December 21, 2024
Weekly Information for December 20, 2024
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Dear Parker families, students and staff,
Wishing you and your family very happy holidays! Enjoy some holiday treats and spend quality time with those who you love. We are grateful to learn, grow and connect in our extraordinary community of Parker. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year!
Brian
This week’s topics:
- Thanks, and Warm Wishes!
- Holiday Break Reminder
- Rose Bowl Parade
- Parker Annual Fund
- Spirit Wear
- Yearbooks
- COVID-19 Test Kits Available
Thanks and Warm Wishes!
How thoughtful you were to think of us!
All the goodies and treats; you made such a fuss!
Our thanks for your kindness and we wish you the best.
Have a wonderful break and enjoy an earned rest!
~
Parker extends the warmest wishes of the season to you and your loved ones.
Enjoy the break - see you in 2025! Happy New Year!
Holiday Break Reminder
Classes will resume for students on Friday, January 3, 2025. If your student will miss additional days, please leave a message on the Attendance Line (available 24 hours a day) at 978-772-3293, x1, any day/time before 9 AM of the affected day(s).
Tournament of Roses Parade
If you happen to watch the parade on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, keep an eye out for current junior Anneliese Carlson who will be marching in the color guard with other members of the New England Honor Band. While there, the band will help with the parade float construction, visit Universal City Walk and Santa Monica Beach, and march down Main Street in the Disneyland parade on New Year's Eve. Congratulations, Anneliese! Learn more about this event here:
Parker Annual Fund
This week saw the holiday season of giving continue—as of December 20th, we have received over $95,000 from Parker's Board of Trustees’ members, staff, current families, ALUMNI, parents of graduates, and friends of Parker. Thank you! During this last busy week of the holiday season, please consider a year-end, tax deductible gift to Parker by clicking here - EVERY GIFT OF ANY AMOUNT MATTERS AND MAKES AN IMPACT!
Spirit Wear
If you’re interested in purchasing Parker gear for the new year, use promo code PSAS15 until January 2nd for 15% off. A portion of sales goes to Parker’s Community Congress student group. https://teamlocker.squadlocker.com/#/lockers/parker-charter-1576254
Yearbooks
Remember to order your 2024-2025 yearbook by January 31st for $5 off regular prices. Hard cover and soft cover books have all the same content while the Division 1 books contain the same whole school and Division 1 sections but not the sections for Division 2, Juniors, Seniors, and senior parent ad pages. Currently, hard cover books are $55, soft cover books are $35, and Division 1 books are $15.
COVID-19 Test Kits Available
Reminder: COVID-19 Test Kits are free and available to students, staff, and families. They are in the main lobby to the right of the office window.
Cafeteria Menus
Sports Schedule
Parents of Athletes
Do you know how to find your way to Parker’s playing locations? We have a GREAT feature on our website with interactive Google maps - just enter your address to receive directions to any of our game and meet locations. Find this feature by clicking HERE.
| Upcoming Dates of Note: | |
|---|---|
| Mon-Tue; Dec 23-31 | Holiday Break |
| Wed - Jan 1 | New Years Day (No School) |
| Thu - Jan 2 | Faculty Planning (No Classes) |
| Fri - Jan 3 | Classes Resume |
| Fri - Jan 10 | Board of Trustees |
| Mon - Jan 20 | MLK, Jr. Day (No School) |
| Thu-Fri; Jan 23-24 | GATEWAYS |
| Mon - Jan 27 | Faculty Planning (No Classes) |
| Tue - Jan 28 | Second Semester Begins |
| Looking for help with or concerning: | Please contact: |
|---|---|
| a specific class or assignment | the teacher of that class (see Parker email list) |
| technical support | email: helpdesk@theparkerschool.org |
| your family's or student's health | email: lzick@theparkerschool.org |
| mental health/emotional support needs | email: skelly@theparkerschool.org |
| food insecurity/free and reduced school lunch needs | email: mmckenna@theparkerschool.org |
The Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School is committed to equal employment and educational opportunity for all members of the school community and prohibits discrimination on the basis of the basis of race, color, gender, pregnancy or pregnancy status, religion, gender identity, age, national origin, sexual orientation, homelessness, or disability, in the operation of the educational programs, activities, or employment policies.
