September 20, 2024

Weekly Information for September 20, 2024

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Dear Parker families, students and staff,

It was great to see everyone at Back to School Night last evening. I hope that you experienced Parker as your child does. Thank you for jumping in as if you were back in school. It made for a fun and meaningful evening for all of us. We look forward to seeing you again for PLP conferences on Friday, October 18th. Your child’s advisor will send details and an opportunity to sign up soon.


As you may know, this year we are celebrating Parker’s 30th Anniversary. We were founded in 1995 on the promise that we could get to know students well, to challenge and support students to use their mind well, prioritize depth over coverage, demonstrate mastery and support one another with a tone of decency and trust. We are proud of the tremendous success of our current students and 25 graduating classes!


We have a series of events and celebrations planned across the year. The goal is to reflect on the past, celebrate the present and prepare for a tremendously successful 30 years and beyond. We do all of this in the spirit of Parker – inclusive, welcoming and with students at the center. Please join us!


The first event is a Fun Run/Walk on Sunday, October 13th at 11:00 AM here on Devens. You can walk, run, hop, or skip the 5K – in-person or virtually – in costume or typical 5K attire. During and after the event, there will be family lawn games, a food truck, music, and more! Everyone who registers by next week will be guaranteed a Parker t-shirt designed by a talented graduate - and they are pretty cool shirts! Running, walking or cheering, we hope to see you there.

www.parker.school/run


Brian

This week’s topics: 
  • Parker 101 for Parents/Guardians
  • Parker Concert Band Begins!
  • School Photo Retakes
  • Financial Aid Night
  • AP Exams for Seniors
  • Support Our Seniors Potluck
  • Community Connections Night
  • Parent/Guardian Access to Homework
  • Hourly Substitute Opportunity
  • Parker 5K Fun Run Volunteers Needed
  • Flu/COVID Vaccine Clinic

Parker 101 for Parents/Guardians

Please join us for an orientation to Parker especially for parents/guardians who are new (or relatively new) to the school. These are intended to be companion sessions; you are welcome to attend just one, though we hope you can join us at both. Please contact Deb Merriam (deb@theparkerschool.org) or Matt Smith (matt@theparkerschool.org) with questions.


  • Part 1: Academics, Thursday, September 26th, 7-8:30 PM
    This session will focus primarily on the classroom experience and academic structures/expectations at Parker.


  • Part 2: School Culture and Communication, Tuesday, October 8th, 7-8:30 PM
    This session will focus on "everything else" about the school, including the advisory program, home-school communication, "discipline", extracurriculars & athletics, food programs, library and technology, and other important family and cultural aspects of the Parker experience.


Parker Concert Band rehearsals begin next week!

Parker’s Concert Band is starting soon! You can still join us provided you know the basics of playing a woodwind, brass, or percussion instrument. We even have 14 instruments in our collection that we can loan to you at no cost as well. Our rehearsals begin Tuesday, September 24th in Room 13. Rehearsals are held every Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30-4:30 PM. We will perform at Café Wednesday in mid-January, and we plan to offer another term starting in the spring semester. The activity fee for each semester is $100, and need-based assistance is available.


The details for signing up are:

  1. If you missed the informational meeting on Sept. 10, please fill out this sign-up form.
  2. To pay the $100 activity fee for the semester, just complete your payment through Parker’s Unipay page, clicking the “band” and “fall” options from the list. You can also bring a check or cash to the office in an envelope with your name and “Band fee” written on it. Checks should be made out to FW Parker Charter Essential School.

Students can drop your instrument off in room 13 before advisory on rehearsal days. Please contact us with instrument requests, need-based assistance requests, or any questions you may have: Jim jdesmond@theparkerschool.org or Marena mcole@theparkerschool.org.

 

School Photo Retakes

Students who missed having their photo taken on registration day and those wishing for a redo should visit the photographers in the morning next Wednesday, September 25, between 8 AM and 10 AM. These photos are used on school IDs, in Office 365, and in the yearbook, so please make sure you’ve had your photo taken this year. See Monique with questions.


Financial Aid Night

Attention Senior Families! Financial Aid night is Wednesday, September 25th at 6:30 PM. During this virtual event, Kevin Fudge from MEFA will be explaining the college financial aid process. Keep an eye out for an email from Jinnee that will include the meeting links for the event.


