight people, including six Asian women, come as just the latest major incident of violence suffered by Asian American communities, especially women.  According to a recent report, hate crimes targeting Asian Americans have surged over 150% in major cities in the last year.  Women and nonbinary people are disproportionately harmed by this racism.  Asian women have reported twice as many hate incidents over the past year.  As we grapple with this senseless violence, we especially think of our Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) colleagues, students, and families who are dealing with fear, loss, and exhaustion triggered by these murders and the rampant racist hate speech and violence towards Asian Americans in the United States. I call on all members of the Curley K-8 Community to join me in expressing our support for the AAPI community. 

5 Day Return Survey
DESE announced that all schools need to open for 5 day per week in person in the coming weeks. BPS is working on a timeline and a plan for this to happen and we need your help. A survey was sent to all families and they will have until Monday, March 22nd to complete it. One survey must be filled out for each child. Please check your junk/spam mail if you do not see the survey in your inbox. They will be given two options to choose from:

• Option 1: IN-PERSON. If you select this option, your child will learn in-person five days a week.
• Option 2: FULLY REMOTE. If you select this option, your child will participate in remote learning five days a week.

At this time we do not have an exact date for a 5 day return for students. Once we have this family data as a school community we can plan around what this means for our operational and instructional plans. We will hold family meetings once we have information to share regarding new safety protocols and reopening plans but this may not be for a few more weeks. We will give a weekly update here as information comes our way.

SPC Meeting
The SPC is meeting On Wednesday, March 24th from 8am-9am. Principal Grassa will join and begin to share information about 5 day reopening based on the data collected from families around who will enter 5 days per week. Zoom Link

Return, Recover, Reimagine Task Force
This Taskforce is an opportunity to engage in the design, improvement, and implementation of planning for our return to school in fall 2021. The Task Force will be composed of 7-10 subcommittees, each with key stakeholder representation including educators, caregivers, and students. Subcommittees will meet regularly through the spring and summer and include: 

• Assessments (already appointed through a previous process), 
• Curriculum, 
• Grading, 
• Learning Management Systems/Digital Learning, 
• Intervention/MTSS, 
• Out of School Time Intervention, 
• Transformative SEL, 
• Multilingual Learners, 
• Special Education. 

Read each subcommittee’s tentative guiding question, and apply here.  

Parent2Parent Conference:
Español / Português / Kreyòl Ayisyen / Tiếng Việt / 中文 / عربي / Cabo Verdiana / Soomaali / Français

You are invited to the 2021 virtual Boston Teachers Union Parent2Parent Conference, co- sponsored by the Boston Education Justice Alliance, Boston SpedPAC, St. Stephen’s Youth Programs, Citywide Parent Council, Federation of Children with Special Needs, City Life/Vida Urbana, Citizens for Public Schools, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and the BPS Office of English Language Learners. The theme this year is Learning, Parenting, Teaching: Strengthening Communities Together, and we have an exciting program planned for that day. The Conference will take place on Saturday, March 27th, from 10am – 2:30pm. There will be a morning plenary session where we co-create a big picture vision for education justice,  workshop sessions, a Community Resource Fair, raffles and more! Interpretation will be provided to all who register.  Please share the flyers with your networks and register today!

Hiring Help: We are launching our hiring process for next year and we would love your help! There is no interview experience necessary and this is a great opportunity to help us recruit the best educators to join our team. We value family feedback in our hiring process. Please reach out to the admin lead to participate.

