Higashi Highlights
Fall 2018
Life is full of beautiful surprises, if we keep looking up we might see one ourselves. www.bostonhigashi.org
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Helping children with autism exceed expectations since 1987
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(781) 961-0800
Thanksgiving For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything that goodness sends. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Fall blessed our trees with vibrant colors and beauty that defines autumn in New England. The 2018-2019 school year has been launched well and our theme, “Be Brave” is in full evidence. Higashi is indeed the home and the school for the brave! Our Higashi friends enable us all to be braver than we think we can ever be on any given day.
The Principal’s Perspective
Terry Brady, one of our very talented Higashi dads performed a lead role in the musical, “Man of La Mancha.” This show with its iconic song resonates and inspires me. It captures the essence and the spirit of Higashi. Its main character, Don Quixote, is a dreamer who exudes courage and bravery in the most challenging of circumstances while making others connect and collaborate together. He takes these new friends with him on a storied journey beyond themselves and their current plight. As he weaves his magical, imaginary tale, he gives everyone a special part to play. Each person has a role that is vital to the plot. The props are minimal and it is the strength and interactions among the characters that bring the concepts of bravery, courage, resilience, loyalty, endurance, and the power of friendship to life. This aptly describes our life at Higashi where we nurture and cultivate social connection and friendship while educating the whole child. We disagree with those who think that persons with autism are not social, nor are they interested in having friends. We believe they just need to be taught how. We espouse the words from that signature song from Man of La Mancha. We “dream the impossible dream” together. Every day we “run where the brave dare not go.” We try “when our arms and hearts are too weary” because we believe we can “reach the unreachable” and that the world at large will be better for the efforts and actions we take on behalf of our students with autism. We “fight for the rights” and dignity of our students and families “without question or pause”. We willingly go above and beyond the ordinary to meet the needs of every student. Like Don Quixote, we believe in and treasure our friends, both old and new. We are braver souls because of them. In turn, we make others that we encounter brave as we strive to follow our quest - to create a full life for each and every child entrusted to our care to reach that unreachable star. Especially at this time of Thanksgiving we are grateful to one and all that join us in this sacred quest. On behalf of the staff I extend my heartfelt wishes to one and all for a harvest of abundant blessings, grace and goodness. Deborah Donovan Principal
HIGHLIGHTS Higashi School Store Handmade items by our students Open weekdays during school hours A great place to shop for those holiday gifts!
PG 4
CELEBRATING FRIENDSHIPS
PG 6-7
LIVING ROOM RENOVATIONS
PG 9
COSTUME PARTIES
GALA
Elementary division was out and about in October. We enjoyed playing in the fall leaves, walking in the brisk autumn air, and we even braved our way to CN Smith Farm in Bridgewater. While there we hoped onto the wagon for a ride to the pumpkin patch where we selected the best pumpkins. Students were able to bring pumpkins back for our fall themed lessons!
A hearty greetings from everyone in the Middle School Division! This semester we have been hard at work (and play, woo Halloween!) in our academic lessons, bravely pushing forward with our reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic! This year we are really working together as team to reach everyone’s objectives, and the teachers have been using a variety of co-teaching strategies to maintain learning for one and all. It has brought engagements and smiles and we look to continue the trend throughout the school year! With Old Man Winter right around the corner, we are also starting to practice for our Winter Music Festival performance. Be there or be square (or both!)!
Class Notes
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EP academic lessons are focusing on charitable giving. We’re learning how giving makes a difference in our lives and for others. Our students are going into the community daily to volunteer at numerous job sites. We cap it off by soliciting donations for school supplies to donate to Schools on Wheels, that helps kids in need. Our generous spirits help us be our best selves!
The students of Young High School have developed strong bonds with their teachers, classmates and division peers. Everyone enjoyed Sports Day and showing their family and friends the new skills that they have learned since September. Communication classes had students practicing their choice making by choosing fruits they wanted to put into the smoothie that they were making. They especially enjoyed tasting the smoothie after it was made. Need a recipe?
The Older High School division students are enjoying the new school year. This Fall they have done a variety of exciting activities and lessons. The fan favorite this semester seems to be our Pumpkin units. The students learned about how they grow, they dissected them while creating Jacko’-lanterns for Halloween, and in communication classes they followed visual recipes to bake the pumpkin seeds! The Fall weather is providing great options for a variety of lessons and job sites as we watch the leaves change and then tend to them during landscaping. Let's hope the winter weather also brings such enriching learning opportunities!
Gala - Celebrating Friendships
The 4th Annual Boston Higashi Gala brought out our biggest crowd ever on a rain soaked and windy evening at Granite Links Golf Club in Quincy. Once inside, the audience of well over 300 was in a festive and generous mood, helping us to raise almost $270,000 to support our school. Once again, the Jazz Band was fabulous and newscaster David Wade helped to navigate through a busy program with his typical charm, grace and humor.
