Greetings
SATEC Families,
It
is hard to believe that August is already upon us! We hope you have all had a wonderful summer. We would like
to welcome everyone to the start of the school year and to provide you with
some general information and dates.
We
would like to welcome our new faculty and staff and wish them success.
Faculty and Staff changes for the 2013-2014 school year:
● Kirsten Brown
will be our new 1st grade teacher.
● Melissa Lovejoy
will be our new Kindergarten teacher.
● George Murphy
will be our new 5th/6th grade Language Arts/Social Studies teacher.
● Sharon Alessi
will be our new special educator in CS.
● Katie Lamb will
be our new special educator in AS.
● Kate Barnard
will be our new special educator in AN and 4th grade.
● Elizabeth
Larkin will be a para-educator in AN.
● Mindi Picard
will be a para-educator in AS.
● Courtney
Johnson will be a para-educator in B2S.
● Kim Brow is our
new custodian.
● Marie Jennette
will be a TA in CN.
We would also like to welcome Jason Wetherby
from the Saint Albans Police Department who is assigned as our School Resource
Officer and Brianne Heyer who is our new NCSS school-based counselor.
Based
on the parent survey given in the spring of 2013, one of our goals this year is
to increase our communication with parents. We are creating a daily notice for parents that will be on
our website. In addition, we would
also like to send these notices out via e-mail each day. This will make it
essential that we have updated e-mail contact information from each family. Ongoing communication between home and
school is a powerful tool to maximize student achievement and helps to build
strong relationships with families.
As always, we welcome your questions and visits to school. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Angela Stebbins
Principal
Jason Therrien
Assistant Principal
OTHER INFORMATION:
First Day of School: The
first day of school for students in grades 1-8 only will be held on Wednesday,
August 28th . This will be a regular day
of school for students only. We will be sending home a variety of
materials on the first day of school which will include: the emergency
verification form, the first newsletter, Abbey Group information, free and
reduced lunch applications, health office forms, and the Student/Parent
Handbook K-2, in grades 3-8 the Handbook is part of the student agendas.
Kindergarten students and their parents have been invited to one two-hour
session (9:00-11:00 with a bus ride 11:00-11:15 or 12:30-2:30 with a bus ride
12:15-12:30) on Friday, August 31st. The first full day of school for
Kindergarten will be on Tuesday, September 3rd.
School Schedule: All students will be welcome in their classrooms at 8:00am.
Students in grades 3-8 will be considered tardy if they arrive in their classrooms
past 8:05am and K-2 students will be considered tardy after 8:15am. K-2
students will be allowed to eat breakfast in their classrooms between
8:00-8:15am. The
front and back doors will remain locked until 7:45am. Students will be allowed to enter the school building at
7:45am. Please do not drop
students off before 7:45 a.m. Dismissal Times: K-2 will be
dismissed from their classrooms at approximately 3:18pm, 3-4 students at
3:22pm, and 5-8 students will be dismissed at 3:25pm. Our goal will be
for the buses to leave school at 3:30pm.
We appreciate your cooperation.
FOOD SERVICE: *School Lunch and Breakfast Prices have changed
Breakfast
is available before classes begin each day. The price
for student breakfast is $1.25, lunch is $1.95, and milk is .50. Adult breakfast is $1.90 and adult
lunch is $3.60.
Lunch
and breakfast payments are strongly encouraged on the first day of each
week. Payments may be made
monthly. Please do not send
Canadian money. Meals may be
charged for one day, after which an emergency sandwich will be served for two
days. If a special diet is needed,
parents must present a doctor’s form stating the special requirements.
All families are strongly urged to
apply for the National Free and Reduced Price Breakfast and Lunch Program.
Please contact Tammy Deso at tdeso@fcsuvt.org or 527-7191 ext 9300.
If you have
questions about the Food Service Program or your child’s lunch account please
call 527-7191 ext 9214.
OPEN HOUSE:
K-4
will be held on Wednesday, September 25, 2013 from 5:30-7:00pm.
5-8
will be held on, Thursday, September 26, 2013 from 5:30-7:00pm.
Prescription Medication Form: If your child needs to take prescription medication while in school,
you need to complete the appropriate form on the first day of school.
This authorization must be on file at school in order for your child to
receive such medications. If you have questions, please call the School
Nurse’s office at 527-7191 and press 4.
EMERGENCY INFORMATION
VERIFICATION:
On the first day of school, please look for the Emergency
Information Verification form for you to fill out and return to the school by
September 6th. We need to know where to reach you or the childcare
person/program for your children in case of an emergency early closing of the
school. We appreciate your cooperation in giving us this information.
