Sutton Public Schools

Superintendent Update

November 2024

Once a month, during the school year, the Office of the Superintendent will send an update to the community highlighting some of the excellent work being done by our students, educators, and school leaders. The update will also include important announcements from the District’s Central Office and other departments.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has released the results of the Spring 2024 MCAS. For an overview of our district’s data, you can review the reports here. Individual student MCAS reports were mailed home on Monday, October 21st. Your student’s data is reported based on the grade level they were in during the 23/24 school year. If you did not receive your child’s MCAS report please contact your child’s school office. You can find a summary of Sutton’s scores as a district and by school from an email sent on Friday 10/18/24 here.


Valuing high expectations requires support from our families. It is critical that students are in school each day learning. Here you will find the Massachusetts learning standards to help families understand what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each grade in English Language Arts and Literacy, Mathematics, Science and Technology/Engineering, and History and Social Science. The graphic below also highlights the importance of school attendance on student learning time.

attendance

BUDGET SY 25/26

At tonight’s School Committee meeting a presentation will be presented that details the FY26 budget process. You can view that presentation here.

As we build our SY26 budget we want to hear what the community values. This anonymous survey was designed to help our school community share their input with the School Committee and the District Leadership Team to identify priority areas, ensuring a more collaborative and informative budget process. Please take a few minutes to participate in this quick survey. All survey participants will be anonymous, and we kindly ask that you only complete the survey once to ensure that we are gathering the most accurate information. This form will remain open until Friday, November 15th. At that time the Superintendent’s Office will work to create a document to be posted on our website detailing the feedback received.

SCEL and SES

October has been a busy but productive month for our elementary community. We have gathered all of our baseline beginning of the year assessment data and have used that information to create groupings where student needs can be targeted. 

Our K-2 students continue to make excellent progress with ST Math and as of today have completed 98,615 puzzles! Our classrooms continue to grow their percentages and our visual tracker has added even more motivation!

puzzles
JIJI

A PBIS highlight is our new Golden Spatula board! Each week a winner from each cafeteria is named. Right now there is a tie between Kindergarten and Grade 3 (3 golden spatulas each), Grade 5 has earned two, and Grade 1 earned their first just last week! Recognizing and praising expected behaviors is what we are all about and it’s great to see the students getting excited about being safe, respectful, and responsible! We are excited to continue this good momentum in November with Week of Respect 24-25… more to share on this in next month’s newsletter!

spatula
pto

Thank you PTO!

A huge shout out to our incredible PTO for hosting another successful Trunk or Treat event, to say it was well attended would be an understatement! Additional highlights this month include Enrichment, Fun Afternoon Out, and the Scholastic Book Fair. Thank you for working hard to bring our community together in such fun ways!!

In addition, we are so excited to report that we had our most successful Booster-Thon this year raising over $24,000 for our SCEL & SES students! Thank you so much for your support!

fun
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Middle School

October was a busy month at SMS. Learning is in full swing and students have been doing tremendous work!  In our Science classes, students started their first units of the Open Sci Ed curriculum, which is a student-centered, phenomena based learning model that encourages students to think like scientists. OpenSciEd is designed to increase accessibility and maintain rigorous science learning so all students are prepared for college, career, and life in an increasingly STEM-focused world. In the OpenSciEd units, students engage in investigations to make sense of relevant, real world observable events (phenomena). We are in our 2nd year of OpenSciEd implementation at SMS - big thanks to our Science Department for supporting this shift in instruction! 

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October is Bullying Prevention Month - our Second Step focus for the month has been bullying prevention. From recognizing different types of bullying to understanding its effects and being an upstander, we can all do our part to prevent bullying at SMS.  We also recognized Unity Day which promotes acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion, builds community, and raises awareness about bullying prevention. #unityeveryday

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Thank you to the MS PTO and all of the amazing volunteers who made our October TNO a big success - it was a fun and festive event for our students!

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In November, we hope to see you for Parent/Caregiver-Teacher Conferences as well as our annual Veterans’ Day Assembly on November 12, 2024 - more information to come!

High School

This past month SHS 9th graders began their work on the MyCAP process. MyCAP (My Career and Academic Plan) helps students prepare for college, jobs, and being active members of their communities. The MyCAP process involves students in real planning for their futures, focusing on their personal interests, skills, and talents. Students were given access to the MEFA Pathways platform; MEFA Pathways pairs with the MyCAP process to become a “one stop shop” for a student’s career and post secondary planning. Students will be able to upload activities and use the information kept on the platform to help with college applications, internship opportunities and more. Students will have the opportunity to work on these lessons during selected Advisory periods. Big shout out to Ms. Miller & Ms. Maxim - our two school counselors who have worked hard over the past few years to bring these new tools to our school.

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Special Education Department

Our first Special Education Parent Advisory Council meeting was held on October 15th via Zoom. We had 5 families participate. We discussed topics for the year including special education budget updates, New IEP presentations, legislative changes that impact special education, supporting special education students with the transition between Elementary/Simonian Center and Middle School, and formation of a unified high school group. The group discussed moving forward with virtual meetings on Thursdays. A schedule will follow.

sped

Food Services

As of November 1st the school district has moved to paperless free and reduced applications.

Families will need to create a school cafe account if they do not already have one in order to complete the application. Once logged in families will be able to complete the application in 10-15 minutes.

Benefits:

  • Applications being processed quickly with instant notification of status to the families

  • Quickly translates both the application and notification letters

  • Has a place for any supporting documents to be uploaded

  • The verification process will be easier and faster as there is no need to send any paper documents by mail

  • The online application will ask for consent to share information at the end of the application process. This will eliminate on more notification from having to be sent out and returned

Sutton Athletics

Congratulations to our Girls Soccer, Girls Field Hockey, and Boys Soccer teams. All 3 teams were CMASS Tournament Champions!

Athletics 1

For those "bracketologists" out there Matt Friedmnan has included the links to the full brackets for each sport below:

Volleyball

Field Hockey

Girl's Soccer

Boy's Soccer

Our XC Teams are also participating in the State Qualifier Meet next Saturday in Wrentham.

MIAA

Important Dates

  • 11/1/24- Diwali

  • 11/4/24 -11/8/24- SCEL/SES Week of Respect

  • 11/4/24 at 6 PM- School Committee Meeting

  • 11/5/24- No School for Students- Parent Teacher Conferences/PD

  • 11/7/24 4PM - 6 PM- SCEL/SES Evening Parent Teacher Conferences

  • 11/11/24- No School for Students and Staff- Veterans Day

  • 11/12/24- Veterans Day Assembly and Early Dismissal (Parent Teacher Conferences)

  • 11/13/24- World Kindness Day

  • 11/14/24- Diabetes Awareness Day- Wear Blue!

  • 11/27/24- Early Dismissal

  • 11/28/24 - 11/29/24- No School (Thanksgiving Break)


    Please visit our website for a more detailed list of upcoming events including sports schedules.

Community Updates

The Sutton Youth Baseball  7-8 Farm Team had a great season this year and finished their last game on Wednesday winning 7-2 against Douglas, winning the championship game and coming in First Place for the season. Photo attached of the team and coaches.

baseball

Cub Scout Pack 243 is looking for boys and girls to join. Please see the information below!

cub

Caitlin Paget

Interim Superintendent

Sutton Public Schools

16 Putnam Hill Road

Sutton, MA 01590