AP Exam

Attention Div 3 students! While Parker does not offer traditional AP classes, any student interested in taking an AP exam should see Jinnee by October 1st.


Support Our Seniors Potluck on October 1st

Seniors and their families are invited to join in conversation around the expectations, excitement, and challenges of the year ahead on Tuesday, October 1st from 5:30-7 PM in the Gym. Senior Seminar teachers/advisors will provide an overview of the senior year, Senior Project, and the graduation requirements along with this year’s installment of “Dear Diary”—a not-to-be-missed crowd favorite! Please bring a dish to share!


Community Connections Night on October 1st

We invite ALL members of the Parker community to meet with the Class of 2025 and learn about their Senior Projects on Tuesday, October 1st from 7-8:15 PM in the Gym! We hope you will offer suggestions for…

  • resources they could access
  • people/organizations with whom they might collaborate
  • experiential opportunities they could pursue
  • product ideas they might consider

Please feel free to bring guests from inside and outside the Parker community!


Parent/Guardian Access to Homework: School Connection app

Parker offers parental access to student class information through several mechanisms. Over the next few weeks, we will share more about those avenues of information here. Today, we are highlighting ‘School Connection’ which is a phone app (part of Microsoft Teams) you can download and then link to your student’s “Teams Assignments” account. This allows you as a parent/guardian to see nightly homework assignments, if that is information that would be helpful to you as you support your student’s success. Please follow the Parker instructions available here: School Connection Create Account.pdf. Note that you will need your student’s Parker email to link the account – the format for those is firstname.lastname@theparkerschool.org. We will offer some parent “help sessions” to learn more about these resources later this fall, so stay tuned!


Hourly Substitute Opportunity

Parker is currently seeking responsible, caring adults interested in working with middle and high school students as classroom substitutes. Familiarity with Parker’s mission and academic program is preferred. Substitutes will be called on an “as needed” basis based on their availability and will support students in following plans left by classroom teachers. Please contact Monique at mbeganski@theparkerschool.org if interested.


Last Call for 5K T-shirts

Register for the Parker 5K Fun Run by 9/25 to be guaranteed a t-shirt! www.parker.school/run. This will be a fun community event- come run, walk, skip, or jump the 5K in a Halloween costume or not! If you can’t make it to the run, signup to run virtually and still receive a t-shirt! T-shirts can be sent if not local.


Flu/COVID Vaccine Clinic

Our Flu AND COVID-19 (Moderna) vaccine clinic has been confirmed for Friday, October 18th, on PLP Day. This clinic is for staff, students, and family members (ages 5 and up). Please schedule your appointment from 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM by clicking this link.

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:
Wed - Sep 25 School Photo Retakes (morning)
Thu - Sep 26 Parker 101 - Part 1
Tue - Oct 1 Support Our Seniors Potluck
Tue - Oct 1 Community Connections Night
Tue - Oct 8 Parker 101 - Part 2
Wed - Oct 9 PSATs and SATs at Parker
Thu - Oct 10 Board of Trustees
Sun - Oct 13 Parker 5k Fun Run
Mon - Oct 14 Fall Holiday - NO SCHOOL
Tue - Oct 15 ACTs at Parker
Fri - Oct 18 PLP Conferences - No Classes

