September 18, 2020
Dear Bushy Park Community,
We hope that this message finds your family well. After our second week back to school, we also hope that you and your children are acclimating to our synchronous and asynchronous learning schedules. As we communicated earlier this week, we have been working with our staff to ensure that we communicate with parents as effectively as possible so that you can best support your children at home during virtual learning. To that end, we developed a weekly chart outlining the live synchronous classes and asynchronous assignments for each of the five Related Arts classes. This chart will be shared through a Canvas announcement with families each Monday morning at 8:30am, so that you are able to plan for the week and keep track of your child’s assignments for Related Arts. We hope that the chart you received earlier this week was helpful to you and your child in planning for asynchronous learning on Wednesday.
Next week, we look forward to welcoming you to our annual Back to School Night on Thursday, September 24. This year certainly presents us with a new way of engaging with you! Typically, we begin our Back to School Night with a presentation from the administrative team prior to dismissing into our grade level presentations. We recognize that in addition to supporting your children with their virtual learning, you are working, keeping up with family obligations, and balancing many obligations and responsibilities. Therefore, we will be pre-recording our administrative presentation and sending it to parents next week via email, as well as posting it to our website, so that you may review it at your convenience and refer back to it as needed.
Our homeroom teachers will welcome parents to join live Back to School presentations via Google Meet on the following schedule:
Grades 3, 4, 5: 6:00-6:30pm
Kindergarten, Grades 1 & 2, GT Math: 6:30-7:00pm
In order to prepare our presentations, we invite you to share your questions with the grade level teachers in advance using the surveys below. Teachers will review the questions submitted in advance to develop their presentations. While every specific question may not be answered during the 30-minute presentations, we will also be using a “Parking Lot” capture sheet during Back to School Night, so that we can provide written responses to questions that we do not have time to answer during the presentations following the meetings. Your child’s teacher will send an email next week with the Google Meet code to use to access the live Back to School Night presentation.
Please submit your questions using the grade level surveys linked below:
As always, thank you for your partnership. We are so grateful to serve this community! Please do not hesitate to reach out to either of us as needed.
Sincerely,
Julia Bialeski, Principal
Keith West, Assistant Principal
Upcoming Dates:
9/24 Virtual Back to School Night (Click here for specific times for each grade)
9/25 Summer Diverse Book Challenge logs due (click here for further details)
9/25 GT Instructional Seminar Interest Forms due (see below for more information)
9/28 Schools & Offices Closed
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BPES GT Instructional Seminars - Interest Forms Due by September 25!
Seminars provide enrichment opportunities for all students based upon their interests. Students develop a broad range of advanced-level skills in preparation for in-depth study and the creation of products in their areas of interest. GT Resource Teachers provide advanced-level instruction in a variety of areas, including written, oral, and visual communication skills; critical and creative thinking skills; research skills; technology skills; and skills in visual and performing arts.
Review this slideshow to see what seminars will be offered for each grade during the first semester. There will be a synchronous meeting once or twice a week via GoogleMeet followed by asynchronous follow-up activities for the child to complete independently. If your child is interested in participating in a seminar, please click here to complete the GT Seminar Interest Form and submit it. You will receive an invitation with specific dates, times, and meeting code for the group before seminars begin the first week in October.
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Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)
On Wednesday, October 7 and Wednesday, October 14, students in grades 2-5 will take the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. The data from the MAP assessment will help schools and teachers measure where your child is starting the year academically. The HCPSS intends to also give the assessment in winter and spring to measure how your child’s learning is progressing throughout the year. The MAP test does not affect grades and the difficulty adjusts depending on how your child responds. It is normal for students to only answer about half the questions correctly. To learn more about the MAP assessment, please visit: https://www.nwea.org/the-map-suite/common-questions-families/
The MAP-Reading test will be offered on October 7 at 9 am and 1 pm. The MAP-Math test will be offered on October 14 at 9am and 1pm. Students may choose to attend either the morning or afternoon session. If your child is unable to attend, makeup testing will be offered during asynchronous learning times. Teachers will share Google Meet information and your student’s testing group as we get closer to the October 7th testing date. If you have any questions about the MAP Assessments, please contact Mr. West, our School Testing Coordinator.
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From the Bushy Park PTA
What does your Parent Teacher Association (PTA) do with your membership fees and donations?
September 2020
October 2020
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