Congratulations to our two honorees, Peter Dennis of Liberty Bay Credit Union who received our Community Partner Award and Don Lonergan of DRL Architects who was given our Community Service Award.
Many thanks to all who attended and all who contributed in making this such a momentous occasion. Special events like this help to enhance the lives of our students.
Salute to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien On September 14, 2017 we walked into the Teamsters Local 25 Headquarters in Charlestown for a meeting with Teamsters President Sean O'Brien. Little did we know, since that initial meeting over a year ago, that Mr. O'Brien would come to jog
with our students, drive the Teamsters 18 wheel tractor trailer from Chelmsford to our campus so all our students could climb inside the rig and feel larger than life sitting in its driver's seat, then honor the school with the Essential Puzzle Piece Award at the
Teamsters Local Gala for Autism in April, 2018. If that weren't enough, they have gone on to donate and pledge over $165,000 in total to support the Boston Higashi School.
Thank you Sean O'Brien for all you do to support kids and families affected by autism. You are a true ambassador and a gift to us all!
Mr. Daniel Tani former astronaut Director of US-Japanese Foundation
The US-Japan Foundation announced a grant award to support our Japanese high school internship program in the fall of 2019. Two students from the Musashino Higashi school in Tokyo will have the opportunity to come to Boston Higashi and spend one month with us. Their travel and stay will be fully sponsored. We are very grateful for Mr. Daniel Tani, Director of the Foundation Grants who visited and advocated for our school.
Our Family
Medical & Clinical specialists from the SPARK program of Japan Thank you retired Iron Workers, Jim Lawler & friends
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Ota-ku City Councils, Japan
At Higashi we are a family. That family not only includes our students, parents, and staff but also extends to our many partners from around the world. As with all family members, we welcome our guests with open arms into our home. Any and all are always welcome to visit us!
Universal Language of Music
We welcomed the Berklee Jazz Band Visitors back for another year to play for our students. The excitement could not be contained! We had kids jumping out of their seats to dance to the music! They were really feeling the jazz music flow through them. We couldn’t
have been happier in that moment to have our old friends return for such a fun break from the action at Higashi! We’re excited to share our good vibes with you, which is easy for us with all these contagious smiles our students bring to events like these!
Living Room Renovation Update The massive living room renovation project in the dormitory continues. Three months into the project, the Young Adults and High School B living rooms have been completed and contractors are currently working in Junior High School. Next on the list will be High School A followed by Girls and finishing up with Middle School. It is projected that the entire project will not be completed before May, 2019.
The project has required extensive planning, manpower and financial resources. Entire rooms have been gutted, redesigned with custom cabinetry, wainscoting and custom designed furniture, with each living room having it’s own well thought out color palette contributing to the unique personality of the unit.
We need your help!
If you would like to contribute to the Living Room Renovation Project, please contact: Paul Fanning 781-961-0800 x146 paul.fanning@bostonhigashi.org
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Once the space finished in Young Adults, our boys had the opportunity to add their own tastes to the room. They took a trip to IKEA to check out decor that they might like to be placed into their new living space.
learning moments that come with the new renovations being done.
With this new room available, our boys are learning how to take ownership and to protect their belongings. We’re looking forward to these new
tial living rooms. We are pleased to have reached 50% of our goal and we are appealing to all interested people to help us reach 100%!
We wish to thank everyone who generously contributed toward the new furniture for our remodeled residen-
Halfway There!
The rain was coming down, we were forced to be inside and change our plans, but did that stop us at from having Sports Day? Absolutely not! At Higashi we brave whatever is thrown at us and push through to make the best of any situation! This year’s Sports Day was held in the gym but the energy could be felt everywhere. Our students put on their game faces and competed with their parents help to be the best possible versions of themselves. We practiced daily for this event and it really paid off. We had so much fun getting families involved in the activities that our students love to do. Thanks to all for coming out and making Sports Day another great success here at Higashi!
SPORTS DAY Though we were not able to host our annual EP golf tournament, we couldn’t be stopped from having a good time here at Higashi! Our EP staff rallied to put together a competition of various games in the classrooms and facilities here at the school. Then the weather tried to ruin the day for EP students but they even that couldn’t hold them back from having a good time! EP students stepped it up to show us that they could make a good time out of any situation! Each team competed in activities like mini golf, frisbee golf, football throwing, penalty kicks, and a relay race! The staff put together an amazing day of games for our superstars as they all tried their best to win the trophy!
Higashi was the place to be on the evening of Wednesday October 24th, 2018. The Annual Costume Parties were in full swing! Everyone was dressed in costumes that represented fiction, fantasy, food, and fun! Parents, alumni and staff joined our students in this spirited seasonal celebration. The mastermind behind these events was Hideyuki, a residential Program Director who specializes in imagination, creativity and planning. The decorations were all masterpieces and really enhanced the festivities. With a couple breaks for treats and the announcements of costume prize winners, made for quite a memorable night.
