No need to panic...it's still summer! But somehow August arrived so I thought it would be good to give you a quick update. Hopefully you all have been relaxing, enjoying time with friends and family, and soaking up the summer sunny days (when not getting soaked by the ridiculous amount of rain we have had this summer!). I have been trying to mix relaxing/family time (is relaxing family time a thing?!) with professional learning this summer. The week after school got out I took my kids and my niece to Santa's Village which was fun for all. Sadly, we had to put our dog to sleep unexpectedly so the Garden house has been a little sad this summer and we have apparently become "cat people" since now we only have our 3 cats. The kids have been campaigning hard for another dog, but the grownups are holding strong that we need some more time before we replace our beloved Cleo. I drove down to DC in July to present at the NAESP Conference and then flew my family down to VA and picked them up on the drive down to Virginia Beach. We spent a week visiting with my family and got in some beach time, our annual trip to Busch Gardens, and a visit to the Aquarium. It had been 8 years since we were last at the aquarium so we did a picture retake to show how much Emerson has changed! She has clearly changed so much. Me...some added wrinkles and a few more bags under my eyes...ugh. We drove back to MA and then I had a weekend to unpack and repack for the MSAA Conference in Plimoth that was my final responsibility as MSAA President. My dad drove up and came with us to serve as our babysitter. Which meant I was having to follow him around in between conference sessions and remind him that he was here to help with the kids! During one lunch break, I caught him sitting at a table with the whole admin crew from Nantucket...apparently they love him and want to hire him and bring him to the island! :) The MSAA Conference was exhausting, but also was amazing. The highlight for me was that I brought students to introduce the keynote speakers. My own daughter introduced Adam Welcome, our amazing Emmaline introduced Allyson Apsey, and one of my former students who just graduated from high school and spent her school career in the foster care system introduced the Commissioner. All three of these young ladies crushed it! I can't wait to hear about your summer adventures. In fact, I would love for each of you to send me one photo from your summer. Please email me one photo of you with family and/or friends by Aug. 25th.
I want to give a big shout out to our rockstar custodians: John, Steve, Keith, and Jack! They have been sweating it out to get the building looking awesome. Floors are shiny, carpets are cleaned, and they have helped several staff move in, move out, or change locations. We are using all of our spaces this year, and I am working on a storage map so people will know where we have stored different curriculum materials since there will be no "extra classrooms" this year. The custodians wanted me to say a big thank you to those of you who left maps for them to set up your rooms the way you wanted them set up. Also a big shout out to Julia and Tracee who spent the first days of summer merging files and making it so we only need to go to one spot to find student information. No more scavenger hunts to find student records! We have brand new copiers in the building that work just like the old ones, using your employee code. Some people (myself included) have had difficulty with the first use. If that's you, get in touch with tech support or see Julia to help you problem solve. I am sending out a parent update to let families know that next Thursday, Aug. 10 class placements will be available in PowerSchool. Please wait until after that date to send out letters to your students. If you need labels made, envelopes stuffed, and/or stamps applied, Julia is happy to help you! I will share more in an update that I will send out closer to our first day together, but I did want to remind you about some new and exciting things at Clough this year and tell you about some new staff. First, we are excited that the before and after school program will be housed at Clough this year! They will be utilizing the previous Spanish Immersion 1st grade classroom, as well as the cafeteria and gym. We are excited to welcome Lana and Sabrina, along with several other staff that will be supporting this program. Thanks to their suggestion, we are adding a sandbox to the back playground. I am also going to talk with facilities to see if we could add one to the front playground as well. We are adding a district-wide therapeutic program that will be housed at Clough. I am so excited to share that Amy Henderson, previously a special education teacher at Memorial, will be coming to Clough to be the special educator for this new therapeutic program. She will be joined by a full time social worker, Nicole Casasanta. Some of you may remember Nicole as she was a 1:1 para at Clough several years ago. We will have two Spanish Immersion classrooms this year. One will be in kindergarten. Lola Martinez and her para Ana Aguilar will be moving from Memorial to Clough to teach in K. We will also have a 2nd grade SI classroom. We have Nazaret Molina coming from Spain to join the 2nd grade team. Finally, as the unofficial president of the Kyle Sears fan club, no one was more upset than me to learn that Kyle moved and will no longer be with us this year. We have several strong candidates that we will be interviewing next week, and while we know that no one can replace Kyle, I am confident that we will find a strong elementary BCBA for this year. Many of you filled out my "getting to know you" survey last year. If any of your info has changed or you never filled it out, be sure and take a few minutes to complete it. Trust me, this is one survey you definitely want to complete because it could mean surprises for you throughout the year! Thank you to all who shared your t-shirt size with Julia...that's important info for our first day together. Also, I will be adding some helpful sections to the Clough Connector. Let's just say this site will be "under construction." And that might just be a hint about our theme for the year! Now time to return to your regularly scheduled summer break! :)
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