Dear Bigelow Families,

We hope you’ve had a fun and relaxing summer break. We are excited to welcome you and your student(s) to the 2022-2023 school year at Bigelow Middle School!

As parents or guardians of students at Bigelow, you are all members of the PTO. The PTO acts as a liaison between parents and the school, helps to build community and foster communication, and fundraises for the priorities set by Bigelow.

Please, take a minute to read about the Bigelow PTO’s purposes and what it does to promote the core values of the Bigelow Middle School by supporting performing arts, technology, and lots more for our children and the school. The Bigelow PTO is a volunteer organization and your participation enriches the school environment.

We are fortunate to be part of such a wonderful community and we look forward to serving you in the coming year. We wish you and your students an outstanding year!

If you have questions for the PTO, please contact us at bigelowbulldog@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

The Bigelow PTO Board – Gabriela Kroszynski, May Chen, Giulia Guffanti, and Sukanya Ghosh

First Day of School: Tuesday, 9/6

School Hours: 8:05 a.m. – 2:35 p.m. (early release Wednesdays at 1:50 p.m.)

School Supplies:

As a reminder, information regarding the Bigelow Back-to-School Starter Pack and grade specific supply lists can be found here. The PTO invites you to think about school supplies in a sustainable way.  Let’s practice the three Rs of sustainability – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle with our children.

***One Additional School Supply Needed***

All students will need 2 locks; one for their main locker & the other for their PE locker. Master Lock type padlocks with a numeric combination dial fit best and are most secure.

Note: Master Lock 2-packs often include 2 locks with the same combination so your student only needs to remember 1 combination.

Thanks to your generous donations over the last few years, we were able to purchase 4 new outdoor tables for the Bigelow Courtyard and 4 new outdoor tables for the recently dedicated Todd Harrison Steps in front of Bigelow. Below are some photos of the tables and the June 24th dedication event.

Dear Bigelow Community: 

We would like to express our sincere gratitude of how generous and quickly the Bigelow community reacted to our most recent call for assistance for a Bigelow family in need. To date, we have received $9217 in total donations from the community to the Todd Harrison Cares Fund for this family. $2000 of the funds have been used by the family to secure safe housing. 

The remaining donated funds will be distributed equally amongst 4 other Bigelow families that have come to our attention as being in a similar situation of housing insecurity. While they are protected under the McKinney-Vento Act, we as a community still wanted to ensure they had the living resources they need. These series of unfortunate events have brought to light how many in our Bigelow community, especially those with young children, are silently but desperately in need of assistance. Therefore, we will continue to partner with our amazing Bigelow School Counselors and NPS ELL social worker to stay in touch with these families to make sure they have sufficient support, and identify any additional members of the Bigelow community with dire needs.  

Over these last 2 years, we have been able to quickly and efficiently respond via your donations to the Todd Harrison Cares Fund. We are very grateful for your support and will continue to develop our partnerships so we can aid any members of our community when needed. If you are interested in continuing to support our effort via the Todd Harrison Cares Fund, please donate through Venmo ( @BigelowPTONewton ) or through the PTO website https://bigelowpto.org/donate/todd-harrison-cares-fund/

In the fall, we will have a PTO meeting with the district ELL social worker, Bigelow counseling team, and the Bigelow community to learn and get educated on how we can help our community in need.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! 

Sincerely,  

Bigelow PTO Board 

Dear Bigelow Community,

In our last Bigelow Notes of the 2021/2022 school year, we would like to thank all of you for your support and generosity over this past year as we continue to make school life normal again for the children.

A special thank you to all our amazing volunteers who worked tirelessly to make sure that PTO sponsored events were successful.

In particular, we would like to thank the following parents:

Sarah K. Lenz and Heather Thiessen Philbrook (Directory), Caryn Izhar (Creative Arts & Sciences), Kelly Qian (Back to School), Caryn Izhar, Caryn Lipchin, Susan Giunta (8th Grade Activities), Alexia Giannakopoulos & Julie Landesman (Big Night), Susan St. Pierre, Karen Yee and Charlene Gillespie (Teacher Appreciation), Shana Smythe, Charlene Gillespie, Carolyn Gillespie and Jill Twohig (Ten Tables), Giulia Guffanti (NewtonServes), Elizabeth Apgar (Bigelow Garden), Sarah Hirzel & Andrea Silver (PoPs), Margo Michael, Kori Urayana & Jeanne Choe-Arrieta (Bigelow FORJ), Phil Larimer (Safe Routes to School), Ileen Thelen (Green Newton School Connections), Jeanne Choe-Arrieta (METCO), and Brigette LaMarche (SEPAC) who time after time show up when we are in need of extra hands throughout the year.

Last but not least, we would like send our biggest  appreciation to Linda Gillespie (Treasurer) and Gwen Hautefeuille (Communications/Website) for their service to the Bigelow PTO during these last few years of uncertainties. You both have kept us going even on the most difficult of days!

We wish you all the very best for a very restful and healthy summer! Look for information over the summer for upcoming events and ways to be a part of the PTO. For those of you leaving Bigelow, we wish you all the best and hope our paths cross at Newton North.

Thank you again and Happy Summer!

Sincerely,Bigelow PTO Board

Thanks to those teachers and parents who volunteered to make this a memorable afternoon for all our children! Below are some photos from the dance.

Bigelow needs a few parent volunteers to help with Chromebook collection on Wednesday morning, June 22 starting at 8:30am. Please let us know if you can help out for an hour or two.

Please email Linda Gillespie at bigelowtreasurer@gmail.com if you are able to join us in assisting with Chromebook collection.

The last day of school for students is Friday, June 24, 2022.

You can access the school calendar for NEXT school year (2022-23) here:

NPS School Calendar 2022-23

This week, 31 Newton METCO Seniors graduated from Newton South and Newton NOrth High Schools. These young people stand on the horizon of new opportunities and we want each and every one of them to know they have the tangible support of the members of the Boston-Newton communities.

For over 35 years, the Newton METCO Community Scholarship Fund (NMCSF) seeks to open doors of opportunity by providing financial assistance to deserving METCO seniors seeking to further their education. The work is urgent. The time is now.

Please join us in donating to the scholarship fund today, and transform the conditions of learning and living for our Newton METCO graduates.

Please donate by mail; we are not accepting online donations at this time.

Newton METCO Community Scholarship Fund (NMCSF) – PO Box 600053 – Newtonville, MA 02460