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PARTY TIME The day program hosted their seasonal hour of fun for our Elementary and Middle School students on Friday, October 26th, 2018. The younger divisions marched into the gym all clad in costumes and paraded around to sounds of cheers from their peers, staff and visitors. They sang and danced to both silly and spooky music to get them ready to do a walk though the Higashi Haunted Hallway! They ended the festivities by trick-or-treating through the older divisions classrooms. Everyone enjoyed encouraging their peers, creating a great moment of reciprocal language and social skills.
In the early months of the new school year, we invited families to join us for a Parents Night, one to meet day side staff and another to meet residential staff. Families had the opportunity to come in and see what we do here at Higashi.
We showed off our classrooms, bedrooms, facilities and talked about our plans going forward. Parents were able to have intimate meetings with their child’s teachers where they could have their individual questions answered.
Parent Nights
On the day side, families were invited to participate in the type of games and activities that their child does day to day. With our residential staff, parents learned more about the
ongoing renovation plans. Both were great nights where we welcome our families into our Higashi home.
Dear Higashi Parents and Families, On behalf of the Parent Association Executive Board, welcome to another school year and a new set of adventures! The theme for this year is Be Brave - and it always amazes me how our kids bravely face the adventure, and quickly settle into the new routine.
We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Open Parent Association meeting on Saturday, December 1st. This will be a great opportunity to get out and meet some fellow Higashi parents and get involved with the Parent Association.
The Parent Association is off to a quick start, with some adventures of our own! The bagged lunches we sold at Sports Day were a big hit that we hope to repeat again. We provided a pizza dinner to staff who stayed for the school and residential Parents Nights - a small thank you to the dedication they put in.
Jill Gichuhi Parent Association President Mom of Josephat
Coming up in the winter term - we will be selling hats, gloves and other gear to keep you warm at Winter Music Festival. We are also planning for the return of the holiday staff raffle. Stay tuned for more information about both of these happenings!
We had students from Boston Higashi share a gallery space in Massasoit Community College with students from Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children for the Abled 11 Art Show. Students from both schools worked hard on both individual and group pieces to be added to the walls in the gallery space. The art alone was worth the visit to the gallery but on the day of the reception students from both schools had the opportunity to meet each other and that was truly something special. There was nothing but joy in the air as students ran right over to meet
and greet, taking cues right from their communication lessons. Conversations were had entirely on assisted devices paired with smiles, laughs, and great high fives! After mingling together and sharing stories, we were graced by the artists themselves speaking about their art to the large group in attendance. We had students get up and explain the thought process that went into their creations. Thank you to the team over at Pappas and to our BHS staff that put this together. A truly incredible experience! We are very proud of our BHS students and family!
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Art & Theater
There is always something happening at Higashi! We were lucky enough to have Theater CALL from Japan come to our school and perform "Three Lucky Charms". Theater CALL is a group from Japan that puts on bilingual plays with live musical accompaniment. The play we were so fortunate to see was presented as 2D Puppet Theater with a little surprise! The story follows a young boy that gets lost in the mountains, thinking he is saved by an old woman he stays the night, only to find out that she is a witch hungry for children!
Our students absolutely loved the presentation! The 2D puppets turned into live actors that ran through the crowds interacting with the viewers. Some of our students even tried saving the young boy by hiding him in our viewing chairs! In the end our spirits at Higashi never faltered and with our help the boy was saved from the mountain witch! We’d like to thank Jun Takashi, The Japan Society of Boston, The Tokyo Club, & Japan Airlines for working with us to make this wonderful event happen at our school!
BOSTON HIGASHI SCHOOL 800 North Main Street Randolph, MA 02368 (781) 961-0800 www.bostonhigashi.org
UPCOMING EVENTS DEC 12 DEC 20 DEC 21 to JAN 2
WINTER DANCE / PARTY (R) Girls/MS Party 6:00-7:30 (D/R) HS/EP Dance 6:30-7:30
WINTER MUSIC FESTIVAL 10am - 12pm Higashi Gym
WINTER BREAK Vacation Program Dec 26 - 29
DEC 1 ǀ Sibling Day (siblings only) 9:30am - 12pm Parents Assoc. Meeting 10am - 12pm DEC 14 ǀ Open House / Guided Tour 9:30am - 12pm JAN 2 ǀ 304 Program Reopens 1pm JAN 3 ǀ 217 Program Reopens - Parent Collaboration Meeting Breakfast 8:30am - 9:45am Opening Ceremony 10am Meeting 10:30am - 12pm
JAN 30 ǀ Parents Training 6:30pm - 8pm
For latest news and events visit our website at www.bostonhigashi.org
