Fall 2019

Manville Makes MovesManville Kindergarten: Last year in Lower School we had our first full cohort of Kindergarten students at Manville. We are excited to adaptour curriculum and approach to work with young learners and feel proud of the positive growth we witnessed last year.

New Upper School Educational Supervisor: Amy Buckley has been working at Manville since 2011. She has had several roles here: classroomteacher (in the original Middle School and M2), science curriculum specialist, and transportation coordinator. Amy is very excited about her newrole as Educational Supervisor in the Upper School and looks forward to working with our kids and families in her new capacity this year.

(Joshua F., Danner W.) (Ms. Buckley)

During the month of August many of our Manville students attend summer camps in the area. Activities at camp range from swimming and fishingto arts and crafts and video games. Pictured below are Aiden and Sam at The Bridge Center and Nicole and Chris at JCC Camp Grossman. If youwould like support or guidance around finding a camp for your child to attend next summer please reach out to your child’s clinician/case manageror contact Ellen Sandoval esandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu 617-278-4251.

Manville Students Attend Summer Camps

NEW THIS FALL!Saturday Parent Group:We will have our first ever weekend Parent Group on Saturday October 5th from 10am – 12 pm. This new time willhopefully allow for parents who are unable to attend on Wednesday evenings, to attend a Parent Group. Limited childcare will be provided (firstcome first serve). RSVP to esandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu

Alumni Parents at Group: Given the success of our Alumni Parent groups last year we are going to being inviting Alumni parents to attend ourParent Groups and Focus Groups on a more regular basis.

THE MANVILLE SCHOOL53 Parker Hill AvenueBoston, MA 02120-3225(617)232-8390 (telephone)(617)232-8399 (facsimile)

www.jbcc.harvard.edu/Manville.html

Director:James Prince, ex. 4140

Principal:Hanna Savransky Epstein, ex. 4142

Parent Program Coordinator:Ellen Sandoval, ex. 4251

Admissions:David Zimmer, ex. 4144

Manville Matters is published by the Manville School Family Support Program and edited by Ellen Sandoval and DavidZimmer

We welcome your contributions which make this a truly cooperative project between the Manville staff and familymembers.-Please call us with your comments and contributions:617 232-8390 ex. 4251.

The Manville School is a program of Judge Baker Children’s Center, established 1917.

Dear Manville Parents,

I hope that your family had an enjoyable summer, as we look forward to agreat school year at Manville.

In our continued work to improve Manville’s overall school program, we arerolling out two new initiatives this year. The first is the selection of the Sec-ond Step curriculum to serve as the core of our Social Emotional Learning(SEL) efforts. The curriculum will be added to the Community Buildingmeetings that take place daily in each classroom. Members of our clinicaland BCBA staff join the classroom teams to work on the development of so-cial intelligence and social skills, with the goal of enhancing a student’s aca-demic, social and behavioral success.

The second initiative is the schoolwide implementation of PBIS (Positive Be-havioral Interventions and Supports), which is a framework to enhance theconsistancy of positive supports provided to all students. We know that pos-itive supports for academic, behavioral and social learning are what get thebest results for our students. PBIS gives us a structured framework to bothmore consistently provide those supports and to measure the results. I inviteyou to join us for our first Focus Group of the year on September 25th from6-7:30 pm for a deeper explanation of PBIS.

I hope to see all of you on Back-to-School Night on Wednesday October2nd.

Best wishes,

Jim

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ECTOR’S

C O R N E R

Manville Teacher serves on DESE Teacher Advisory Cabinet The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education(DESE) has established a Teacher Advisory Cabinet (TAC) to help refine cur-rent policies and inform the development of new policies and resources at thestate level. Manville Math specialist and veteran educator Cathy Wetherbee iscurrently serving her second term on the Teacher Advisory Cabinet. TheTeacher and Principal Advisory Cabinets have been informing DESE’s worksince 2012. DESE seeks input from a diverse group of teachers and principalsrepresenting urban, suburban, and rural districts that reflect the demographicsof Massachusetts’ students. The Cabinet has focused on teacher preparationprograms, teacher recruitment and retention, teacher evaluation, teacher diver-sity, curriculum and issues related to teaching and learning. Cathy said that theManville School has some of the most dedicated and hardworking educatorsaround and that teachers are constantly looking for ways to improve teachingand learning and to provide the best education for its students.

Manville School Community Newsletter Page 3

What’s Happening at Manville

Record Breaking Number of Manville Students Visit Biogen

Last year many Manville families were able to connect while bowling,eating pizza and watching a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Stay tunedfor information about family events this year!

Ben, Connor, Daniel, Danny, Dylan, Gunnar, Henry, Michael, Montana, Nick, Stephen andTheresa honed in their 21st century biotechnology skills at the Biogen Community Lab in Cam-bridge where they investigated, “The Mystery of the Crooked Cell”. Our student researchersperformed gel electrophoresis to diagnose their patient’s DNA, while in the process discoveringtheir patient’s genotypes for sickle cell anemia. They then used Claim-Evidence-Reasoning skillsto explain their findings. Since 2002 the Cambridge Community Lab has reached out to over25,000 students around Boston with free STEM programming. Many thanks to Ms. Buckley, Ms.Dennehy, Mr. Sheridan, Ms. Sheridan, and Ms. K-V for helping support this extraordinary fieldexperience. For interested students, Biogen offers a one-week summer “Adventures in Biotech”program for rising 10th, 11th & 12th graders. See communitylab@biogen.com for more info.This application process opens up in February of every year.

Former students reconnect at our annual Alumni night last May!

Upcoming Events at ManvilleOur Behavioral Approach at Manville (PBIS): Our first focus group will be Wednesday September 25th from 6 – 7:30 pm. Come join MilieuDirector Paul Carney and Assistant Milieu Director Derek Sosnowski as they talk about our approach to behavior at Manville. This will cover theimplementation of our new Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) initiative. Dinner and childcare provided (for kids 4+); RSVP toesandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu.

Back-to-School Night:Wednesday October 2nd will be our annual Back-to-School Night. Families are invited to visit their children’s classroomstarting at 6 pm where you will see school work and have a chance to chat with our staff. At 6:30pm, dinner will be served in the gymnasium. Wehope you can join us!

Picture Day: Our annual picture day is Friday October 25th (no scheduled retake day). Please contact Ellen Sandoval 617-278-4251 or esandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu with any questions!

Energy Quest visits Manville!General Science students in grades 6-8 took part in an exciting 40 minute interactive, technology-based energy conservation program funded byEversource. Students took of the roles of energy auditors to investigate a 40-foot inflatable house that utilized electricity, water or gas. Theyscanned the rooms with tablets and tested their knowledge on energy conservation, as well as learning new ways to conserve at home. All studentsreceived a goodie bag and the top 3 scorers earned an Amazon gift card, too! For more information go to http://www.eversourceinschool.com/energy-quest

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Wednesday Evenings - Manville Family ProgramWednesday evenings at Manville continue to be a great time for parents to meet, share and learn from each other. It is also a wonderful opportunity forManville students and their sibs to enjoy recreational activities together.

New Parentswill meet on September 11th from 6 – 7:30pm for a special orientation and welcoming group designed for families whose child started inManville in late spring, summer or fall. Manville administrators will be giving an overview of the different aspects of the Manville School. There will betime for parents to ask questions and become acquainted with the many services Manville has to offer. Childcare for Manville students and siblings (4+)will be provided as well as a light supper. Veteran parents are also welcome to attend and share their wisdom and perspective with our new families.

Parent Group will resume on September 18th. These groups meet from 6:00 – 7:30 pm with childcare and dinner provided. Parent Group is a safespace for Manville caregivers to connect with each other and provide and receive support for issues and challenges related to parenting. It is an open groupand participants can attend whenever they are available. Discussion topics are generated by parents and vary week to week; we will highlight a topic for eachweek in the Manville Weekly Bulletin which is emailed home on Fridays.

Parent Focus Groups occur about once a month and are more educational in nature. The topics for focus groups come from parents and we welcomeyour suggestions. Stay tuned for more information regarding our focus groups for the 2018 – 2019 school year.

