Bi-Weekly Update - Friday, May 13, 2022
Dear RSU 71 Students, Families, Staff, School Board, and Community Partners,
Spring has finally sprung and it has been wonderful to again see our students learning and playing and competing outdoors on a few beautiful and sunny days this week.
Congratulations to Waldo County Teacher of the Year - Nancy Nickerson!
Pandemic Update
End of Pooled Testing
This was the last week of pooled testing during the 2021-2022 school year.
This Week's Data
Good News, Reminders, Information
Captain Albert Stevens
Community Dinner on May 20, 2022
Second grade classes learned fractions and other math functions while getting the rolls ready for our community dinner. They made the dough, measured it out, and then froze it so it is all ready to be baked for the Community Dinner on May 20, which is also the date for our student-led conferences. Here is the link to the Community Dinner sign-up.
CASS Newsletter
Troy Howard
Art at THMS
Mrs. Mahue (6th, 7th, and 8th grade art teacher) invites you to check out the work that 7th and 8th graders made during our remote days last week:
Watercolor Tulips in progress...
Raising Salmon
Ms. Conway-Cole's advisory group raised salmon eggs this spring and recently released them in the Wescott Stream. The eggs were part of a program called Fishfriends which works to teach young people about the life cycle, habitat, and threats to the Atlantic Salmon which used to be native in all of Maine's rivers. They are part of an effort to recover the endangered wild Atlantic salmon population. Today only around 1,000 wild salmon, known as the Gulf of Maine distinct population segment, return each year from their swim to Greenland. Fewer will find adequate spawning habitat in their natal rivers to reproduce. Substitute teacher and volunteer, Zac Smith-Hess, taught the students through an excellent power-point. Cloe Chun and Tom King were Ms. Conway-Cole's mentors.
THMS Newsletter
BCOPE
Spat Project
BCOPE students spent multiple days this week collecting and collating data from our spat project begun in October. On Wednesday, students went out in Belfast Harbor to retrieve the spat bags with our boy's swim coach and retired teacher Bob Winslow. Thursday morning we retrieved our stored spat from the city docks and brought it back to BCOPE to sort with educators from Hurricane Island. At last count, we had over 170 scallops collected from three of our bags with more to be counted on Friday as well as multiple clams and other critters collected from the sea. What's spat? As always, ask a BCOPE student!
BAHS
Keeping Belfast Maine Beautiful
Our BAHS Peer Leaders participated in force at the Keeping Belfast Maine Beautiful city cleanup!
BAHS Marine Institute
The newly formed BAHS Marine Institute staff took students out on the bay in the Quicksilver to get a better understanding of the kelp farm operation. https://bahsmarineinstitute.rsu71.org/home
Read news article here ➤
BAHS Newsletter
That's it for this week. Please feel free to be in touch with the staff and me with questions, suggestions, ideas, and concerns. The next bi-weekly update will be sent on Friday, May 27.
With warm wishes for a beautiful weekend and week ahead,
Mary Alice McLean, Laura Miller and Susan Totman