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

By Cindy Johnson October 3, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, It was a busy and exciting week at Parker. We have certainly hit our stride a month into the new school year. Thank you to everyone who joined us for Community Connections Night at Parker. Our Seniors did a terrific job describing their Senior Projects and welcoming ideas, connections, opportunities and resources as they launch. We appreciate all the families and friends who joined us. You provide invaluable guidance to our students! If you were unable to join us but still want to share your suggestions, please review the students’ topic areas in the document linked below, and then you may contact the Senior Seminar teacher. Class of 2026 Senior Project Declarations of Interest On Wednesday, we spent a lovely day at Mirror Lake on Devens with our Division 1 students. We do this trip every two years, providing a unique opportunity for Div 1 Advisories to work and play together. The highlight is always the cardboard boat race. After careful planning and team construction, one member of each Advisory captains their boat on a short course. Thank you to all the Division 1 students and Peer Mentors who tried something new and learned about teamwork and engineering. Congratulations to our Boys Cross Country team for winning the Ocean State Cross Country Invitational for the first time in school history. Our Boys Varsity team finished first out of 55 of the best schools from the region. We also placed 5th in the Boys JV race, 2nd in the Boys Freshman race and had three medalists in the Girls Freshman race. Outstanding showing at a very competitive meet. Finally, this week we welcomed students from Sophianum, our sister school in the Netherlands. We are delighted to host this exchange program for the second time, hosting ten Dutch students at Parker in October and then sending ten Parker students to the Netherlands in April. We are very proud of all the students and families who stepped towards this opportunity, sharing their homes and culture with students from across the world. This is a fun and important exchange for all of us. We look forward to seeing you in two weeks, Friday, October 17th for PLP day. Have a great weekend. Brian
By Cindy Johnson September 27, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of community lately—what shapes and supports it and why it matters. I think at its core, a community is more than a mere group of people. There is a degree of shared investment in a common purpose or a common value that brings communities together—and there is a willingness and commitment to doing work aligned to our shared purpose or values collectively that both grows from and contributes to community. These traits ideally contribute to a feeling of connection or even belonging that are at the heart of true community. There are many places where I get to see the ways that the people who inhabit Parker every day are building and shaping community. Earlier this week, for example, I spent two blocks with the senior class as they came together as a group to share their Senior Project Declarations—short summaries of what they plan to study for the year, who they will work with, and what they will create. There was a theme song. Each student took a turn sharing their work. Everyone else in the group listened respectfully and celebrated the work others shared. These students already know each other. They have worked together for years—in and out of the classroom—and still, this shared experience gave them an opportunity to learn even more about each other and to share a moment that was at once common and highly individual. This highlights one of the aspects of community that might be easily overlooked: genuine community is not an exercise in sameness, even though it is about something shared. Real community grows from an investment in creating connection across differences, learning together, supporting each other in doing challenging things. Next Tuesday, September 30, we are hosting several events (see details below) including Community Connections Night—which will give any member of the Parker community a chance to come learn about this year’s Senior Class Projects and offer resources and ideas to support the seniors’ ongoing work. We hope you will join us if you can and invest some of your own time and energy in both getting to know and contributing to our rich and vibrant school community. Best wishes, Bex
By Cindy Johnson September 19, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, It was great to see everyone at Back-to-School night last evening. Thank you for joining us and experiencing Parker as your child does. It was a positive and affirming night for all of us. Parker was founded in 1995 by local parents who wanted to do school differently. They imagined a school where their child was challenged to use their mind well, where they would be known deeply by their teachers in a community with a culture of decency and trust. We are proud to have lived that mission, in partnership with Parker families. We look forward to seeing you at PLP conferences on Friday, October 17th. Your child’s advisor will send details and an opportunity to sign up for a 30-minute session soon. Fall PLP conferences are an essential opportunity for the student to create their own learning goals for the year, with support from their family and advisor. These goals are often aligned to the Parker Habits of Learning including inquiry, organization, collaboration, reflection and perseverance. Students prepare their plans and prep for the meeting in Advisory across the next month. It is a productive and iterative process with meaningful results for our students. Thank you for your help. We appreciate the leadership of the Parker Parent and Caregiver Community (PPCC), founded two years ago to foster an involved and inclusive community. All families are welcome to join the Facebook group at Parker Parent and Caregiver Community | Facebook . Thank you to the PPCC for everything that they do to build and sustain our community, including the warm welcome you extended to new students and families across the spring and summer. We are all better for it. Please join us for a coffee with Bex on Wednesday, October 1st at 8:30 AM in Room 40. As our new Principal, Bex welcomes your perspective and feedback. Join us to say hi. Thank you for your partnership! Brian
