District News

Coming Events

Upcoming school and community events are listed below. You can also view the coming events calendar by school on the PES and PMHS webpages.

  • October 3 – School Board Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
  • October 11 – No School (Teacher Workshop Day)
  • October 14 – No School (Columbus Day)
  • October 16 – College Board Testing Day (all students in junior and senior standing; seniors may opt out with parental permission)
  • October 17 – School Board Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
  • October 19 – PTO Trunk or Treat, 6:00 p.m. (PMHS parking lot)

Feature

SAT Testing

On October 16 the Pittsfield School District will be partnering with College Board to administer the SAT again.  We will be testing all seniors unless you and your student opt out of taking the exam this second time. Seniors may want to retake the exam with the hope of improving their score, but if that is not the case, you may choose to give your student permission to opt out.  Please complete and sign the form below and return it to the school no later than Monday, October 7.

Senior SAT Letter and Opt Out Form

Administration

Different Advice for the Beginning of a School Year

Now that we’ve been in school for several weeks, parents have already heard the usual advice for supporting kids in the new school year, suggestions like make sure kids get plenty of sleep and good nutrition, set a regular time for reading and homework, get to know your child’s teacher, etc., etc.

All great suggestions, no question about that.  But parents might also want to think about these suggestions that Jessica Lahey, a writer who focuses on parent/child issues, thinks we should also consider:

  • Focus on the process, not the product. Very young children are naturally driven to learn and explore…  As they reach out, fall, and get back up again, they gain a heightened sense of mastery, competency, and self-efficacy.  Somewhere around kindergarten, however, stickers, points, and grades seem to become more important than the natural passion for learning.

Parents can focus on the process they used to achieve their competence, asking questions like “What worked for you?”  and “What are you going to do next time?” keeps the focus on the process, the learning, rather than the external rewards or punishments.

One of the best questions that parents ask when looking over a child’s schoolwork is “How are you going to use this experience to be better next time?”  Helping children and youth focus back on the process can help future performance and also help to reduce anxiety.

Modeling:  Parents can also talk about our own successes and failures, showing them that we, too, are invested in the process of learning.  We can all learn from our mistakes.

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