As teachers begin to return this week to quiet buildings, preparing for their spaces for the new school term, students still have a final week of respite before they report to their various schools for class on Wednesday, Aug. 29.
Supt. Dianne Kelly said teachers will have professional development days on Aug. 27 and 28, and then be ready to welcome students back into the fold for a new term on Aug. 29.
That, however, does not apply to the Hill School, which begins its new term today, Aug. 22, due to it being the only Revere Public School to have an extended school year.
Every other school – from kindergarten to 12th grade – will begin next week, and three of the system’s elementary schools will have an extended day to accommodate more elective classes.
Kelly said the Garfield Elementary, Lincoln and Beachmont would have 15 minutes added to their day to be able to lengthen the non-core classes like art, music and physical education (known within the system as encore classes).
“One of the big new changes is we extended the elementary school day at Lincoln, Garfield and Beachmont by 15 minutes,†she said. “That gives us the time to extend the encore period so they have longer music, art and physical education classes. They will now have 45-minute classes instead of 30 minutes. It also will ensure that everyone gets to sit down and have breakfast.â€
Already, for many years, elementary schools like the Whelan, Hill and Paul Revere have benefitted from the Extended Learning Time (ELT) program that lengthened their school days and allowed for more encore class time.
Now, the schools without ELT will also have a similar benefit.
“One of the problems with the 30-minute period was by the time the kids got settled and set up for those classes, it was nearly time to leave,†said Kelly. “Now they will have that extra 15 minutes to ensure they get more time on task, which will help overall teaching and learning at those three schools.â€
For teachers, the extra 15 minutes will allow the entire staff to have daily professional learning groups. There, they will be able to discuss student data, instructional techniques, get advice and plan together for individual students.
“They did not have that before and it’s going to make a big difference for the teachers in these three schools,†she said.
- New e-mail addresses
All staff members of the Revere Public Schools will now have new e-mail addresses starting in October due to regulations from the Federal Communications Commission.
Instead of the old e-mail domain of ‘@revere.mec.edu’, the school will now use ‘@reverek12.org.’
Right now, all of the old e-mail addresses will continue to work, but they will stop forwarding to the new ones in October. So, everyone is advised to update their school contact lists.
