Mid-Year Family Survey: Thank you to those of you who completed the Fall Family Survey in September. We have been and continue using the information to improve our communication and engagement with all families. 

• Please take 5 minutes to complete this Mid Year Family Survey by Friday, April 5th.

Mindfulness March Update: We have defined Mindfulness as paying attention to what is happening right now--without judgement. As we complete the final days of March Mindfulness, we are excited to announce that City Year created and donated individual "Mindfulness Kits" for EVERY Perry student to take home. Students should have received these on Friday, March 29th or Monday, April 1st.

• Mindfulness Kits (blue drawstring bags) will include: Mindfulness activity cards; Small coloring book (with shark/ocean theme); Crayons; Origami kit & Directions; Playdough; Stress Ball; Pencils & Erasers

Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Focus: Gratitude & Appreciation: Over the next three weeks, we will continue to integrate Boston Public Schools’ SEL (Social-emotional learning) standards into our lessons and tasks! 
o    Social Relations (SR 2.1): Demonstrate an understanding of the thoughts, feelings, behavior and perspectives of oneself and others.
o    Expectation #1: We use respectful words and actions.

Please see information sent from Interim Superintendent Laura Perille about Boston Public Schools' School Quality Frameworks (SQF):

• Boston Public Schools will continue to use the School Quality Framework (SQF) for the purposes of school choice and student assignment for the upcoming school choice season. Data from 2016-17 and 2017-18 were used to calculate metrics and new tiers.
• Most schools received a school quality tier under the new framework. However, there are some schools—such as early education centers as well as special education and alternative schools—that are not given a score because they do not have students who take standardized tests or they are specialized schools.
• Updated SQF tiers and Quality Scores will be available to families on Discover BPS and in Welcome Centers beginning on November 17, 2018.
• For more information on the School Quality Framework please visit: www.bostonpublicschools.org/schoolquality

The Perry School was awarded the "Good to Great" grant by the Boston Schools Fund Board which will provide our school community with up to $250,000 over the next few years!

The Perry received a $20,000 award for being a finalist for the Edvestors School on the Move prize!

By Geoff Rose   OCTOBER 22, 2018

One of the prevalent arguments for increasing STEM learning in Massachusetts schools is to ensure that we have the educated workforce needed to compete in an increasingly high-tech 21st-century economy. But another advantage to STEM learning is how it helps narrow the opportunity gap that many students of color face.

As the principal of the K-8 Perry School in Boston, I am proud that we are bringing the power of STEM to our students. The Perry first ran STEM Week in 2016 with the help of i2 Learning, a nonprofit that partners with schools to transform their classrooms into STEM learning labs. They supply teacher training, curriculum, and materials at no cost. For me that is a game-changing idea. Resources are always a challenge and this allows every middle school to participate. I love the equity of that model and the opportunity it has offered our students.

That first year was a huge success, and it acted as a catalyst for the school to launch similar curriculums and develop new programs. We coined the terms STEMomentum during the fall, and DeSTEMber as a time to celebrate and reflect on what had been accomplished during STEM month; we launched a new computer science class with grant funding; and now three-quarters of the Perry’s specialty teachers are STEM-based.

But more important, it helped us to continue to chip away at that opportunity gap. It does that by giving our students learning experiences designed to enable access and agency. Students have access to materials, and they become their own agents to learn using those materials.

We at the Perry are big on social-emotional learning, and STEM is a great educational model to easily incorporate that for our students and for students across Massachusetts.

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
Deadline is December 7, 2018. Now is the time for students to finish up their applications for one of 7 $10,000 scholarships and submit. Students and families can learn about all the details of the scholarship by clicking on “APPLY NOW” on the Starboard Scholarship website https://www.landsend.com/starboard-scholarship/

Lands’ End Starboard Scholarship is open for students in Grades 6 and higher. 

Scholarship Poster.pdf

We will continue to work hard to ensure that we achieve our school vision which states:
“The Perry K-8 School is a community working together to prepare our students for successful futures. We develop strong relationships with families and students to provide the best education for every child, every day. Our focus is to academically and socially advance our students through innovative experiences designed to positively promote the learning of the whole child.”

The new system has four categories for ranking schools and districts, which are:
- Meeting Targets. This is the designation for 23 BPS schools.
- Partially Meeting Targets. This is the designation for 29 BPS schools.
- Needing Focused/Targeted Support (requiring intervention.) This is the designation for 41 BPS schools.
- Requiring Broad/Comprehensive Support (requiring intervention). This is the designation for nine BPS schools.

To read the full story please use this link.
http://mcgovern.mit.edu/news/newsletter/the-learning-brain/

By Olivia Quintana GLOBE CORRESPONDENT  OCTOBER 03, 2016

Students at the Oliver Hazard Perry School are not following their typical middle school syllabus this week.

Eighth-graders at the South Boston school spent Monday morning isolating their own DNA. Seventh-graders were creating light circuits. And sixth-graders were learning about Web design.

“You’ll see a lump of DNA. There was a lot, like a lot, of DNA,” eight-grader Joel Latimer said, after explaining how to isolate the genetic material with Gatorade, ethanol, and soap.

The Perry was among 36 Boston schools being transformed this week into learning labs focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math.

In all, 6,500 middle-school students in the city’s public schools are immersing themselves in STEM study, at a time of increased demand for proficiency on those fields in the working world.

The program, developed by leading STEM organizations, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, i2 Learning, and MathWorks, focuses on hands-on activities so students can learn in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily experience in a classroom.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh and school Superintendent Tommy Chang,kicking off the week at the Perry, said embracing the class and others to follow can help them flourish in a rapidly changing world.

“Our students are going to be tackling real-world problems, experiencing how STEM education can help their day-to-day lives,” Walsh said. “We’re committed in Boston to be leaders of STEM education for all our students in our city.”

He emphasized the importance of students knowing about science and technology by the time they graduate from middle school.

“Our whole world is changing and it’s important that our young people have that education to keep up,” Walsh said. “You students in our middle schools, it’s a great time for you guys and girls to learn. This is the time to learn what you guys can do.”

Chang told Perry students that they need to be prepared to fill STEM jobs as they get older and finish school.

“STEM occupations are growing at a rate stronger than non-STEM jobs,” Chang said. “STEM-related jobs also pay much higher. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workers complete such a critical role . . . and we want to help you get ready for those jobs and those careers.”

At the Perry on Monday, students were working diligently to impress their teachers with their new projects and lesson plans.

In Adam Kid’s seventh-grade class, students were creating two kinds of light circuits.

“They have a battery-powered switch and they’re creating simple circuits and parallel circuits,’’ Kid said. “Some groups have gotten three circuits to light up at once.’’

About 230 students (kindergarten through 8th grade) at the Oliver Hazard Perry School in South Boston spelled out One Boston in human form on their playground on Friday to mark the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings.