Everett High School staff will begin knocking on the doors of students who miss too much school, Superintendent William Hart told the School Committee on Monday, March 16, under a grant from UCLA that he said only a handful of districts in the country received. The same day, the district opened registration for its first full-day pre-kindergarten program.
Home visits, with advance notice
Hart said the visits grew out of a question he and Assistant Superintendent Margaret Adams asked about the older grades: “What can we do in Everett that will really enhance the participation of our students here at Everett High School?” Staff will go “to homes of students and their families with, you know, obviously, advanced notice,” he said, so that a parent can talk with a teacher or guidance counselor the student already knows. “Most of them will be ELL students, students from immigrant families who may not necessarily already engage with us,” he said. “We’re going to them as opposed to waiting for folks to come to us.” The grant pays for the program and asks only for trend data, not student-level records. If attendance improves, Hart said, the district will look at expanding it to lower grades.
Vice Chair Marcony Almeida Barros said he, Hart and Chair Samantha Hurley had discussed the fear a knock on the door can raise, “especially in light of what’s going on at the federal level.” The district will send “bilingual staff, folks who are identifiable by the EPS employees,” he said, “so there is no one concerned or afraid of opening their doors.” Hart said families will get notice and a phone call before anyone arrives. Millie Cardello said the district ran home visits in the 1990s and “it was working very, very well,” adding that a visit also “put a fear into the student” who was skipping school. Joanna Garren asked what data the grant requires; Hart said only general counts and whether attendance improved.
Full-day pre-K
Registration appointments for full-day pre-kindergarten are at the Parent Information Center on the lower level of City Hall, entered from Church Street, with staff available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. Half-day sessions will continue for families who prefer them. “Not many school districts have the opportunity to have their pre-K program run a full day,” Hart said. Hurley said her older children “still remember preschool teachers and preschool paras that made their academic start memorable.”
The Adams School spotlight
Vice Principal Jessyca Redler presented the Adams School, a full-inclusion preschool for ages 3 to 5 with 158 students and more than 12 languages, as the month’s school spotlight, with several of the children at the table. The fall festival had a pony ride and a petting zoo, and the Schiavo Club lent its hall across the street for the holiday jamboree. “We may have the smallest learners in Everett, but we are where the biggest educational journeys begin,” Redler said, before a video of the staff singing the Cubs song. Mayor Robert Van Campen said he had read in Lisa Antonelli’s class during Read Across America: “I hope there’s no video of my appearance in your class, but because there was dancing, there was balancing beanbags on my head.” Margaret Cornelio seconded the motion to excuse the guests: “That was amazing. I loved every minute of it.”
Also March 16
- Hart said the district won a state Executive Office of Technology Services and Security grant to train every employee in cybersecurity over the coming weeks. “Everett is making sure that we will not be victimized by the potential of having any of our information stolen or compromised,” he said.
- Students Hyanna Richmond, Mia Aguilar, Mia Allen and Yonellis Jimenez spoke at the third annual Dorothy Martin Long luncheon at the Connolly Center on March 14. “People that graduate college don’t speak that eloquently,” Cardello said.
- Lucas Martins, Elvis Nguyen and Ali Raza won a Project Lead the Way capstone award for a design on transportation for people with disabilities; one judge called their report “absolutely on par with what I would expect from one of the teams that I employ.” Anthony Whitlow won a Scholastic Art Gold Key for “Clarity.” Nathalie Romero Velasco and Santiago Terezo Escortia advanced to the Spanish-language debate city final at the Museum of Science. Forty-one students, the largest delegation of any district, attended the Educators Rising state conference at UMass Boston.
- The committee accepted a $750 Everett Cultural Council grant, secured by Whittier teacher Kristin Coffey, for costumes and sets for the school’s production of Willy Wonka, 7-0. Jeanne Cristiano, Robin Babcock and Joe LaMonica were absent.
- Martha Chason-Sokol of Art Lab said the program has grown from 300 students in its first year to more than 5,000 and will feature committee member Garren as its artist at an opening the last Sunday in March.
- Student representative Emma Perry reported the debut of girls flag football, a junior prom moved to April 30 at Oleo’s in Peabody, and a March Madness attendance contest at the Madeline English School with 30 extra minutes of recess as the prize.
- Hurley delivered the quarterly Shore Educational Collaborative report: 216 students, an all-time high, and 365 adult participants, with Chelsea, Revere, Saugus and Everett the largest sending communities. Grade 10 MCAS runs March 24 and 25 with a late start for other grades. The next meeting is April 6.
Previous School Committee meeting (March 3): Everett Parents’ Cafeteria Complaints Go to a Subcommittee, the Barr Foundation Gives $160,000, and Snow Days Push the Last Day of School to June 23