ALERT NOW is a notification service
that allows us to send telephone and e-mail messages to you providing important
information about school events or emergencies. We will continue to
use this service this year. Information about how the service works can be
found in the Parent/Student Handbook.
ALLERGY INFORMATION: A number of our students
have medically documented severe or life threatening allergies to all types
of nuts. In order to follow our Policy and Procedures, we are asking for
the support of the entire school community to help us maintain a safe
environment. The support is in the form of accommodations we are asking
teachers, staff, students and families to follow. We are kindly asking that you do not send in any snacks or lunches that
have nuts or are processed on machinery that may have traces of nut products on
it. Please read labels carefully. We realize that we
cannot guarantee a completely “nut free” school, but we do hope through
education and communication we can make the SATEC learning environment as safe
as possible for all.
HANDBOOKS: We provide a Student/Parent
Handbook to each student. We encourage you to review the Handbook and to
contact us if you have any questions. In grades 3-8 the handbook
can be found in the student agenda books. Please look for a handbook sign
off sheet that will provide an opportunity for parents to review policy
information and to give approval for students to use the Internet.
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS:
Earlier
this month the VT Agency of Education announced the 2013 Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) results, which were based on the fall 2012 NECAP Assessments
taken by our 3rd-8th grade students. We are required to inform our families
that SATEC did not meet the AYP targets set by the State in Reading and
Mathematics for all students, for students who receive free and reduced lunch
and for students with disabilities.
Although we did not make AYP, our students of American Indian decent were
acknowledged and commended for an increase of 10% or more in the area
mathematic. This is an excellent
accomplishment for our students and it reflects a concerted effort to improve
learning outcomes for our students.
The
Supervisory Union has a plan to help improve student learning in all FCSU
schools. The SU plan centers
around creating a K-12 curriculum framework and common assessments that will be
monitored through the use of protocols.
SATEC’s
school based improvement plan involves teachers setting specific learning goals
for all their students throughout the year and using data to monitor individual
and group progress toward the identified learning targets. This upcoming school year, in addition
to the math and reading assessments we already use, SATEC will be implementing
an on-line student assessment system called Measure of Academic Progress
(MAP). The MAP assessment is a
computer based student assessment in reading, math, and science that is
individualized for each student.
Our goal will be to use this data in conjunction with our current
assessments to monitor student progress and to make adjustments to
instruction. SATEC teachers offer
extended learning time in grades K-4 and enrichment time in grades 5-8 to
provide additional supports and challenges to all students. SATEC teachers work
together in teams to share ideas and identify supports needed for their
students.
We
have also been asked to share how SATEC performs in comparison to other schools
in terms of academic achievement.
On the following page we have included two charts that will show you how
SATEC students performed on the NECAP reading and math assessments in the fall
of 2012 as compared to a number of other Vermont schools. This assessment is given to students in
grades 3-8 only. We included all three FCSU K-8 schools, other schools in
Franklin County and the last three schools listed are K-8 schools that are of a
similar size to SATEC.
Fall
2012 NECAP Assessment in Reading: The TARGET score for reading is 468
|
SATEC
|
SACS
|
FFCS
|
Swanton
|
Sheldon
|
Georgia
|
Barre
Town
|
Barre
City
|
All
Students average score
|
458
|
423
|
457
|
424
|
421
|
466
|
458
|
434
|
Students
who receive free and reduced lunch average score
|
420
|
393
|
418
|
410
|
397
|
428
|
433
|
419
|
Students
with disabilities average score
|
341
|
299
|
346
|
289
|
308
|
331
|
350
|
293
|
Fall 2012 NECAP
Assessment in Math: The TARGET score for math is 463
|
SATEC
|
SACS
|
FFCS
|
Swanton
|
Sheldon
|
Georgia
|
Barre
Town
|
Barre
City
|
All
Students average score
|
430
|
411
|
441
|
395
|
386
|
454
|
440
|
426
|
Students
who receive free and reduced lunch
average
score
|
379
|
383
|
396
|
377
|
351
|
426
|
406
|
413
|
Students
with disabilities
average
score
|
289
|
301
|
337
|
275
|
275
|
331
|
301
|
296
|
We
encourage parents to carefully review student reporting and assessment
information that is shared with them by teachers. Parents can sign up for conferences two times per year (once
in October and once in March); however we can meet more frequently to develop
specific learning plans for children through the Educational Support Team (EST)
process. In addition, please ask
your child each week about what they are learning in school. Parental involvement is essential to
the ongoing learning of each student.
If you have specific questions or concerns at any time throughout the
year please contact your child’s teachers.
