Friday, October 29, 2021
Dear RSU 71 Students, Families, Staff, School Board, and Community Partners,
Halloween is this weekend, a relatively safe holiday considering that trick-or-treating is done outside, usually with masks. In addition to door-to-door fun, there are a lot of community opportunities, such as Waterfall Arts' Belfast's Great Pumpkin Pageant on Saturday, October 30 from 10:00 - 4:00.
Pandemic Update
Pooled Testing - We are very excited to re-open online registration to all students K-12 and staff at this time. The link to the Concentric registration site is https://testcenter.concentricbyginkgo.com/minor-consent.
Access codes for each site are:
Adult Education/RLD5TR
AMES/TNMG1T
B-COPE/X2O7L3
BAHS/PYHG3H
BUS GARAGE AND MAINTENANCE/Y6OT2W
CASS/USSIPR
CENTRAL OFFICE ADMIN/XVW5M4
EAST BELFAST/55ZQHQ
WEYMOUTH/2N6ESG
NICKERSON/QCPOV3
TROY HOWARD/6ZY1I3
A reminder that registration will be ongoing and any registration received before Wednesday at noon of each week will be added to the following week's testing schedule. You only need to sign up once -- if you have questions about whether your child's registration has been processed, please contact your school nurse.
This coming Monday, November 1, we begin pooled testing at Belfast Area High School, BCOPE, and Troy Howard Middle School for staff and those students whose parents have signed them up. BAHS students, please report to the nurse's office upon arrival at school. BCOPE and THMS students will test in their homeroom/advisory classrooms upon arrival in the morning. On Monday, November 8, pooled testing will begin at the Captain Albert Stevens School. On Tuesday, November 9, pooled testing will start at the East Belfast, Kermit Nickerson, Ames, and Gladys Weymouth Elementary Schools. Please make sure your child is aware if you have signed them up.
COVID-19 Vaccination-
We are awaiting final approval from the FDA and CDC to allow EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) for children ages 5-11 to receive the smaller dose of Pfizer vaccine.
To prepare in advance, RSU 71 has tentatively scheduled COVID-19 vaccine clinics with PCHC. If EUA approval is given, this clinic will offer:
Vaccines to students ages 5-11 (smaller dose)
Full dose vaccines to ages 12 and up
Booster doses for qualified staff
Those interested in COVID-19 vaccination should please mark your calendars for Friday 11/19 from 12:30-3:30 with second doses on Friday 12/10 from 12:30-3:30. Both clinics will be at Troy Howard Middle School. Stay tuned for more information as soon as we have it!
Third Outbreak - We have had the third outbreak in RSU 71 this past week at the Gladys Weymouth School. An entire class needed to quarantine, and seven individuals tested positive for the coronavirus.
Data - Here is the data from this past week, Friday, October 22 at 9:00 a.m. to Friday, October 29, 2021at 9:00 am"
Winter Sports and Performing Arts - Midcoast superintendents and RSU 71 athletic directors, school board, nurses, and principals are collaborating on guidelines as we approach student activities in late fall and winter. We hope to finalize these by November 8.
Superintendent Duty under the Law - I thought I would share the genesis of my legal responsibility to keep everyone safe. Maine State Law 20-A (Chapter 223, Subchapter 1, 6301, Student Health, 2 B.) articulates the duty of a superintendent concerning public health, which is to make decisions that will keep everyone safe, well, and alive. In Maine, the entity that determines safety is the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
"Duty of superintendent. A superintendent informed under subsection one may:
Exclude the student from the public schools until the student is no longer a public health threat."
The Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) is the agency that determines what constitutes a public health threat, always and especially now during this pandemic in which Maine people are still dying daily.
I listened to U.S. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on the news last night. She spoke of how fewer cases of COVID-19 have been reported in children (ages 0-17 years) compared with adults. While children have been less affected by COVID-19 than adults, children can get sick from COVID-19 and spread COVID-19 to others. Some children may develop severe illness. Children with underlying medical conditions are at increased risk for severe illness compared to children without underlying medical conditions. So far, there have been 700 pediatric deaths from the coronavirus in our country. Of course, even just one death of a child is one too many.
Staff Vaccination Requirement - Maine will soon require all public school employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or produce a negative test result weekly. Participating in our pooled testing program would be an acceptable way to show negativity.
Good News and Information
Copier Toner - Since there continues to be a worldwide shortage of copier toner, we cannot get replacement cartridges on time. Staff should please try and limit copying and printing to only the most necessary and limit color copying as much as possible since the color cartridges are smaller. We're running out of them faster. When on the color copiers: when you print, make sure to choose black and white. When you copy, make sure to choose black and white. We're not sure when the supplies will ease up - the vendor is working to fulfill our orders, but there's lots of demand for little supply. Thanks for your understanding.
BAHS
Congratulations to Belfast Area High School's Ada Potter!! Ada's PSAT test scores have landed her within the top 1% of the state! Her test scores qualify for an opportunity to receive the National Merit Scholarship! Good Luck, Ada!
