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Bellingham School Committee: School Staffing Challenges, Stall Brook’s Successes, & a Generous Tech Grant

By Jennifer Russo
At its recent January 11th meeting, the Bellingham School Committee shared that most schools have been experiencing heightened staffing challenges after the holiday break but are still striving to have students remain for in-person education. Schools are covering staffing gaps with substitutes and other teachers willing to cover classes during their own breaks.  
Bellingham High School Principal Lafayette shared that with teacher attendance low after the break, substitutes are asked to cover classes, and Google classroom assignments allow most students to work independently. Teachers, he said, have been great about adjusting accordingly upon return once they see what classes have accomplished.  
“Everyone is pitching in, so we haven’t had to cancel classes, but we have had to combine some classes in the auditorium in order to have coverage,” she said.
The National Junior Honor Society has also been moved out to February, as a precaution.
Bellingham Athletic Director Michael Connor shared that several coaches ended up with COVID, which has also been a challenge for coverage.  Although other coaches have been pulling double-duty to attempt to maintain the schedule, many games have had to be cancelled due to coverage and lack of players. The return to play protocols are rigid, including heart monitoring as some athletes are finding it difficult to lower their heart rates after exercise if they have had COVID.  An EKG must be signed off by a cardiologist before they can return to the sport.
Committee Chairman Michael Reed expressed enormous appreciation for teachers’ flexibility and patience and thanked teachers, support staff, extracurricular staff, nurses, coaches, counselors, and building workers for stepping up at this time of challenge. 
Superintendent Peter Marano shared updates to the state’s mask mandate for schools, which is expected to now last until at least February 28th.  Our town’s Board of Health offered a booster clinic in January for school staff and 60+ people attended.  The vaccine clinic held for students had over 160 students vaccinated although, in the state, many schools still have not met the 80% vaccination requirement that would enable local authorities to lift the mandate.  In Bellingham schools, the vaccination rate for high school students is around 60%, and lower for middle school and elementary school students. 
Superintendent Marano noted that several districts have been moving away from contact tracing for close contacts, and he has met with nurses who will be providing more data on our own district.  So far, data reveals that COVID is not spreading within the schools.  The full data will be reviewed before a decision is made to move forward.
Stall Brook Elementary School was spotlighted in this month’s meeting, with Dr. Luuri sharing her excitement that US News and World Report had ranked the school in the top 30% of Massachusetts Elementary Schools. 
Dr. Luuri went over, in detail, Stall Brook’s approach to enrichment classes.  In addition to supporting students who may need additional help with their classes, the school wanted to also reach out to students performing above level so that they can continue to learn and grow.  These enrichment classes in Physical Education, Art, and Music each had five selected students enrolled for a special weekly, project-based enrichment session. Dr. Luuri shared examples of the work they completed.
Various accomplishments in the school’s Positive Behavior Intervention & Support (PBIS) Program were also discussed, including the Check In-Check Out (CICO) initiative, which is a 9-week intervention program allowing identified students to set goals and check in with assigned mentors throughout the day, receive points for good behavioral practices in their classes, and receive increasing awards for their progress.  The program has been well received by the students
Stall Brook also partners with therapy dog programs such as Peaceful Paws and PV Dogs, which proven to decrease anxiety and promote better concentration and connection in the students.  Reading confidence, increased gross motor skills and relaxation have also been noted as a result of the visits with the dogs.
Kristen Morgan, Stall Brook math specialist and interventionist, shared a robust math intervention case study with the committee, using data to illustrate a typical 5-week intervention cycle and its results.  The program aims to identify students who may be falling below math levels, using data such as unit assessments, MCAS, i-Ready testing, and daily observation and to get those students up to speed.
The next committee topic was more good news. Bellingham schools received a grant that had been submitted by Director of Technology Michael Garofano. The technology grant of $377,000 and additional e-rate funds of $140,000, will be used to upgrade school network infrastructure and build on Wi-Fi, use the fiber connection between the high school and middle schools and create additional Internet connections with more redundancies for a faster and bigger network.  It may be possible to get more reimbursable funds, as these are used to continue efforts to make additional improvements.
This month’s School Committee meeting will be held on February 8th.
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