Please remind your child to finish reading “From the Desk of Zoe Washington” before October 14th.

Students need to read the book and think about this: “When Marcus tells Zoe he is innocent, and her grandmother agrees, Zoe begins to learn about inequality in the criminal justice system, and she sets out to find the alibi witness who can prove his innocence.” Does everyone lie? Is there ever a good time to lie? Think of the worst lie you have told… Was it “worth it”?

Learn more about One School, One Book at Bigelow here.

We’d like to hear from you!

The PTO spends approximately $120 per student per year. In 2020, thanks to our community’s fundraising efforts, the PTO was also able to support the Auditorium Improvements ($19,500) & the purchase of Chromebooks ($15,000).

Please let us know if you have any suggestions for fundraising activities and what projects you’d like to volunteer for!

Suggest Fundraising Activities & Volunteer

We are currently looking to fill the following positions:

• Big Night
• Scholarship Fund
• PoPS (Parents of Performing Students) Theater Liaison
• PoPS (Parents of Performing Students) Orchestra Liaison

Please email bigelowbulldog@gmail.com or fill the form above to express interest.

The Parents & Caregivers Program is part of The Resilience Project, an innovative community health initiative based out of Newton-Wellesley Hospital. They offer a range of FREE or low-fee educational resources for parents and caregivers with a particular focus on supporting our local communities, including Natick, Needham, Newton, Waltham, Wellesley, and Weston. Philanthropic support has made it possible to expand its reach to include free services for middle and high schools in our catchment areas, and this includes Bigelow.

The Resilience Project’s Parents & Caregivers Program offers parenting workshops, talks, and webinars throughout the year. Their programming includes:  

• Building Resilience Series – a free monthly virtual event series co-organized with The Resilience Project’s School Program focusing on different topics related to supporting the emotional wellness and mental health of students  
• Parenting Through COVID-19 Webinar Series – free webinars for parents including various topics such as Parenting and Fostering Resilience, Managing Parent Anxiety, Navigating Summer, Parenting Through School Transitions, with more webinars to come  
• Parent Talks/Seminars – one-time educational presentations offered by request throughout the year on a variety of topis (e.g., resilience and mental health, anxiety and school avoidance, screens, substance use) to meet the needs of individual schools and/or parent groups  
• Raising Resilient Teens Parent Workshop – a seven-week virtual skills-based workshop offered every fall, winter, and spring 
• Additional Parent Groups/Workshops including Raising Resilient Kids Parent Workshop – coming soon!  

To learn more, please contact NWHResilienceProject@partners.org, visit nwh.org/resilienceproject and follow @NWHResilienceProject on Facebook.

If you didn’t order a yearbook last year but you still want one, your student can bring $25 dollars cash or check* to Ms. Rice in room 210. Students can pick up a copy before school, after school, or during 4th block.

* make checks payable to “Bigelow Middle School”

PoPS (Parents of Performing Students) meeting will take place by Zoom on Mon Oct 4, 2021 7pm – 7:45pm.
Please email nicholemace@gmail.com  to get the Zoom details.

From Newton Public Schools:

Dear NPS Families,

We continued implementation of the weekly COVID testing program this week, prioritizing those schools that were missed last week. Testing went more smoothly, with increased staffing and adjustments to our testing protocols.

As CIC Health continues to recruit and train the staff necessary to conduct weekly testing in all of our schools, we will continue with our phased-in approach to weekly testing. We believe this is the best approach so as not to compromise our ability to effectively implement our Test and Stay testing program, which is vital to minimizing interruptions to student learning.

Therefore, for the week of October 4th, we will test students and staff in 13 buildings (9 elementary schools, 4 middle schools – only 6th grade) to ensure available staffing resources match the needs of each building. The schedule for the week of October 4th is linked here: CIC Public Testing Schedule and is also shown below. We anticipate the schedule will shift from week to week until the staffing challenges are resolved.

Until we feel confident in CIC Health’s ability to scale the weekly testing operation with adequate staffing, the weekly testing program for grades 7-12+ will remain on hold. However, the symptomatic and Test and Stay testing continues to be available as appropriate.

As communicated in the district newsletter on Wednesday, we did make some changes to the testing procedures. For reference, those changes are listed below.

