Bring your gardening gear and tools and join us the Bigelow PTO on Saturday October 16 from 9-3 for Beautify Bigelow Day, Sunday Oct 24 is the bad weather backup day. The entire Bigelow Community is welcome. We will clean, weed, mulch, and plant new bulbs for the spring in front of Bigelow beginning at 9 am. All volunteers are welcome to drop in for any amount of time. Every contribution counts! Please RSVP via the link below.

RSVP

Download the flyer: in English – in Spanish – in Mandarin – in Portuguese

RSVP

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!