From a Bigelow parent:

As the crisis in Ukraine escalates, my girls, Maia and Luna, were asking how we can help, so I started to look for ways we can support and I found this list of different associations that we can donate to help Ukrainian people:
https://katiecouric.com/news/how-to-help-ukraine-where-to-donate/

From Newton Public Schools:

As we prepare for the return to school on Monday, we wanted to remind you of a few health and safety protocols:

If you have opted into the at-home rapid antigen test program, please use one test on Sunday, February 27 prior to your return to school on Monday. Please use the other test in the kit on Tuesday, March 1.

• The mask mandate remains in place. All students and staff are required to wear masks inside school buildings and on buses/vans. The School Committee will meet on March 1 and March 7 to review the mask policy.
• Please complete the daily health assessment. If your student has any symptoms associated with COVID, please keep them home and check in with your primary care physician.​​​​​​​
• The Medical Advisory Group’s recommendation from their February 15 meeting is here: Medical Advisory Group Recommendation – February 15, 2022. The updated Health and Safety Plan is here: Health and Safety Plan – Updated February 2022.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership in keeping our school school community healthy.

We are looking for volunteers to help make this year’s online auction a success.

• Do you have a vacation home you are able to offer?
• A skill that could help another family in some way?
• Do you have any appliances someone else is in need of?
• Are you a chef in hiding and could make a meal for auctioning off?

Click below to see our needs: 

• Parent Solicitation Letter to support Bigelow
• Donation Form
• Business Solicitation Letter

Call or text Julie Landesman (508-612-7179) or Alexia Giannakopoulos (781-492-4500) for ways you can help! 

                                                     
If giving of your time is too much, your donations are appreciated!

Click one of the buttons below for your contribution towards this event:

or simply send your donation via Venmo to @BigelowPTONewton. Please put “Bigelow Big Night” in the memo line.

The Bigelow PTO meeting with Superintendent David Fleishman and School committee members (Rajeev Parlikar and Paul Levy) will take place via Zoom on Wednesday March 23 at 9am. Open to all Bigelow parents/guardians.

Zoom link: https://newton-k12-ma-us.zoom.us/j/5452808903

Password: bigelow

Interpretation:

If a family needs Interpretation for this meeting, please complete this Google form at least 3 days before the meeting: https://forms.gle/daA8qQjm61BJDocD7. 

Please join the Newton Public Schools for an informative community forum with guest speaker Phyllis Fagell. Ms. Fagell is a licensed clinical professional counselor, certified professional school counselor, journalist, and author of the best-selling book “Middle School Matters: The 10 Key Skills Kids Need to Thrive in Middle School and Beyond—and How Parents Can Help.” She is also a Ward, Day and North grad! This will be a terrific night filled with important information and dialogue, including how families can help their students navigate through the pandemic. You can take a sneak peek at her work on her website. 

Here is the Zoom link for this virtual forum:

https://newton-k12-ma-us.zoom.us/j/88476468856

Meeting ID: 884 7646 8856

Passcode: 090547

Please RSVP to the forum using this form. You can login without an RSVP, but it is helpful for us to have a general sense of attendance to plan accordingly. Here is the RSVP form:

RSVP to Middle School Matters 

More details on the forum can be found on the NPS website here: https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/3988 See below for a description of the presentation.

Building Middle Schoolers’ Resilience and Confidence

Through stories, research and her professional experience, Phyllis will offer parents a menu of practical strategies that will help tweens and teens acquire the key skills they need to manage the social complexity, academic challenges and intense emotions that characterize this critical phase. The added challenges inherent in raising our children through a pandemic, the influence of social media, and the increase in mental health issues will also be covered. 

Phyllis is the school counselor at Sheridan School in Washington, DC, a therapist who works with kids and families in private practice, and an author and journalist. She’s the author of “Middle School Matters” and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post. She also writes for Psychology Today, CNN, Working Mother, U.S. News & World Report and Your Teen, and her ideas have been shared in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and NPR. Phyllis lives in Bethesda, MD with her husband and three children. She grew up in Newton and attended Ward Elementary School, Frank A. Day Junior High and Newton North High School.

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Your student was provided with a test kit just before February break. We recommend that you use one of the tests on Sunday, February 27, 2022 (prior to returning to school on Monday.) Please use the second test on Tuesday, March 1, 2022.

The PTO would like to thank the Bigelow Counseling team for hosting a Bigelow family educational session on Friday morning about “Understanding the mind of a middle schooler“.

A lot of interesting and useful information was shared, and we are truly lucky to have such a dedicated and professional team at Bigelow.

If you were not able to join, please find the presentation here and the recording here.

Stay tune for another informative session next month. All parents/guardians are welcome.

A family in our school needs financial help from the community. Please help if you can through this Gofundme campaign.

The PTO donated $2,000 from the “Todd Harrison Bigelow Cares Fund”.

 JOIN US for FAMILY EDUCATION and REFLECTION

As we are all learning about what we can do to build an anti racist school,  community, world– we hope you can join us for a week long school-wide learning activity -called the 7-Day Anti-Racism Equity Challenge–originally sponsored by Brandeis University.

The purpose of the week is to engage in reflection and practical thinking on how to integrate racial equity into our work and daily habits– for ourselves, our families, and our school.  Even if you think you/your kids have “done that–” we want to encourage all our families to take part.

Bigelow’s 7 Day Challenge will take place (all on your own time) during Black History Month- February 21-27, 2022. Each activity takes about 15 minutes to complete.Then, on March 1 join us on ZOOM when we will come together as a school community to reflect on what we are learning.  Hope to see you there! 

To register for the Bigelow FORJ Anti-Racism Challenge, please complete this form.