Pittsfield School District SAU#51

District News

We want to extend a warm welcome to new members of our school community and welcome back our returning students, families, and staff members. Below is an overview of important dates and events in the coming weeks. The 2019-2020 district calendar is also available here. We look forward to seeing you soon!

• August 26, Pittsfield School District Open House, 4:00-7:00 p.m.
• August 28, First Day of School for K-12 (full day of school)
• August 30, No School
• September 2, No School
• September 3, First Day of PK (morning session starts at 8:00 a.m. and the afternoon session starts at 11:00 a.m.)
• September 4, Early Release Date (PES releases at 1:00 p.m. and PMHS releases at 1:15 p.m.)

Superintendent

The Pittsfield School District wishes all our Pittsfield students and families all the best for a wonderful new school year of learning.  It’s hard to beat the excitement and anticipation of the first day of school, but our wish for all is that we can hold on to the positivity of that first morning.

Here are the top 16 news headlines from our Pittsfield schools:

•  Administrator Absence.  Unfortunately, our director of college and career readiness, Ms. Melissa Brown, is on a long-term medical leave; however, we’re fortunate to have Ms. Tobi Chassie, our recently retired director of student services, fill in part-time during Ms. Brown’s absence.

•  Advisories.  Our Good to Great Team conducted an audit on our PMHS advisory program last year and presented its recommendations to the Pittsfield School Board in August; we’ll be working on program upgrades throughout the course of this year.

•  Choose Love.  Our School Board has adopted the Choose Love program to be integrated in all grades this year; Choose Love “teaches the foundational concepts and skills of social and emotional learning and is informed by current brain research and neuroscience; for more info: www.jesselewischooselove.org.

•  Curriculum Updates / Upgrades.  Our teachers will continue to utilize Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as we update and upgrade our curriculum at all grade levels this year and next; UDL “is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences… that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences.”

•  Executive Functioning.  Our multi-year commitment to executive functioning support for all students continues this year; executive functioning involves strengthening “mental processes that enable us all to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.”

•  Fund Balance – 2018-2019 School Year.  The district closed the 2018-2019 school year with a budget fund balance of about $80,000; this represents about $.30/thousand on the Pittsfield tax rate.

•  LEAD.  Thanks to the efforts of community members – most notably Ms. Tracy Huyck, Mr. Ted Mitchell, and Police Chief Joe Collins – the Law Enforcement Against Drugs (LEAD) program will be piloted in two PES grades and in our PMHS middle school grades; LEAD seeks to create “safer, healthier communities free of drugs, bullying, and violence;” this project is supported by the Granite United Way and is likely to expand next year. (more…)