Ms. Rebecca Sargent
Principal
rsargent@medford.k12.ma.us
781-393-2333 ext. 5115

McGlynn Elementary School Parent Newsletter
March 2011

April 2011

Dear McGlynn Families,

Happy Spring! The McGlynn students are back outside for recess and we are all enjoying the warmer weather!

We have many fun and educational events coming up this month. We hope to see many parents and families present!

The fifth graders had their DARE graduation on April 6th. Congratulations to the students on completing this important program! Please continue to reinforce the message of resisting negative peer pressure and making positive choices to your children. Thank you to Chief Sacco, Lt. Covino, and Officer O’Keefe for making the DARE class possible at the McGlynn.

The new arrival plan has been a success! Student safety is our priority and the new drop-off has ensured a safe arrival to school. In order to keep this time of the day safe, we will continue to have students enter the building and gather in the cafeteria. We will not return to outside line up. When walking your children to the door, please remember that dogs are not allowed on school property. We have many students that are afraid of dogs, or allergic to them.

The issues that are still present are within the control of you, the parents. We are still experiencing problems with traffic due to drivers disobeying the “No Left Turn” sign at the exit. The crosswalk by the old Kindergarten entrance is no longer in use. Please abide by the new rules and cross at the main entrance. Parking for parents is available at Hormel Stadium. Please do not park in the staff parking areas. This blocks staff from entering or exiting the grounds and creates scheduling problems within the building. We are also experiencing a new problem – cars are driving through the crosswalks in order to gain access to the chained areas. This is extremely unsafe and illegal. Children are walking through the areas that are chained off and drivers are not able to see them above the hedges. These are issues that will not improve without the cooperation of all parents! Please help out to keep our children safe!

Ms. Scafiddi’s third grade class will be running a school-wide fundraiser for the victims of the Tsunami in Japan. Please keep an eye out for information! This will end on April 29th.

Earth Day is April 13th. The PTG is sponsoring an event for fourth and fifth grade students. Please keep an eye out for a permission slip! Students will be cleaning up the grounds and planting flowers around the building.

The 5th grade dance (Evening at the McGlynn), originally scheduled for April 14th, has been POSTPONED. This will be rescheduled for a date in May. The 5th grade field trip scheduled for April 15th will still take place. Students will travel to the Harvard Museum.

Thinkfinity from Verizon will visit our second graders on April 26th! This will be an exciting event for students! Mayor McGlynn, Superintendent Belson, and other special guests will be with us to see a demo of Thinkfinity as well as see a show from the Electric Company! Please check out the website at www.thinkfinity.org.

The third, fourth, and fifth graders will have a mock MCAS Math test during the week after April vacation in order to prepare for their upcoming tests. We ran mock testing prior to the ELA MCAS that occurred in March and we found an increase in overall test results. By having a practice test, with actual testing conditions, students were better prepared on the real day. The schedule is as follows:

Grade 3 – April 26
Grade 5 – April 27
Grade 4 – April 28

There are two other events on April 28th as well. We will have Picture Day and the third grade classes will have Colonial Day from 9-12.

On Friday, April 29th, we will have the annual Student/Teacher basketball game at 6:30pm in support of Breast Cancer. Please be sure to attend!

As this first year as your Principal begins to wind down, I would like to say that it has been wonderful to begin to get to know all of the students and families. I still feel privileged to be a part of this community! My door continues to be open to you and I encourage families to come in at any time.

Kindly,
Ms. Sargent