Due to the impending snowstorm, there will be no school for the Reading Public Schools for Wednesday, February 5th.

Have a great day!

There will be a meeting of the Reading School Committee on Monday evening, February 3rd, at 7:00 p.m. in the School Committee Meeting Room of the Reading Public School Administration Offices.  Some of the agenda items include a discussion with State Representatives Jones and Dwyer, a final vote on the FY15 budget, an FY14 budget update, an Early Childhood Working Group updated, and a discussion of the RMHS Principal Search and the Director of Student Services Search.

A copy of the Meeting Agenda is located below.

SC MEETING 2 3 14

As we communicated in a previous blog post, there will be several trainings and drills with students on our new enhanced lockdown procedure called ALICE over the next few weeks. As part of this training, the Reading Public Schools will be using developmentally appropriate social stories and presentations. Attached below are the materials that teachers and administrators may use in Grades K-8. Feel free to use these with your child at home.

RPS Middle School ALICE Student Presentation

Lockdown-3 social story Pre-K

lockdown-1 social story K-2

ALiCE_v1 Social Story

If you have any questions, please contact your child’s principal.

There will be a meeting of the Reading School Committee on Monday, January 27, 2014, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the School Committee Room of the Reading Public Schools Administration Offices.  The meeting will begin with a Public Hearing on the FY15 Budget. There will also be continuing discussions on the FY15 budget.

A copy of the Superintendent’s FY15 Recommended Budget can be found here.  A copy of the agenda for Monday’s meeting can be found here.

The Reading Coalition Against Substance Abuse (RCASA) is proud to present, Who Cares About Kelsey, on Tuesday February 4, 2014 from 7-9 p.m. at Jordan’s Furniture IMAX Theatre on 50 Walkers Brook Drive in Reading.  Following the film, there will be a Q & A with Kelsey, the subject of the documentary. There is no charge to attend this event.

This movie is a true story of a young woman’s life through the ups and downs of her senior year. As the film delves into Kelsey’s life, we watch her navigate the halls and classrooms of her school and the fraught terrain of family and romantic relationships. Kelsey interacts with a military father who questions her account of the past and dismisses her plans for the future. She manages her relationship with a mother trying to atone for past failures that set in motion some of Kelsey’s most destructive behaviors. She spends much of her time with a boyfriend she cherishes but whose loyalty and support for Kelsey’s newly forming independence are uncertain.

To sign up to attend the movie, please go to the link below:

SIGN UP HERE TO ATTEND THE MOVIE

A trailer to the movie is located below.

Dear Reading Elementary School Community:

Over the last several months, the Reading Public Schools has been working with the Reading Police Department to implement an enhanced lockdown procedure called A.L.I.C.E., which is an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate.  The philosophy of A.L.I.C.E. is to use technology and information in a way that staff and students can make informed decisions in a crisis, remove as many people as possible from a dangerous situation, and provide realistic training so that those involved in a crisis have a better chance of surviving. A copy of the presentation that was given to the parent community in October and January is located at:

http://www.edline.net/pages/ReadingPublicSchools/News/ALICE_Presentation_to_the_Comm .

As part of this implementation process, we will be conducting drills at our elementary schools over the next few weeks.  Both the Wood End and Killam Elementary Schools will have their initial drill on Wednesday, January 29^th and Joshua Eaton, Barrows, and Birch Meadow Elementary Schools will have their initial drill on Wednesday, February 5th.   These drills will be developmentally appropriate and help prepare students in a way that is similar to drills that we currently conduct in our schools for fire evacuation, lockdown, and shelter in place.  At the elementary level, each classroom teacher will speak with students about the new protocol.  Elementary teachers have been provided with a script and a social story that is appropriate for their grade level.  Drills at the elementary school will resemble the more traditional lockdown and fire evacuation drills and will not include the use of a person simulating an intruder.  The “counter” strategies will not be presented as part of the elementary student drills.

Please feel free to communicate directly with your principal regarding any concerns that you have around how the drill may impact your child.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Reading Public Schools Administrative Offices or your child’s building principal.

Sincerely,

John F. Doherty, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Dear Reading Public School Families,

We wanted to let you know in advance that our sixth annual Arts Fest has been rescheduled to April 9 and 10 at the William Endslow Performing Arts Center and Main Street at Reading Memorial High School.  The change in the schedule allows our families to celebrate the first evening of Passover and to reduce scheduling conflicts caused by the Blue Ribbon Conference on April 16 and 17 .

Further details on the performance schedule will be forthcoming.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Reading Public School Administrative Offices at 781-944-5800.

The next meeting of the Reading School Committee will be on Tuesday, January 21st at 7:00 p.m. in the School Committee Meeting Room at the Reading Public School Administration Offices.  The main agenda item will be to review the Regular Day and Special Education Cost Centers of the Superintendent’s Recommended FY15 Budget.

A complete copy of the budget can be found here.

Dear Reading Public School Families,

Timely and effective communication is important in keeping parents informed about important school and district issues.  To that end, the Reading Public Schools has recently introduced some additional communication tools for families and staff.  These tools are as follows:

1. Facebook-To join our Facebook page, go to https://www.facebook.com/Readingpublicschools.
2. Twitter-To follow us on Twitter, go to https://twitter.com/ReadingSchools.  You can follow us @ReadingSchools.

In addition, we have reintroduced the Pathways Blog.  To access the Blog and receive notifications when a new post has been added, go to https://retiredsuperintendent.wordpress.com/.  Either way, we will send out an email notification when a new post has been added.

The above tools will complement our traditional Edline and Blackboard Connect Ed tools, which will notify you about emergencies and school events through phone messages, email, and text.  If you have recently changed your email address, phone number, or SMS contact, please call your child’s school to update your contact information.

We hope that these additional tools and the information that we communicate to you will enhance and improve our communication with the Reading Public School community.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s school or the Reading Public School Administrative Offices at 781-944-5800.

The Human Relations Advisory Committee, the Town of Reading, the Reading Public Schools, and the Reading Community Singers are pleased to sponsor the annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration on Monday, January 20, at the William Endslow Performing Arts Center at Reading Memorial High School.  There will be a light breakfast available at 9:30 a.m. and the program will begin at 10:00 a.m.  A copy of the program is attached.

All are welcome to attend.

Town of Reading Martin Luther King Day January 202014 for 11×17 Revised