Position	Lead	Date/Time
Family Liaison K-8	Katiekgrassa@bostonpublicschools.org	Wednesday, March 24th 3:30-6:30pm
SAR ELA 6-8	Meaghanmohrenberger@bostonpublicschools.org	Monday 3/22 3:30-6 pm, Tuesday 3/23 3:30-5pm
Science Grades 6-8	Dawn/Adrianddurant2@bostonpublicschools.orgawardjackson@bostonpublicschools.org	Week of 3/22 after 4:00 (Tuesday 3/23 and Thursday 3/25)

Voluntary Student COVID Testing: We have begun to offer weekly COVID testing for our students. Below are that paper & electronic copies of the consent forms to be completed by families who are interested in participating.  Consent for testing can be received at any time, there is no deadline.  The consent form only needs to be filled out once. Please contact our school nurses if you have any questions. Keilah Santana – ksantana@bostonpublicschool.org or April Pumphret apumphret@bostonpublicschools.org 

Here is a video with further information on testing for students.

Language	Paper	Electronic
English	English Paper	English Electronic
Spanish	Spanish Paper	Spanish Electronic
Chinese	Chinese Paper	Chinese Electronic
Haitian Creole	Haitian Creole Paper	Haitian Creole
Cabo Verdean	Cabo Verdean Paper	Cabo Verdean Electronic
Vietnamese	Vietnamese Paper	Vietnamese Electronic
Portuguese	Portuguese Paper	Portuguese Electronic
French	French Paper	French Electronic
Arabic	Arabic Paper	Arabic Electronic
Somali	Somali Paper	Somali Electronic

Jamaica Plain COVID Testing for Families: The testing site is free and available to everyone, regardless of insurance. This is a walk-up site with on-site registration.

ANNA M. COLE COMMUNITY CENTER

Mon. – Thurs. 3pm – 7 pm & Sun. 11am-3pm

Mildred Hailey Apartments

24 Heath Street

Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

You can find more information about free testing sites across the city here.

Safety Supports: Each classroom is equipped with an air purifier, hand sanitizer and cleaner. Additional custodial staff has been hired to clean high touch spaces and all community members will be wearing masks. We also have additional PPE on site in case back up is needed during the school day.

Meal Distribution Update: Meal sites are open on Mondays and Thursday 10am-6pm. We are excited to announce that the Curley is now a distribution site again! For more information please contact project Bread’s Food Source Hotline at (800) 645-8333 or the School Food number at 617-635-9144. For a full list of distribution sites please visit the BPS free meals page. At our Curley food site there will also be free books available for families.

School Councils: Check out our School Site Council (SSC) and School Parent Council (SPC)! We have a  wonderful group of new and returning council members who are all excited to meet with Curley families. SPC and SSC are great ways to get involved in school planning and have your voice be heard. Please join us on any of the following times, come to one or come to all! (Registration required)

SSC Every Second Tuesday of the month 5:30-7:00PM

• 4/13/21 Zoom Link
• 5/11/21 Zoom Link
• 6/8/21 Zoom Link

SPC on Wednesdays during alternating times

• 3/24/21   8-9AM Zoom Link
• 5/12/21  6-7PM Zoom Link
• 6/9/21  6-7PM Zoom Link

Classroom	Classroom teachers: (Contact information can be found at www.curleyk8.com)
K-2 Support	Dawn Durant ddurant2@bostonpublicschools.org or Cristina Silva csilva4@bostonpublicschools.org
Grades 3-5 Support	David Diaz ddiaz@bostonpublicschools.org or Justina Levey jlevey@bostonpublicschools.org
Grades 6-8 Support	Adrian Ward-Jackson Awardjackson@bostonpublicschools.org  or Sugeily Santos ssantos2@bostonpublicschools.org
Health Support	Keilah Santana ksantana@bostonpublicschools.org or April Pumphret apumphret@bostonpublicschools.org
Tech Support	BPS Helpline 617-635-8873 – Please have families call the BPS Family helpline Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm for questions about technology and other resources available to BPS families.Help is available in Arabic, Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Urgent Priority Questions	Principal  Katie Grassa kgrassa@bostonpublicschools.org

Social Media: For up to date information about the Curley K-8 School please sign up for email alerts by joining the Mailing List. You can also follow Principal Grassa on Twitter @principalgrassa and be sure to always use the hashtag #curleycares when sharing/posting/tweeting information about our school.