Sibling Group: We will once again be offering a Sibling group at Manville. The first group will take place on Saturday October 5th from 10am – 12 pm.Once we get a sense of who is interested in the group then we will figure out how frequently the group will meet. The group is a place for neuro-typicalkids to have a shared experience with other kids who have siblings with special needs. The group is generally activity based and will often involve creatingsomething in the art room or maybe playing a game in the gym. During our activities conversations range from talking about interests and life events to dis-cussing struggles with siblings. Those who have attend our groups have said they appreciated knowing that they aren’t alone and that other kids are goingthrough some of the same types of things with their siblings. We welcome any new siblings at Manville as well as those who have participated in the past.Parents should contact Jia Kempegowda jkempegowda@jbcc.harvard.edu or Ellen Sandoval at esandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu if interested in enrolling theirchild.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Daniel Hurley

I attended Manville back in 2012 and honestly wouldn't be where I am today, if I didn't. Despite the rough startI had, my three years at Manville are in a special place of my heart. Between the teachers, counselors, my class-mates, the laughs, and the sheer love for flag football, I wouldn't trade my experience for the world. I still re-member in biology when we had the most heated discussion on whether you could "milk a coconut" or not, itwas awesome as it involved the entire class! But as times advanced so have I. Currently, I am attending universityin Ohio, as an aviation major, learning the do’s and don'ts of the sky. For all you fellow and future meerkats backon the ground, don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Don’t let nerves or anxiety get the better ofyou. The world can’t advance if everyone is afraid of change. And as H. Jackson Brown, Jr once said, "The bestpreparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."

New InitiativesOur Behavioral Approach: Beginning in the Fall, Manville School willbegin its initial implementation of Positive Behavior Interventions and Sup-ports (PBIS). Over the course of the 2019-20 school year, Manville Schoolwill focus on the successful implementation of Tier 1 supports with a highdegree of fidelity. Some of the new practices included are: school-wide ex-pectations, lesson plans to facilitate the direct instruction of behavioral ex-pectations, a universal token economy, a level system, and social-emotionallearning. To assist in the implementation of these new practices, ManvilleSchool will also implement systems to support staff such as: a renewedfocus on data-based decision making, regular coaching and professional de-velopment, the training of PBIS Coaches, and a behavior managementtraining series. For more details and information please come to our FocusGroup on “Manville’s Approach to Behavior” on September 25th from6 – 7:30 pm.

Manville implementing Social Emotional Learning curriculum this year:After participating in the Collaborative for Academic and Social EmotionalLearning’s (CASEL) two-year multistate initiative, Massachusetts’ Depart-ment of Elementary and Secondary Education has embarked on an effortto revamp their health curriculum to include more in the way of socialemotional development for students. CASEL research has demonstratedtime and again that students who are exposed to social emotional learningcurricula perform better on a number of metrics: behaviorally, academically,socially, and emotionally, in both the near and long terms. As a therapeuticschool, Manville School has elected to get ahead of the curve by selectingSecond Step, an evidence-based social emotional learning (SEL) curricu-lum, to incorporate into its school day. The five domains targeted for devel-opment through SEL are: self-awareness, self-management, socialawareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. In our re-view of curricula, Second Step provided the most accessible and culturallyinclusive visual aids as part of their materials.

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Parent Group6:00-7:30

Focus Group6:00-7:30

FIRST DAY!Early Release12:30 Dismissal

Back-to-SchoolNight6:00-7:30

NO SCHOOL Veterans Day

Thanksgiving BreakNO SCHOOL!

Early Release12:30 Dismissal

New Parent Orientation6:00-7:30

Focus Group6:00-7:30

Focus Group6:00-7:30

NO SCHOOL Columbus Day

Parent Group& Sibling Group

10:00-12:00

Parent Group6:00-7:30

Early Release12:30 Dismissal

Parent Group6:00-7:30

PICTURE DAY!

Parent Group6:00-7:30

Parent Group6:00-7:30

Manville SchoolJudge Baker Children’s Center

53 Parker Hill AvenueBoston, MA 02120

Looking for addit ional information? Vis i t us onl ine at www.jbcc.harvard.edu/Manvi l le

Parent Advisory Council (PAC) - Parents Needed!Manville School depends on parental involvement to ensure student success. The Manville PAC meets monthly with Jim Prince, the ManvilleSchool Director and Hanna Savransky, the Principal. We discuss general school policies, parental concerns, ways to enrich the school program forstudents and parents and other school related issues. We also sponsor various fundraising activities. The PAC is a wonderful way to make an im-pact on the school both with fundraising and adding fresh ideas to embellish our program. We thank PAC for starting our Book Fair, School Pic-tures, Room Parents, Science/Curriculum Fairs and entertainment for the kids on Back to School Night.

Please contact Ellen Sandoval at esandoval@jbcc.harvard.edu if you have any questions about PAC or are interested in joining. Members do nothave to attend every meeting and can come when their schedule allows. Our monthly meeting schedule will be coming out soon via email.