New principal, vice principal at Acushnet Elementary southcoasttoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from southcoasttoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Although all students in kindergarten through grade 12 have returned to full in-person learning since May 17, experts say students have lost an immeasurable amount of learning time in the past year-and-a-half due to hybrid and remote learning. While school routines may seem as normal as they can be for now, schools and districts are working hard to make sure students have the option to receive extra instruction during the summer. Summer programming in New Bedford
The New Bedford public school district will be holding summer programming at the elementary, middle and high school levels throughout the month of July. Academic support will be offered in the morning with a health and wellness focus in the afternoon. Remote academic support will be available for extenuating circumstances. Superintendent Thomas Anderson anticipates getting students outside as much as possible for afternoon activities and possibly even academic lessons, moving the classroom to an outdoors setting.
ACUSHNET Shane Martin s trademark smile was as infectious as ever as the community gathered on May 3 at a tree planting ceremony at Ford Middle School.
Martin, 44, of Dartmouth died at home on April 30 after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer. A beloved teacher, father, husband and mentor to many in the Acushnet community, Martin s influence was evident through the countless speeches from colleagues and family. Shane s smile lit up the room and he used it to change the world, Dr. Paula Bailey said.
Martin was a grade 6 math teacher at Ford Middle School for 22 years. What made his experience special was that he too sat in those same classrooms as a student.
Baby chicks began hatching in an incubator in Jill Macolini s second-grade classroom on April 1. If you pet a chick softly with one hand, it ll calm them down, said Acadia Alves. Her favorite was a black-feathered baby chick who she named Chocolate.
The entire second grade, a total of 107 students, recently learned of a frog s life cycle and Macolini spoke of incubating baby chicks in previous years classes. One of her students, Wyatt Anderson, spoke up about his family s experience with incubating chicks. After asking his family if they wouldn t mind donating some eggs and using their incubator, Macolini brought back the project from the past, and now the students have the chance to see the life cycle happen before their eyes.
NEW BEDFORD The days of walking into a classroom, seeing a substitute teacher and expecting a movie day are long gone due to COVID-19.
While teachers are highly valued, even considered by some to be superheroes amid the pandemic, they aren t immune to viruses, and replacements must be in place in case they cannot be present in the classroom. That s where substitute teachers have played a key role this year in keeping students on track with their academic lessons.
Pre-pandemic, each school district had a pool of substitute teachers who were paid on an hourly or daily basis and were called into schools if available. Currently, New Bedford, Fairhaven and Acushnet have employed building-based substitutes whoreport to the school each day and fill in for a teacher if need be. This reduces the chance of spreading the virus bouncing between schools through contact tracing. Dartmouth is currently experiencing a substitute shortage and typically has around 100 substitutes that rotate