By Cindy Johnson September 13, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, I love the start of a new school year—not just because the empty building comes back to life with the presence of the students, faculty, and families and not just because it is a chance for a new beginning—though I do appreciate those things. What I enjoy most about the start of the school year is the way it sets the important foundation for everything that comes next. The thing about foundations is that they are not particularly glamorous, they are rarely the star of the show. Not many of us notice the foundations of buildings we enter or live in—unless there are problems with them. A good, solid foundation does its job without calling attention to itself, and the foundational ideas and beliefs at the core of what we do and believe at Parker is what I am noticing and appreciating in the foundation building I see happening every day. Here at Parker, the Common Principles are the ideas that matter most to our foundation and the most important work in our classrooms, hallways, clubs, and teams is teaching, practicing, and holding ourselves accountable to the ways we live those out in the day to day work. What does that look like? It looks like extra time in advisory and divisional gatherings in these first few weeks, fostering relationship building with new teachers and new classmates. It looks like learning about the advisory routines for Academic Advising and Academic Block. It looks like reviewing and learning about divisional norms and expectations. When I think about how this translates to classrooms, I am struck by the foundation building in the classes that book-end a student’s academic experience at Parker—7th Seminar which introduces key concepts like the Habits of Learning* , self-advocacy, and the process of revision, and Senior Seminar which challenges students to apply all their Habits and Skills to a year-long independent project they design. Some of what we work really intentionally to build with our students across their years with us is the willingness to try hard things, the perseverance to keep going, and the ability to reflect and revise based on feedback. We intentionally revisit these foundations every year. We intentionally ask our students to apply them to new and more challenging tasks as they progress from division to division. We intentionally shift more and more of the work involved in these tasks to students so that they each build their own solid foundation. Like all good foundations, these might not feel like the most exciting or glamorous work we do. Certainly, big demonstrations of learning like Gateways and Senior Exhibitions get more fanfare—but what I want to celebrate and call to your attention is how every little thing we do now enables those “bigger” things later. So, as we wrap up our first five-day week of the school year, I invite you all to notice and appreciate the foundations you might see being built for the year ahead. Happy Friday and happy weekend! Bex *The eight habits of learning at Parker are Inquiry, Expression, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Organization, Attentiveness, Involvement and Reflection.
By Cindy Johnson September 7, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, It is with great pride that I reflect on the first two weeks of our new school year. We all started new routines, embraced our new classes, and made new friends. Congratulations on a terrific launch! Parker was founded on the belief we could do school differently, challenging students to use their minds well in a culture of decency and trust. It starts with knowing our students well, as learners and human beings. We believe that all students can succeed and thrive – and we provide the personalized support and encouragement that students need. Our students and staff work incredibly hard to meet these high standards. As our founders Ted and Nancy Sizer wrote in The Students Are Watching, “What we need to consider and then to create is the kind of environment [that convinces young people that they] are in a place which believes in them – and from which they can, therefore, learn well and deeply.” Through the 10 Common Principles and their leadership as co-principals, Ted and Nancy set the standards for academic rigor, student engagement and community that define Parker today. We are proud of all the ways that our students embrace and live these values every day at Parker. For example, our student Ambassadors and Peer Leaders came in over the summer to welcome and support new students and families. Their kindness and positive energy created a welcoming environment for our newest students. Many of these same students are serving as Peer Mentors to Division 1 advisories. They serve as role models, leading different games and facilitating discussions about school culture. They also run the Halloween party, Mirror Lake trip, Film Festival, and Field Day for Division 1. Our Teaching Assistants (TAs) provide similar support within our academic classes. TAs in 7th Seminar, Spanish, Wellness, and MST provide wisdom, small group facilitation, and one-on-one support. They help set the tone for the class, model appropriate participation and collaboration skills, and make connections with individual students. For example, this week in 7th Seminar, our TAs helped students learn some of the technology that we use to communicate while reflecting on the importance of connecting with their teachers. Finally, our Division 3 students served as leaders and role models during the first Super Advisory yesterday, leading their cross-divisional groups in activities to help build community and connection. They modeled taking risks and the importance of building community. Thank you to everyone who makes Parker a special place to learn and grow up. Together, we are off to a great start!  Brian
By Cindy Johnson August 30, 2025
Dear Parker Students, Families and Staff, Welcome Back! We are delighted to be back to school, to welcome almost 100 new students and families, and to begin another school year together. Thank you to our Peer Leaders, PPCC and everyone on staff who helped to welcome new students and families to Parker. Everyone at Parker experienced changes this year, as we walked through the renovated walkway, welcomed our new Principal, Bex Wilucz, and adjusted to new schedules and routines. We are so proud of all our students for embracing these changes, for doing your best work and for being supportive of your classmates. Parker is an extraordinary place because of you! Thank you and congratulations for a terrific first week. We are all looking forward to another great year at Parker. Enjoy the long weekend. Brian