Recent Posts
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, Wishing you and your family wonderful break! We hope the week off is restful and rejuvenating. We look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday, February 23. Stay safe and warm! Bex
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, We are a week away from February break, an opportunity to beat our winter colds and dream about warmer days ahead. For a few in our community, it is an opportunity to experience something new as they travel abroad with their Parker classmates. We are sending groups to the Bahamas and the Netherlands again this year. We hope they have a terrific trip. We appreciate the trust of our families and hard work of our staff to make experiences like this possible. We are less than a month away from our March 1st application deadline for new students and families. Thank you to everyone who helps to spread the word and create a positive buzz around the school. If you have a neighbor or friend who may be interested in Parker, please share your experiences. And remember, younger siblings need to apply to be eligible for admission. There is a sibling preference in the lottery, but you still need to apply. We have three information sessions remaining just before and after break. For additional details and a link to the application visit parker.school/enroll . Thank you to everyone who joined us for Fair Funding Week this week. Of the 68 charter schools in Massachusetts, Parker had the most participants! To kick off the week, the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association shared the following video. It is worth a two-minute watch. You will see and hear Parker families and staff throughout the video. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1371197804687927 And our efforts are working! Governor Healy’s budget for next year includes a modest increase in facility funding for charter public schools. While we continue to receive significantly less facility aid than traditional public schools, we appreciate and celebrate steps towards closing that gap. Congratulations to our students on their accomplishments this week. Four Division 1 students recently represented Parker at the Chapter Competition for Mathcounts, a national math competition for middle school students. We are proud to congratulate Nathan Warren, Julia Crighton, Stephen Tatro, and Adam Rhodin for a strong performance—their team came in 3rd place! Our high school Mock Trial Team finished their preliminary trial round this week with an impressive 3-0 win record. They will be advancing to the state tournament, which will be held at Clark University on March 1. We wish them good luck! Thank you for showing up in all sorts of ways to support Parker. We appreciate our community! Have a great weekend. Brian
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, We have officially started the second semester of the 2025-26 school year! This is both a measure of progress and a time of new beginnings. Here at (or really a little past) the midway point of the year, there are exciting things happening—some as small as a new unit of study in a class and maybe as big as starting new classes in a new division after a mid-year gateway. I had my first chance to join an information session for prospective students and families this week and it was a powerful reminder to me about many of the most important and unique aspects of our school. Whether it was hearing some of our older student ambassadors talk about which of the 10 Common Principles is meaningful to them, or hearing parents share stories of their student’s learning experience at Parker, or seeing our teachers introduce new students to the kinds of learning activities and thinking we ask them to do in school, each of these highlighted an element of our school’s very intentional design. We get to know our students well, we build a caring and inclusive community, and we build on those connections and relationships to challenge and support our students to take on intellectual challenges, push themselves in their thinking and work, and to become independent thinkers and learners. If you or your student have appreciated these (or other things) about Parker, and you would like state lawmakers to prioritize fair funding for all students in every type of public school, you have an opportunity to raise your voice and advocate for us. Next week, February 2-6, is Fair Funding Week, sponsored by the Massachusetts Public Charter School Association. See below for more information about how to register for events and advocate for fair and equitable funding for our students and school. Wishing you all extra warmth over this cold stretch of days. Best, Bex
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, Congratulations to all the students who Gatewayed over the last two days. It is always a joyful and celebratory moment for our students and a testament to their hard work and perseverance. We appreciate all the friends, family and teachers who helped to make this possible. Congratulations to our whole community. We are all bracing for a big winter storm coming this weekend. As you know, Monday is a professional development day for our faculty. We will work remotely on Monday so that we are ready for the start of second semester on Tuesday. Depending on the timing of the storm and the cleanup, Tuesday morning may be impacted as well. We will communicate by text, email and through local media outlets if so. Given recent news about immigration enforcement across the country, I wanted to share the letter that I wrote a year ago. We follow the law and clear guidelines from the Massachusetts Attorney General, prioritizing student safety and parental rights. As I write in the letter, we are “committed to ensuring that students and families may come to school without fear and will comply with all applicable state laws to ensure the protection of our students and families.” January 31, 2025 letter.docx Thank you for helping to make Parker an inclusive, safe and affirming community for all our students and families. We look forward to welcoming five new students to Parker on Tuesday. We also hosted over 100 visitors at our first information session of the year last night. The energy and student questions were terrific! If you have any neighbors or friends who are considering Parker, invite them to apply for the lottery and attend one of our upcoming information sessions. See our website for more details. Enrollment at Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School Respectfully, Brian