Testing Procedure Changes:

• Aligned the CIC Health staff training process with Newton health and safety practices.
• Standardized the testing process across schools.
• Consulted with CIC Health and the Broad Institute to modify the testing protocol to utilize a nose wipe instead of a nose blow.
• Switched to a single nasal swab collection to improve efficiency on testing day. Positive pool results will be followed up with a rapid antigen test at school.
• Conferred with our Medical Advisory Group to obtain approval of our testing procedures in school buildings.
• Adjusted and refined clerical procedures to ensure accuracy in student testing rosters.

Testing will take place on Friday at Bigelow (6th grade only).

Please remind your children that all students must wear a mask covering nose and mouth at all times in the building and send them in with an extra if possible, just in case it breaks or gets damaged throughout the day.

Bigelow’s office received a small amount from the city but not enough  to supply the demands of the students.

As you know, an annual event for the PTO is Ten Tables, a progressive dinner hosted by a number of Bigelow families in early November. This event is not only an important fundraiser for the PTO, but also one of the highlights of our social calendar.

To make sure this fall fundraiser can happen, we are looking for two Co-Chairs to oversee this event!

Please contact Gabriela at  frinulia@hotmail.com if you are interested!

Save the date for the first PTO Meeting of the year: Tuesday, September 28, at 7pm.

The meeting will take place remotely (https://zoom.us/j/5925992278).

All Bigelow parents, guardians, teachers and staff are members of the PTO, and we encourage the participation of all in its activities. We are dedicated to providing support and information to the parent community and promoting the core values of the Bigelow Middle School by supporting an environment wherein they will develop respect for self and others, a sense of responsibility for oneself and community, and love of learning.

Please contact us at bigelowbulldog@gmail.com with any questions.

We get it. Morning are hard, particularly now that most people need to wear real clothes to work and school and head out the door. If you do not have the possibility of walking or biking to school, you very likely use the dreaded drop-off line.

For everyone’s safety and to keep everyone’s stress level as low as possible, we want to remind everyone about the 7 School Pick-Up and Drop-Off Line Rules as stated in the very humorous 2018 article “The 7 rules parents must not break in the school drop-off line“ by Sarah Maizes:

“Rule #1: Do NOT get out of your car. Ever. Not to “quickly grab” your kid, wave “come on” to your child over the playground fence, or just say “hi” to your friend in line behind you to tell her how much fun you had at Girl’s Night Out. Stay in your car. And when the car in front of you moves, you move.

Rule #2: Put down the cellphone. Don’t text or type emails. Waiting for your kid in your empty (and wonderfully quiet) car seems like the perfect opportunity to catch up on work – but it’s also a distraction. People on their phones don’t notice the car in front of them has moved, and as we learned in Rule #1, you know what to do next. More importantly, it’s dangerous. People on their phones don’t see children darting out between cars to the parents breaking rule #3.

Rule #3: Don’t double park. Maybe you’re thinking “I’ll just pull up alongside this nice lady here and my kid can run out in front of her and jump in.” No. “But I see my kid right there!” Good. Then you can wave at them to meet you at the end of the line when you circle back around the block. Plus, it’s illegal.

Rule #4: DON’T cut the line. It doesn’t matter that there is a gap the size of the one in Lauren Hutton’s smile in front of that BMW ten cars up. We’re all waiting for them to get off their phone and move up (pop quiz: “What do you do when the car in front of you moves?”). Zipping into that gap is like cutting the line at a cupcake shop. You wouldn’t pull that $#*% at Sprinkles, would you?

Rule #5: Leave the PDA at home. You love your little one and want to send him on his way to school with a kiss. That’s lovely. You’re cute. But if little Johnny won’t get out of the car or he’s not ready to say “goodbye,” go park your car and walk him in. Even better? Install an ejector seat. People are waiting, folks.

Rule #6: The rules of the car drop-off lane apply to everybody no matter what kind of car you drive. So move your Maserati to the back of the line, dude. You’re giving the 1 percent a bad name.

Rule #7: Move swiftly. Once your kids locate you, get them into the car and get going. Don’t sit there in line and have the “how was your day?” discussion with them.

In short, a little politeness goes a long way in the car lane (and beyond). Remember, being behind the wheel of a car doesn’t make you invisible. We see you. We all see you. Including our children. So let’s try to set a good example. Now put the phone down… the car in front of you just moved up.”