BCOPE: This past week, our students worked with John Van Dis from Hurricane Island's Center for Science and Leadership, learning about scallop aquaculture in Maine. Students spent Thursday putting together spat lines and plotting where to place them in Penobscot Bay. Friday, a few students were fortunate enough to go out on the bay with Captain Bob Winslow and put out our lines and spat bags. Hopefully, these will be collected in April, full of scallop larvae. The data will be analyzed and reported back to Hurricane Island to be shared with scientific and fishing communities here in Maine.
The BAHS Marine Studies class took a field trip to the East Side of Belfast to collect data and samples of a shipwreck. The students are working on determining the type of ship it was and the reason for being in Penobscot Bay based on the wreckage that remains.
CASS
Enjoy this edition of the school's student newspaper! The CASS Times Edition 1, V2.
All the barrier walls inside the building came down this week, and students and staff can now move around the building with a lot more ease. Progress is being made on the library, and we hope to be fully reopened soon. This is a huge move forward for the "Ocean" Wing and especially Mrs. Brown, our intrepid art teacher, who has had to bring art class to each classroom these past eight weeks.
THMS
Sam Maheu (Art) shares that her sixth-grade art students made paper mache lion masks this quarter. Check them out: https://youtu.be/ISAUhsve6ZA
Dawn Preston (Wellness/SEL) shares that:
All of our 6th-grade classes have had a session with me on Active Listening. We followed the SELENA youtube instruction and then practiced with partners.
All the 8th graders have finished our introductory session on The Truth About Drugs. SRO Smith and I have embarked on a program that he went and trained for in Florida. We will have a session each month likely. The next session will be in November, either in PE or Writing. If you have a student missing a lot of school and these sessions, they can be done individually online. Just let me know, and I can set them up.
David Wessels (Garden Coordinator/Circles Script Writer) shares that many of our students took part in a community circle designed to think about our comfort zones, stretch zones, and panic zones during this week's advisory time. Sample questions are: What would life be like if you stayed in your comfort zone all the time? -and- Where is the zone in which you experience the most learning and growth?
Principal Bruce Bailey shares that advisors have reviewed and discussed our school's Cell Phone Protocol and Computer Rules and Expectations with students. We greatly appreciate your support at home in keeping our students safe, focused, and engaged in their learning. Stay tuned as we'll be offering a virtual Parent Advisory Group session focused on the safe use of technology soon.
Ames - 4th Grade SCIENTISTS used a GIANT SLING-SHOT to explore how ENERGY can be transferred from place to place. We experimented to see how far and fast we could launch pumpkins from Cross Patch Farms! What a thrilling activity to bring experiential learning to the Ames School!!!!
Weymouth - Remote learning has gone very well for one of our classrooms over the past seven school days! Thursday morning, their teacher invited students to dress in a costume for their google meet class. You don't understand what cuteness is until you watch five-year-olds pop up on your meets dressed up in costumes! There was a character from Minecraft, two Captain Americas, Beetlejuice, Sonic the Hedgehog, a Ladybug, Venom, a Pirate, a Dinosaur, a Deer, a Mermaid, Wonder Woman, Superman, an Astronaut, and a Police Man! Their teacher was a Butterfly.
Professional Development:
RSU71 has been in partnership with the Restorative Justice Project Maine to help deepen the use of belonging and inclusion practices in all classrooms in all schools. Elementary teams are in Year 3 of this professional development work, and the middle school, high school, and BCOPE teams are in Year 2. This year, the elementary and middle schools are focused on educating all staff about proactive community-building circles, hoping that all youth have intentional time to connect genuinely and their teachers using circle practice. Circle practice gives voice to all youth and teaches deep listening, patience, self-regulation, and the importance of inclusion. Students will be stronger academically if they have opportunities to feel like they are "seen" and experience belonging from their peers and educators daily. The high school and BCOPE hope to expand its restorative practices leadership team to help grow proactive community-building practices and deepen responding to harm in restorative ways. Some teachers are also participating in a community of practice with other Midcoast educators to explore responding to harmful behavior in ways that educate and hold students accountable for their actions and with processes that bring youth closer during times of challenges.
Staff in the Tri-Town Practicing Circles
That's it for this week. This update will be emailed to staff, school board, and community partners this morning and Robo-emailed to all families this afternoon. As always, please feel free to ask questions and share the good news, ideas, feedback, and concerns with our staff and me. I truly appreciate the efforts of our fabulous RSU 71 staff in keeping students engaged and motivated through high-quality instruction and meaningful and healthy activities. I also appreciate the stellar leadership of our RSU 71 school board and am thankful for the cooperation and support of our fabulous students and families.
With warm wishes for a safe and happy Halloween,
Mary Alice
Mary Alice McLean
Superintendent of Schools, RSU 71
(207) 338-1960