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, I often find this time of year provides a reminder to me to have hope amidst the short, dark, cold winter days we endure. By mid-January, I can start to see signs of more light, and sometimes we experience an unseasonably warm day or two—and these changes, though small or temporary, remind me that little by little, every day, tangible things are changing. The Winter Solstice had 6 hours and 12 minutes less daylight than the Summer Solstice. That’s a pretty dramatic difference—but it happened a little bit at a time. Going the other direction works the same way; first we gain only a few seconds of light each day, but by early January, we are gaining a minute of light each day, and by early February, several minutes a day. Change is funny like that—sometimes it happens so gradually we don’t see or feel its impact right away and sometimes it barrels in so we are acutely aware of it. The physical shock of greeting students at the front door this morning in much colder temperatures than yesterday morning is a fine example of the latter. This was a change not to be ignored, and even though I knew to expect it, that didn’t mitigate the jarring effects. Still, that brief respite of days edging toward 50 degrees can fuel my hope that warmer days are coming. Learning is rarely a predictable increase like the amount of light we gain daily moving from winter to summer, but it is often an incremental shift. Sometimes the slow building of skills starts to become evident only with what feels like a lot of effort and time. If you have a student about to complete a mid-year Gateway, you will soon see this sort of change and growth in their work right before your eyes. If your student is working toward a June gateway, or even a gateway next January or June, I would encourage you to look for those small, incremental changes between here and there. Those sometimes-tiny changes are like the extra moments of light in a winter day; they are adding up to something bigger that will be well worth the wait, and I hope that can give us all a little hope this time of year. Best wishes for a restful weekend and a meaningful celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Monday, January 19. Bex
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, We had the rare treat of a two-week winter break this year. It was great to welcome our well-rested students back to school on Monday. We have a busy three weeks remaining of the first semester. Students are completing assessments and many are preparing for Midyear Gateways. 68 students will Gateway, in every division and domain, on January 22-23. We look forward to celebrating this important milestone with our students and their families, teachers and peers. Second semester brings new electives for Division 3 students, new Community Blocks for all students, and the anticipation of end-of-year activities. We have officially kicked off student recruiting for next year. We have five information sessions scheduled in January and February, we are about to send postcards to prospective students, and we have a terrific group of student and adult Ambassadors. Thank you to everyone who helps to spread the word about Parker and welcome new students and families. Word of mouth has always been the most effective way that we introduce Parker to new families. If you have a neighbor or friend who may be interested in Parker, please share your experiences. We’d love your help boosting our school’s visibility. When you see our posts on Facebook or Instagram , please take a moment to like and share them with your networks. Your support helps us reach more families and celebrate the great things happening in our community. Additionally, remember, younger siblings need to apply to be eligible for admission. There is a sibling preference in the lottery, but you still need to apply. For additional details and a link to the application visit parker.school/enroll . We appreciate everyone who contacted their legislator and advocated for charter schools this fall. As you may know, there are multiple pieces of legislation under consideration that would lower the cap of charter-eligible students and limit funding for charter public schools. Many families are surprised to learn that students attending charter public schools receive less state funding than their peers in district schools. As lawmakers begin shaping next year’s state budget, we have a critical opportunity to make our voices heard and push for the equitable funding that our students deserve. We are about to launch Fair Funding Week 2026 led by the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. We hope that you will join us for this virtual week of celebration, advocacy, and collective action from February 2-6, 2026. Fair Funding Week kicks off with an inspiring virtual rally on Monday, February 2nd from 6:00–6:30 PM. Register now and stand with us Have a great weekend. Brian
