We wish to send our heartfelt gratitude to Una, who has worked tirelessly for the Bigelow PTO for the past nine years, as her three daughters, Chelsea, Tess and Katelin have all attended Bigelow.

She has served in a number of roles including Vice President of Fundraising, Co-President and Chairperson of Ten Tables/Supper Stroll, and Big Night.  She has organized countless events such as Celtics Night, Skate Night, Back to School picnics, car washes, and bake sales. She took the lead a few weeks ago to organize the eighth grade gift to the school and the goody bags for the eighth grade students to make sure they would have a memorable gift at the end of their time at Bigelow. And it was Una who conceived the wonderful plan to have a reunion party in 2024 for our 2020 graduating class.

During her tenure, she has overseen raising over $200,000 for the PTO. Her enthusiasm for the Bigelow community is unrivaled, and her hard work and devotion to the PTO is unmatched.

Thank you again, Una, for all you have done.

Congratulations to the 8th grade class! A job well done!

Best of luck to you next year and beyond and Save the Date for our reunion celebration in 2024!

You are invited to join the PTO leadership team for 2020-2021. All are welcome and encouraged, whether an experienced volunteer or a newcomer. Take a look at the open positions HERE.

Interested?  Please contact PTO President Karen Markson @ kmarkson@gmail.com 

The PTO will be back in contact in early August with further information regarding PTO events once school opens. The Back to School picnic, 6th grade potluck dinner and Ten Tables traditionally take place in September and October. As we look forward to the start of the school year, we are hopeful that we will have a better understanding of what we are able to do.

We invite students and families to explore with the 8th Grade class some resources organized by Mr. Swan, Bigelow Civics teacher.

From Mr. Swan, Jun 11 – 

“As perhaps you can imagine, in my role as a Civics teacher, I have felt uniquely overwhelmed by the news cycle of local and worldwide events, emotional turmoil, public outcry, and Big Ideas swirling around the past two weeks. [So] today I introduced a new task that dives straight into the middle of all those swirling issues. […] Students have 5 days to explore at least 5 boxes in this Choice Board. […]

I designed this board to include a variety of formats, faces, and voices; multiple potential topics of interest; diverse target audiences; and reliable, credible, professional information sources. I only included resources that are middle-school appropriate, although the language and concepts of certain items may be challenging for some 8th graders. Also, I had families in mind when creating this board. Perhaps multiple members of your household could each explore a row or a column, and share what you learned with each other. There are so many reading lists, social media posts, and other items flying around — maybe this format will help to structure and organize the exploration. Of course that will not be possible or appropriate for every family’s situation.”

We want to thank the 7th grade families who donated the money from the cancelled raft trip to our scholarship fund.

The Cyndi Dailey-Smith and Howard B. Smith Scholarship Fund provides support for Bigelow students who might not be able to otherwise participate in cultural and curricular enrichment learning opportunities, such as field trips and the NYC trip for eighth graders.

Incoming Freshmen at Newton North High School

Newton North High School uses the same online directory that we use here at Bigelow (Membership Toolkit). We will be authorizing them to automatically import graduating students from our account so that no student is overlooked. This would be a great time to log in and make sure your information and share settings are up to date. Just visit: https://bigelowpto.org/directory/

If you still have children at Bigelow next year, you will be able to select which school to view upon logging in. If your child is not moving on to Newton North, please be sure to let the Newton North directory administration know so they can have the PTSO remove your child from the directory. Let us know if you have any other questions about this.

Incoming 6th graders at Bigelow

Incoming 6th graders from Underwood, Lincoln-Eliot and Ward, will be automatically added to Bigelow’s Directory in August. Mason Rice and out of the district families will need to enter their information manually when the system is ready to accept new families at the end of summer.

Access to the Bigelow Directory

Access to the online directory is free and it can be used by all Bigelow families at all times. In the summer, online access will be paused for a month in July while we update information. Thanks for your understanding. If you have any questions, please contact our Directory chair, Megan Flynn at maflynn59@gmail.com 

If you could not retrieve your student’s belongings, please contact the school main office to arrange a specific time to have your bag brought to the front door for pick-up.

For those of you who ordered yearbooks, they are being printed this summer, and we will arrange distribution of them in September.

Please contact: Heather MacDonald
Phone: 617-559-6800
Email: macdonaldh@newton.k12.ma.us

Here is the procedure for returning your child’s belongings to you and collecting any school books from them. A “grocery store style curb-side pick-up” in the gym parking lot will happen on June 15-17. Before arrival, please read the following directions to keep everyone safe:

• Students are encouraged to join you. This is a chance for them to say goodbye at a safe distance to some of their teachers on duty.
• Arrive by vehicle only.  No walk-ins.
• All passengers in the car should  wear a mask at all times.
• Enter the Bigelow parking lot from the first entrance on Park St, and follow the one way path through the parking lot.
• Place a sign on your dashboard with your child’s name, cluster and homebase before entering the parking lot.
• Please put in a bag any school textbooks, library books, or other property of Bigelow and leave it in your trunk for easy retrieval.
• Please remain in your car at all times.   Once in the pick-up zone by the gym, please open your trunk.  We will put your child’s belongings in your trunk.

At this pick-up, teachers will load your car’s trunk with a bag of your child’s belonging and will collect from you any school issued textbooks. library books, and other property of Bigelow.  Please check your home for any materials, and put them in a plastic bag with your child’s full name in it in your trunk so that we can easily retrieve it.

Download Curb-side Pick-up Schedule here. 

Please note: If you have children in multiple grades or teams, you only need to attend one curb-side pick-up.  If you can not arrive at your designated time, please contact Kersten Raso at rasok@newton.k12.ma.us.