Important Dates

• Sundown Friday, October 2 - Sundown Sunday, October 4 - Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah 
• Sunday, October 4 - MCS Family Picnic, hosted by the PTO and Norwich Rec
• Friday, October 9 - Teacher In-Service, No School for Students
• Monday, October 12 - Indigenous Peoples Day, School Closed
• Wednesday, October 14 - Bike to School Day, hosted by the PTO
• Friday, October 23 - Family/Teacher Conferences, No School for Students

Message From the Principal

Community Read Day is Almost Here!

Next Wednesday is shaping up to be one of those wonderfully MCS kinds of days!

Our Community Read Day will bring together reading, Community Groups, Farm to School, outdoor learning, student leadership—and quite a bit of pizza. We’ll start the morning in Community Groups, where our sixth graders will take the lead, guiding younger students through a read-aloud and discussion. Groups will then create their own “community pizza,” with each person designing a slice that represents a little bit of who they are.

From there, the day gets even more adventurous. Students in grades 1–6 will walk to the community pizza oven, assemble pizzas, and enjoy lunch together at Barrett Meadow. Slinging pizzas at the pizza oven will be Brie Swenson, Mr. Bagnato, and Mr. Fino. Back at school and in the forest, students will tackle a tower-building challenge inspired by our community read. Kindergarten will have an adventure of its own, including making dessert pizzas with Chef Sue! 

What I especially love is how much of this day has already been made by MCS kids. Ms. Chrissy has been cooking alongside students this week to prepare dough, pesto, tomato sauce, and apple topping. That is a lot of measuring, mixing, chopping, cooking—and learning!

A huge thank you goes to Ms. Van Ells, who has put an incredible amount of thought, creativity, and organization into bringing all of these pieces together; to Ms. Chrissy for making the Farm-to-School magic happen; to Chef Sue for being willing to flex lunch on this day; to Brie Swenson and Norwich Recreation for helping us turn student-made ingredients into lunch at the community pizza oven; and to the many MCS staff and community partners making the day possible. 

Now we just need one more community contribution: send some good weather karma our way!

Have a fantastic weekend,
Shawn

Student Services Update

Using Data to Support Learning

At Marion Cross School, we use many sources of information to help us understand student learning and plan instruction. Every grade-level team meets regularly to look at whole-grade data, student work, and assessment results from tools such as i-Ready and DIBELS. This work helps us identify priority learning standards in literacy and math. DIBELS and i-Ready are designed to help educators identify student strengths, areas for growth, and instructional needs. If you are interested in how your student did in the fall i-Ready diagnostic, please reach out to your student’s teacher.

Teachers also review student work together. By looking closely at classroom work and assessment data, teams can identify students who may benefit from extra support or small-group instruction. When a student is identified for additional intervention, the support is documented in an Education Support Team Plan so that goals, strategies, and progress can be monitored over time. If you have any questions about your student’s EST plan, please contact me.

Lucy Hampton, Sara Reinhimer, and I shared more about this work during today’s Parent Coffee Talk. We appreciate the families who joined us, and I will share additional school data at the October school board meeting.

Greg