SCHOOL NEWS
A NOTE FROM THE PRINCIPAL
WOW! Where did the year go? Clearly, time flies when you are having fun! With our last week of school ahead of us, there are a handful of wonderful opportunities for our NFI students and staff to celebrate and be thankful for.
Reflecting on my 19th year, I am extremely thankful for the journey we've had this school year, with all its ups and downs, challenges, and how our "MISSION" has propelled us forward. Our school year will end with a celebration in Auburn on June 12th – we invite you to join us!
As we prepare for summer school, my wish for our students is that they remember to appreciate those who support them, love them, and help them grow and learn. I wish nothing but success for our students as they aim to become perceptive learners, effective communicators, and global citizens
To our returning students and families, we eagerly anticipate your continued growth. To our departing families and friends, remember that NFI North will always be a place you can call home – "A PLACE TO BELONG."
In Education, Michael Francoeur
M A Y 2 0 2 4
Bridge Crossing Academy | Beacon House | Sidney Riverbend | Stetson Ranch
BRIDGE CROSSING ACADEMY
Staff Spotlight: Tiffany Merrill Celebrates Milestone 20 year
Anniversary
at NFI North/Bridge Crossing Academy
Congratulations to Tiffany Merrill for celebrating 20 years with NFI North. Tiffany joined Bridge Crossing in 2004 after graduating from St. Josephs College with a degree in Elementary Education. Tiffany began as an overnight counselor but was quickly hired to Special Education Teacher when the position became available early in her career. Tiffany’s education, calm, caring approach, and creativity made her a natural fit for the job. She connects with each of her students and make them feel special. She shares her love of learning and provides many hands-on experiential learning activities like gardening and exciting science experiments. She loves the outdoors and will often lead her students on hikes and field trips to local apple farms, parks, swimming holes, and community resources. She incorporates songs and art into her lessons and has helped to prepare her students for performance at the Agency Talent Shows. Tiffany has weathered through the economic downturn in 2008 and Covid 19 and also helped to transition our educational services from the Dodge House School to Bridge Crossing Academy. She has made a difference in the lives in literally 100’s of children. Congratulations Tiffany. We are so glad to have you a part of our team.
Important Dates:
Professional Development Day 5/17
Memorial Day Holiday No School 5/27
NWEA Test Window Ends 5/31
End of the School Year Celebration Hilton Garden, Auburn ME 6/12
NWEA Testing
At Bridge Crossing Academy the students have been working hard on completing their Spring NWEA assessments. The NWEA is a standardized Test completed by all students in the State of Maine. The student’s spent time leading up to the test to familiarize themselves to the testing platform and learning test taking strategies. The students have been giving their best efforts and we are excited to track the student’s progress from the Fall to Spring administration.
GARDENING FUN
Let’s Grow Together- With Spring in full swing and the warmer weather upon us, we are preparing our garden beds to grow some healthy veggies and herbs to add to our daily snacks and meals. The benefits of gardening are many:
-increased exercise
-healthier diet
-stress reduction
-time in nature
-community connections We look forward to the fruits of our labor. How does your garden grow?
SOCIAL SKILLS
Social Skills: How often do you think about social skills? Social skills are the ways people talk, play, and work together that help us get along with each other. Similar to other skills like cooking, doing math, or playing basketball, we get better at our social skills by practicing. It’s hard work with a lot of ups and downs, but here at Bridge Crossing Academy we are up for the challenge!
SCIENCE
Science: The Sugarloaf classroom did a multi-part, cross-curricular assignment this week. Students were asked to choose a bird they wanted, study its habits, draw it in its natural environment, and then type a research paper. They even incorporated AI by using a website to animate a character to read their paper out loud for them.
BEACON HOUSE
School Happenings:
In our ELA classes we are studying figurative language including hyperbole, metaphors, similes. As we read we are exploring setting and character development. bringing that over to writing, we have written some character sketches and descriptive scenes. We just started our next novel, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. With all the seniors we have this year, some have already finished math requirements for graduation, Now we get to learn about something super important: Financial Literacy! We're making grocery lists, budgeting, doing restaurant math and price comparisons. In support of this work, we recently spent a few hours at the new Costco. We looked for the most and least expensive items, compared UPI prices, explored quality differences and labeling details and more. And of course we used our lunch budget to make the best choices for ourselves at the famous Costco lunch counter! Yum! Now we have moved on to learn about buying and maintaining a vehicle: mileage, fuel costs, and trip planning.
