Perhaps even more than New Year’s Day, the beginning of a new school year is a time for fresh starts. Often both educators and students resolve to do better, try new ideas, and set new goals.
In looking ahead to the 2019-2020 school year, Harvard’s School Superintendent Linda Dwight said in an interview this week that the idea of balance is a central part of the district’s vision statement. The statement calls for “balancing academic achievement with personal well-being.”
At a special meeting in late July, the School Committee spent more than an hour discussing the recent book “At What Cost?,” in which psychologist David L. Gleason describes how, with the best of intentions, both educators and parents in the nation’s top school districts are “overscheduling, overworking, and, at times, overwhelming” the students in their care.
The book is also on the agenda for other leadership groups in the district. The Bromfield School Council, the teacher leaders at Bromfield, and the administrative team for the district will be discussing “At What Cost?” in the near future, Dwight said.
The goal, Dwight said, is to keep everyone aware of the effects of pressure on students and to balance that pressure with countermeasures such as activity breaks, wellness education, and the “refresh days” that were popular with both kids and teachers last year. Later, Bromfield Principal Scott Hoffman said, on refresh days the focus is on social and emotional well-being rather than academics.
The need for balance is connected directly to one new policy that Dwight mentioned for Hildreth Elementary School—the need of all the kids to have recess and physical activity during the school day. Keeping a child inside at recess will be a last resort, she said, reserved mostly for cases when taking part in recess would be unsafe for the child or would be likely to lead to fighting. The HES team will work with parents to try to make sure that kids do their homework at home, rather than staying inside to do it at recess.
In another issue related to student wellness and the need of teenagers for more sleep, Dwight said her administrative team will study changing school start times to allow Bromfield to start later than HES. The research is clear, she said, that adolescents do better with a later morning start for the school day, and a number of schools are making the switch. Dwight said she expects to present a recommendation on the issue to the School Committee next spring. “The question is not ‘Should we do it?’ but ‘How should we do it?’” she said.
New faces, new classes,
and new construction
Among the new faces at Bromfield this year are music teacher Andrew Milne and world language teachers Ursula Millard and Myriam Bocquillon. Bocquillon is filling in for Anastasia Townsend, who is on sabbatical this year.
A new Advanced Placement course, Human Geography, is being offered in the social studies curriculum. And students who took American Sign Language I last year can move on to more advanced work in American Sign Language II this year. Hoffman said the school is also placing more emphasis on health classes at the middle school level.
Students at HES will be meeting new learning assistant Hannah Cattel. And Mandy Ostaszewski, who was formerly a learning assistant, will be in the school office as administrative assistant.
Behavioral specialist Erika Pominville will cover all grades at both the elementary school and Bromfield, as will Samantha Pereyra, who will work with English language learners.
Not surprisingly, many plans for the upcoming year are connected to the construction of the new elementary school. The time is coming to make major decisions about technology and furnishings for the building, Dwight said.
The construction site also continues to affect transportation. Dwight said the district will continue to offer free busing for elementary students this year to help reduce car traffic at HES (see bus routes). Parents will receive notices from the school about changes in traffic patterns as the construction proceeds.
HES Traffic: With Fairbank Street closed, spring traffic plan continues
Contaminated soil and buried boulders have delayed work at the back of the elementary school construction site. As a result, Fairbank Street is still closed to through traffic, and the traffic patterns from last spring will remain in effect until mid-September.
For now, parents who drive their children to and from school should enter Fairbank Street from the Massachusetts Avenue (Route 111) end, U-turn at the circle behind HES to drop off their students at the back door, and then return to Mass. Ave.
Only school buses will be allowed to use the curved drive at the front of the school between 8:30 and 9 a.m. and again between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Walkers will also enter at the front of the school.
