Showcase JANUARY 2015
Table of Contents 1 A LIVELY BRA MEETING
2 MORE WORKSHOPS TRANSFORM LITERACY AT CONSERVATORY LAB
3 MIDDLE SCHOOLERS VISIT AMERICA’S ROOTS AND LAUNCH INDEPENDENT READING
5 K2 CREW RECORD SONGS CELEBRATING CREW QUALITIES
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A LETTER FROM DIANA DEAR FRIENDS OF CONSERVATORY LAB, I am pleased and delighted to have returned from my sabbatical and to be back at my desk at school. While it was refreshing to be away, with time to observe new things and reflect on many others, I can truthfully say that I missed seeing the faces of the teachers, the students, their parents as well as understanding and sharing the challenges and joys that they were facing.
well-attended, where the presence and voice of our parents made significant impact. We now await the BRA’s decision.
The challenges notwithstanding, the school continues to strive and thrive. We have a steady stream of visitors who are interested in our curriculum, our music education and our best practices. It is always uplifting to see the high degree of interest and support which you, our The school has progressed significantly in my friends, continue to share with us. Your generosity absence, increasing in staff and resources to better is an essential component of our school’s success serve our students. Improvements have taken place and I am most grateful to you. in schedule and curriculum that will enhance our school climate, culture and performance. I am Warmly, indeed grateful to all who continued to labor with Diana Lam focus and dedication while I was away, to ensure that we grow in excellence and maturity. Externally, we are still facing the challenge of getting approval for our new building at the Bartlett Yard site in Roxbury. I am also very grateful to the parents that have stood shoulder to shoulder with us in this campaign to bring our positive message to the residents of Roxbury and the decision makers at the BRA. We have had the three pre-requisite meeting before the BRA, all of which were very
A LIVELY BRA MEETING TUESDAY, JANUARY 12TH WAS THE DATE FOR THE last of three public meeting which Conservatory Lab presented as part of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) process to gain approval for the new school building in Roxbury. Members of the Conservatory Lab community arrived in droves to the public BRA meeting held at the Shelburne Community Center. Parents, family members, teachers, and faculty showed a tremendous amount of support for our school’s case to build our in Bartlett Yard, Roxbury. After a comprehensive presentation given by Gary Gut, Jonathan Garland and Diana Lam, describing all the educational, cultural and financial benefits which the school will bring to Bartlett yard, many members of our community engaged with members of the Dudley and Roxbury communities in a lively and emotional forum. We are proud that our parents and faculty represented our school so well in their eloquent and thoughtful comments about our school, and we’re grateful that the Shelburne center allowed our meeting to go on for an extra half hour after the center closed! The official answer from the BRA, be it negative or affirmative, should be known by the end of February.
BRING MEANINGFUL MOMENTS TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. 1
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MORE WORKSHOPS TRANSFORM LITERACY AT CONSERVATORY LAB ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, THE TRANSFORMING Literacy Project (TLP) at Conservatory Lab hosted four second grade teachers from the T. J. Kenny School in Dorchester for the latest in a series of one-day professional development workshops. This follows a workshop for first grade teachers, held in Brighton two weeks ago. TLP staff have been sharing some of our school’s successful early literacy practices with other schools in the area, including Conservatory Lab’s snake expedition. Kenny teachers launched this expedition in December, and Thursday’s workshop focused on close reading and the critique and revision process, which will help Kenny students write and illustrate books about their research on the corn snake. The Transforming Literacy Project is made possible by a grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
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7TH AND 8TH GRADERS VISIT AMERICA’S ROOTS... AFTER EXAMINING THE INCIDENTS OF RACIAL violence that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, 7th and 8th graders turned to history to answer the questions: How did we get here? What is the thread that connects the past to the present? In their yearlong expedition, “From Frederick Douglass to Ferguson,” students embark on a historical journey through slavery, reconstruction, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement, seeking connections to help them make sense of their world and to forge a vision for the future. On Tuesday, January 12, students conducted fieldwork at the Museum of African American History, using primary source documents to piece together their understanding of history. They sat in the pews of the African Meeting House and learned how it was built in 1806 by the free African community that thrived in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood in the late 1700s and early 1800s. They recited the words of abolitionist men and women while standing in the same pulpit from which those leaders spoke. School was held on the ground floor of the Meeting House until the community was able to build the Abiel Smith School, the first building in the nation constructed for the sole purpose of housing a black public school, next door in 1835. The old school building now houses museum exhibits including a special exhibit called Freedom Rising: Reading, Writing and Publishing Black Books. The students were awed to be treading the same floor boards as their heroes and were proud to learn more of the history of these educators and abolitionists in their hometown.
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...AND THEIR BROWN BOOK EXHIBIT LAUNCHES INDEPENDENT READING THE FOLLOWING WEEK, STUDENTS EXPLORED THEIR own Brown Book Exhibit at school, featuring books about today’s Black, Latino, and Asian American young people and the issues that shape their lives. From a selection of over 50 books, students choose three titles to read on their own. The enthusiasm was infectious. A video of Jason Reynolds, who has won three Coretta Scott King Awards in the past two years, launched the exhibit. Reynolds is writing about kids today and the issues in their neighborhoods. He urged kids to read these stories and others, and to write their own stories about their lives. Students were hooked. Many had difficulty choosing just 3 books. Some started reading on the spot and couldn’t put their book down. Many chose books about their own cultures. One student commented on her choice: “I was reading the summary and I was instantly hooked. I’ve never read a story about my race [Dominican] and I feel like it would be nice to read about it.” Others chose books, like the graphic novel AmericanBorn Chinese, to learn about other cultures. Other top choices included: Crossover, the 2015 Newbery Award winning novel in verse about twin basketball players; How It Went Down, an award-winning novel about racial violence, X: A Novel, an award-winning novel about Malcom X’s life written by his daughter, and To Dance, a graphic novel about a young Puerto Rican teen with a dream.
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K2 CREW RECORDS SONGS CELEBRATING CREW QUALITIES EARLIER THIS MONTH, THE K2 crew gathered at Roxbury Community College to record a very special performance of their beloved Crew Qualities songs - one each for Cooperation, Perseverance, Responsibility, Empathy, and Reflection. These songs were written by Ms. Hennessy for the Crew Qualities book that the K2 class published, which featured their artwork and pictures of them celebrating the crew qualities with their teachers and the 320 staff. Ms. Hennessy, Ms. Plotkin, and Mr. Cordes have worked hard with the K2 class to memorize the words and movements for each of these five wonderful songs! They performed these songs to great acclaim at our winter concerts, but we wanted to make a special recording of them to go along with the book that the class made. The recording went very well, and we’ve released the videos of the ultra-professional K2 class performing on our YouTube page! Click on any of the pictures in this article to watch them!
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