Other math students are working individually to study foundational skills including fractions, decimals, equations with variables, scientific notation, squares, powers and roots. there's a lot to cover when we all have a different starting point! Several students are preparing to transition into the next phase of their lives. They are currently engaged in activities such as taking driver's education courses, seeking employment opportunities, participating in job interviews, completing final classes in preparation for applying for the Maine State Diploma, and learning about the safe use of social media and online devices. All of our work is with an eye to transition and adulthood, and we tailor offerings and opportunities to the needs of individual students. We have had a few days this spring for professional development and we were able to get some curriculum development time in, also. Our last day of Q4 is June 7th and we will give students a few days beyond that to pass in any missing or incomplete work before finalizing grades. We will be returning for summer programming on July 1st.
GREENHOUSE FUN
In preparation for summer gardening, students and staff visited a local greenhouse to pick up seedlings for the raised beds. While there they got a tour of the greenhouses and fields, and an up-close look at what it takes to grow food.
Solar Eclipse Fun
We went north several weeks ago to view the total solar eclipse and although the distance and bumper to bumper return traffic seemed endless, everyone remained in good spirits.
Just WOW! As the moment of totality approached, many of us were overwhelmed. It was a powerful reminder of our connections and as a reminder of the universality of wonder. When people are telling stories about “where they were during the eclipse” every one of our kids will have a story and perspective all their own.
We took an afternoon to create art projects for the classroom wall. Inspired by a recent trend on social media, we experimented by dropping paint and using flat edges to create unique designs. This exercise challenged us to follow directions precisely, resulting in a collection of individual works with shared characteristics: just like we are! There was some concern that the artwork might be hung upside down, but ultimately it complemented the recent paint job in our classroom. Impressively, some students even completed two projects.
ART
SIDNEY RIVERBEND
Staff Spotlight: Jessica Piela
Jessica Piela has joined the Sidney Riverbend Education Team as our new Ed. Tech III. Jess has had experience in the public schools as well as the residential setting. She enjoys working with the middle/high school age group and teaching arts and crafts. She has been a great addition to our ed. Team.
Fun Happenings
Upcoming
We are beginning to wrap up the school year as well as finish state testing. This past quarter we have had many out of the classroom opportunities. We had our first ever Sidney Riverbend Volunteer Day. The students worked with the Waterville Community Garden for a day. They prepped cardboard to lay under mulch in the walkways and painted paint sticks and wooden spoons to be used for identifying the rows of plants in the gardens. We also celebrated the solar eclipse, mental health awareness month and teacher appreciation week.
Dates:
May 17th Professional Development Day
May 27th Memorial Day
Holiday
June 11th Last Day of School
June 12th Education Awards Ceremony
July 1 Summer School Begins
School Fun
Modern US History students have completed the textbook and are n history and current events. In World History, the students are learni and how appeasement led to a world war. Throughout the year we from the past and how they tie into current events.
We have been engaged in a tapestry of math lessons ranging from B II. Some of our students have successfully used the Edmentum prog math needs. Our elective math class, Personal Finance, we have cov counting, creating and maintaining a checking account, interest rate budgeting money. The students have utilized the EverFi program fo tax forms.
In music class, we have covered the eras of music (not Taylor Swift have influenced other genres of music. The students have learned b music notation and basic music theory.
Our British and World Literature class completed their reading of "P and they have moved on to a unit on short stories from around the w year. They are working on identifying themes of each story and und differences in author's voices. The English class began reading "Hoo examining which is more important: human development efforts or protection and conservation. Both classes have been working hard l grammar usage and editing for accuracy.
The Physical Science class has begun their unit on electricity. They a to have a better understanding of the properties of electricity and e class is in the final lessons on plants and plant reproduction. To wra they are moving into a unit on animals, adaptations, and survival.
HEALTH AND AR
Our Health class has been studying how th and how we can protect ourselves from get They have been identifying behaviors and r make a person more likely to have health is are moving into a unit on the effects drugs
The Art class is working on a collaborative artwork of Thank You X, an L.A. based stre geometric patterns. Together, they decided for their contributions to the art project. Ov continued to learn about different art move artists throughout history.
STETSON RANCH
Things are happening here at the ranch. Our greenhouse is flourishing and we’re getting ready to build our raised beds in the garden with lumber donated to us by Mountain View Correctional and volunteers from the Newport American legion. The participants are super engaged with the process of the garden and what is growing in it. Welcome Back To School!
First camping trip of the summer- June 18th-20th End of year Celebration on June 12th
Participant Highlight
One of our participants was accepted into the competitive carpentry program at Sanford Technical School!
Upcoming Fun:
Team Building
This month we got the opportunity to participate in team building activities run by Northstar Adventures. Participants and Staff alike were encouraged to embrace challenge by choice and to operate with respect, safety, and commitment. Our instructors, Nancy and Beth, were absolute rockstars that truly emulated the characteristics of our mission statement. It was a great, albeit chilly day, filled with fun, good food, and team building.
