By Adam Swift
Although a mid-summer heat wave hit the region this week, the first day of school in Winthrop is right around the corner.
At Monday night’s school committee meeting, Superintendent of Schools Lisa Howard outlined some of the important dates and activities for teachers, students, and families in the coming weeks.
The first day of school for students is Wednesday, August 27. Students will attend school the following Thursday, and then be off on Friday, August 29 and the following Monday for Labor Day.
“I think that schedule allows us to come back after Labor Day and hit the ground running so all the paperwork and check-ins and new students coming in, all of that is completed, and then we have a little break and we come back and hit the academic ground pretty quickly,” said Howard.
The first day for teachers is Monday, August 25, when they will be on site in their buildings to meet with administration as well as to take part in some trainings and set up their classrooms.
The following day, Howard will be addressing the staff and there will also be a one-hour union meeting for the teachers.
The new teacher orientation is set for Thursday, August 21.
“They get assigned their mentors, they get their technology, we get them all their platform passwords and make sure everybody is ready to be up and running for the first day,” said Howard. “They do a lot of new teacher orientation exercises together. We all go, all the administration goes, says hello, introduces ourselves and kind of puts a face on all the new staff that has come in.”
Howard noted that the district is also trying to finish up its program of reestablishing residency for all students entering grades three, five, and nine.
Howard noted that the process includes families providing the proper residency paperwork for their students in those grades just as they did in kindergarten. She said there are still a number of students in each of the grade levels who need to finish that process.
“This is usually the rush week where everybody who forgot to do this process starts calling us,” said Howard. “We remind parents weekly, so even if you have responded already, you still get the canned email to remind you to do so as of today.”
Last week, Howard said parents were reminded that if they did not get the process completed, they would not be able to get the notification of teachers for the elementary school students or of the class schedules for the high school students.
“It’s a recheck to make sure people are still living in the community,” said Howard. “People pay taxes in the community, so it’s a protection of tax dollars and certainly our class size is important to us. We are not looking to get anyone in trouble or toss anyone out of school unnecessarily, but we have rules they have to follow that have flexibility.”