Open House 2010

It was wonderful to see all the Francis Wyman parents and guardians at the Open House on Tuesday night.I hope you found the grade level presentations informative. I trust you had time to visit with classroom teachers and any other teachers working with your child/children. Based on feedback from last year, we staggered the presentations so that grade levels did not conflict. We also staggered the classroom visitation time blocks to help alleviate some of the traffic congestion we experienced last year. To help with traffic control, we had a police officer patrolling the area. I am interested in hearing your feedback regarding this event as we plan for next year. Please feel free to respond through my BLOG.

Open House Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Francis Wyman School Open House will be held on Tuesday, September 21, 2010. We look forward to meeting with parents and sharing information regarding curriculum and instruction. This event is designed for parents only and is not appropriate for children. This year we are staggering the grade level presentations to accommodate families who have children in mulitple grades. There is plenty of additional time alloted for classroom visits.




                    Presentation            Classroom Visits

Kindergarten 5:30 – 6:00            6:00 – 7:30

Grade 1        6:00 – 6:30            6:30 - 8:00

Grade 2        6:30 – 7:00            7:00 – 8:30 



Grade 3        7:00 – 7:30            7:30 – 9:00

Grade 4        7:30 - 8:00            7:00-7:30; 8:00 – 9:00

Grade 5        8:00 – 8:30           7:00 – 8:00, 8:30 – 9:00



**Specialists P.E., Music, Art, Computers 6:30 – 8:30

**Special Ed: Learning Center K-2 (Mrs. Schultz) 5:30 – 7:30

ELL (Mrs. Todd, Mrs. Wall) 5:30 – 7:30

Speech/language (Ms. Clark, Ms. Angelo) 6:00 – 8:00

Transition Classroom (Mr. Kipp) 6:00 - 8:00

Reading (Mrs. Murphy) 6:00 – 8:00

Spec. Ed (Mrs. Cummings) 6:00 – 8:00

Spec. Ed (Mrs. Gilman) 6:30 – 8:30

Spec. Ed (Mrs. Hackbarth) 7:00 – 9:00

Learning Center 3-5 (Mrs. Melanson) 7:00 – 9:00



Grade Level Presentations - All grade level team presentations will be held in the auditorium. The teachers in each grade work together as a collaborative team to provide a consistent learning experience for all students in each grade level. Your child's reading teacher may be a teacher other than your child's classroom teacher. Some teachers also switch classes for science and social studies. The grade level teams will be discussing a variety of topics such as curriculum, grade level expectations, and procedures.



Classroom Visits - There is time set aside for parents to visit the classrooms, see student work, and talk to the teachers informally. This is not a time for a parent conference about student progress especially since it is not a confidential setting. Teachers will be in their classrooms during the "classroom visit" timeframes. Please visit all the teachers in your child's program ( classroom teacher, reading teacher, etc)

Welcome to New Families

Each August, new families are invited to visit Francis Wyman School to tour the building and learn about the school. Mr. Giurlando, Assistant Principal, led the tour and shared information about the school. The PTO Vice President, Jessica Inglis, shared a welcome goodie bag with families and offered her support by being the contact for new families.In this blog post, I would like to share some background information that may be of interest to new families as well as other members of our school community.

Francis Wyman School was originally built as a Junior High School. Years ago it was closed and rented to the State Police Department and Middlesex Community College. It was renovated and opened as the Francis Wyman Elementary School 14 years ago. It serves over 600 students K-5. There are several additional programs incorporated into the school: three district special education programs, three LABBB Collaborative special education programs, two afterschool programs and the new Sprouts Daycare. There are over 100 teachers and staff members involved in the school and programs.


Francis Wyman Elementary School is committed to its motto of Francis Wyman School CARES! This motto represents C for Compassion, A for Accomplishments, R for Respect, E for Enthusiasm, and S for Self-reliance. Students, staff, and parents embrace the diversity within the school population and work to be a fully inclusive school. This was most notably represented in the playground project which resulted in a totally accessible playground supported by not only the school community but the greater Burlington and business community. As a result of this unique playground, hundreds of students enjoy a quality play experience each day, including students with physical challenges.


The focus this year is to continue our implementation of Response to Intervention (RtI) and our Tiered Instruction Model. Grade level teams  meet regularly to collaborate on the consistent implementation of the district’s core curriculum and various interventions. Student progress is closely monitored and adjustments made to programs as needed. Our newly created District Curriculum Councils in ELA and mathematics will meet monthly to work on curriculum issues. Members of the councils include classroom teachers, Reading Specialists, the Literacy Coach and Math Coach, along with elementary principals. School based and district level data teams will monitor student progress to determine the effectiveness of instruction.


Our new staff this year includes Mrs. Kim Lynch who teaches grade 5. Mrs. Lynch has worked for the past 4 years at FWS in the capacity of permanent substitute, Math Tutor, and Instructional Assistant in the Language Based class grades 3-5. She volunteered to supervise the Student Council and has worked in the afterschool Math Club. She is most excited to join the fifth grade team. Mrs. Deborah Wall joins us as an additional ELL teacher. She will work part time at Francis Wyman and comes with a great deal of experience in the field of ELL and ELA instruction. Our school nurse, Mrs. Anne Azarian, will now work at FWS full time. She will also share her expertise beyond FWS, working in the capacity of the district’s Supervisor of Nurses.

We are dedicated to maximizing “time on learning” with our master schedule consisting of daily learning blocks : 90 minutes of English /Language Arts , 60 minutes of mathematics, 45 minutes of either science or social studies, and one specialist period a day in either PE, Music or Art . There is a 30 minute block for students to participate in either intervention instruction or extension/enrichment experiences. Students have 25 minutes of recess before lunch and then 25 minutes of lunch.

Replacing the auditorium seating  was the big summer project. The project is scheduled to be completed some time in late September. The flooring installation is complete so folding chairs will be available on Open House night for the faculty presentations.