January Parent Newsletter

29 January 2018

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I cannot believe that we are already halfway through the school year! What a pleasure it has been to be working with your teenagers. As time flies, we already see them growing and maturing in so many ways. As the iPD Social-Emotional Learning Team here at Central High School, we just wanted to take a minute to update you on what we’ve accomplished so far, and where we are heading for the remainder of the year.

In the first marking period, we started to roll out the four RULER anchor tools (the classroom Charter, Mood Meter, Meta-moment, and Blueprint) with Ms. Champagne. In Ms. Pecquex’s class students began to get in a routine with meditating and look at ways to relieve stress and manage anger and anxiety. They also have been keeping journals to demonstrate their growth in their reading and writing skills throughout the year. While our classes are heavily focused on social and emotional learning, we also use students’ literacy and analytical skills to help them reflect on their growth and experiences as a young adult.

In the second marking period, students continued using their Social-Emotional Learning and started engaging in a several week long group work assignment called the Changemaker Project. Students observed school-wide problems and came up with solutions for these issues. They worked in their groups to write letters to Mr. Graf and the Board of Education in order to promote self and school-wide advocacy. Finally, the 9th graders created Presentations and the 10th Graders gave speeches.

Although we only see our students once a week, I am proud to report that students this year have covered the following themes and skills: Self-Awareness, Community, Empathy, Self-Reflection, Self-Regulation, Reading Comprehension, Class-wide Discussions, Restorative Practices, Letter Writing, and Poetry. For the remainder of the year, we will be continuing to build off of those skills and cover a new topic of Social Justice and Advocacy.

We would like to open up the possibility of holding a parent workshop on a Monday in March during school hours. While I know this can be difficult with work schedules, I am hoping to hear back with possible dates and times that would be good for you. We would discuss some of the Social-Emotional and Restorative tools that your students have grown familiar with throughout the school year thus far.

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The Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence is also hosting a Parent Leadership Institute called: RULER for Families Parent Institute training. Please mark your calendars! It will be held on Saturday, February 10, 2018 at St. Thomas More in New Haven, CT. This will be a half-day training, 8:30am to 12pm. Dr. Marc Brackett and Dr. Robin Stern will present. Please email Vae Champagne at vchampagne@bridgeportedu.net if you would like to attend. This is an excellent opportunity!

Feel free to email us at any time: Charlotte Pecquex cpecquex@bridgeportedu.net , Vae Champagne vchampagne@bridgeportedu.net , or Peter Rizzi prizzi@bridgeportedu.net . We look forward to hearing from you and continuing to share social and emotional learning resources with your children.

Have a wonderful week!

Charlotte Pecquex, Vae Champagne, and Peter Rizzi