We're back! Did you miss us?
Thursday June 6th is a busy day at Winn Brook! Don't miss these two PTA events.
Winn Brook PTA
Opening Remarks
Ice Cream Social
First, come to the Ice Cream Social 5:30pm-7pm on the blacktop behind the school and enjoy a sundae made with Moozy's ice cream. The PTA has made this even FREE to all Winn Brook students and their families. Look for your favorite teachers and staff who will be our special guest scoopers! Non-dairy/sorbet options will be available.
(Rain date Friday 6/7 same time and place!)
Final PTA Meeting
Then join us for our final PTA Meeting of the year on Zoom from 7:30pm-8:30pm.
The Agenda includes electing new Executive Committee positions, presenting our Treasurer Report, and going over the highlights of the year as well as some of our initiatives for next year. Please log-in so we have a quorum for voting including approving Draft Meeting Minutes from April 4, 2024.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84561121205?pwd=Af79bSRNuvjEI2U922xGWZWEQT6Xpj.1
Meeting ID: 845 6112 1205
Passcode: 964922
New and Noteworthy
Out with the Old (Website), In with the New
On May 28th the Belmont Public School's website got a brand new look, and a fancy new mobile App to go with it. While much of the school's and PTA's information migrated over to the new Winn Brook School website, the PTA's old "posts" did not. Sadly this included all of this year's Weekly Winnie Newsletters which we had hoped would remain for our community's reference. You may have noticed the listserv emails for each Weekly Winnie now lead to broken links. While we work with IT to obtain our old newsletters and hopefully archive them on the new site, please contact us directly if you have a question, can't find a signup link, etc. We are here for you during the transition. Please also be patient with us as the PTA learns a completely new system for creating newsletters, adding events to our calendar, and sending out reminders and news. We have attended multiple trainings and are eager to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of the new platform. Thank you!
Calendar of Events
June
June 6 - "Thanks for an Incredible Year!" Staff Treat Day
June 6 - Spring Ice Cream Social, 5:30-7pm on the blacktop (rain date 6/7)
June 6 - Final PTA Meeting, on Zoom 7:30pm
June 7 - Spring Concert and Open House at Winn Brook (details from teachers)
June 13 - 4th Grade End of Year Party, in the gym
June 14 - Clap Out for 3rd/4th Grade Graduates (details to come), dismissal at 11:40am
June 17 - Half Day, dismissal at 11:40am
June 18 - Last Day of School, dismissal 11:40am
Celebrating What We Do Best
3rd Grade Enrichment
As part of their study of the American Revolution, last week the Winn Brook 3rd graders learned what really happened during Paul Revere’s midnight ride. They assumed the roles of Paul and Rachel Revere, their children, British soldiers, rowers, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and others, and reenacted Revere’s actions on April 18th, 1775 as he worked to warn the Patriots that the British Regulars were set to march to Lexington to arrest Adams and Hancock and to Concord to seize the Patriots' stores of arms. Thank you to our 3rd Grade Enrichment Coordinators, Lissa Bollettino and Christine Tsau for bringing the Paul Revere's Midnight Ride Storytelling Program to Winn Brook on May 28th and 31st!
3rd Grade Field Day
The Third Grade Committee proudly hosted Field Day for their grade on Monday June 3rd. There were games, pizza, slush, prizes, and a lot of happy, sweaty 3rd Graders at the end of the day. Special thanks to our enthusiastic Co-Chairs Jen Demetropoulos and Mari Deranian and all their volunteers: Lisa Zaval, Beth McGuire, Leah Sabo, Erin Antonellis, Jenica Phelps, Kim Jason, Faith Stevison, Jim Stevison, Sophie Boimare, Sutin Chen, Li-Wei Chen, Chihiro Nishi, Michelle Machacek, and Fitzie Cowing.
Big thanks to Mr. Franey, our Winn Brook PE teacher, for making this such a great event for the kids year after year and collaborating with the PTA.
3rd Grade Yearbook
Our first ever 3rd Grade yearbooks were presented to the class and their teachers at Field Day, a gift from the PTA. The students were excited to start signing each other's yearbooks and flipping through the pages to see all memories from their Kindergarten year until the present. An enormous thank you to Helen Liu and Li-Wei Chen for being such organized, motivated, and creative Co-Chairs. Additional thanks to their great committee volunteers (Chihiro Nishi, Michelle Machacek, and Seong Kim) for helping lovingly craft, proofread, and publish such a wonderful piece of memorabilia.
The 3rd Grade Yearbook Committee would also like to thank: the 3rd Grade teachers for helping the students fill out their surveys for the All About Me section; Fitzie Cowing and Erika Roberts for help with the dedication pages; and all the many parents and teachers for sending us their photographs that helped them capture all these precious memories of our kids' years at Winn Brook!
4th Grade Field Day
The 4th Grade participated in the highly anticipated Field Day yesterday on Tuesday June 4th. The sun was shining and so were all of our student athletes. The 4th Grade raced in potato sacks, played tug-of-war, and worked together to compete in numerous other field games. They ate pizza, enjoyed slush, and were thrilled to begin looking through their Winn Brook yearbooks! Thank you to Mr. Franey for running the show, and to our parent volunteers for organizing food and drinks for the kids. A special shoutout to Martha Delaney for Chairing the 4th Grade Field Day Committee (again!) and making it a success (again!).
4th Grade Yearbook
Yearbooks were also delivered on Tuesday June 4th at Field Day to all the 4th Grade students. It is filled with photos and memories from their class' time at Winn Brook - Kindergarten through their final year. This is the product of many hours of work and we can't thank our 4th Grade Committee enough for the time and care that went into them.
A massive thank you goes to Co-Chairs Lydia Kogler and Georgina Lamont for producing such a gorgeous keepsake - and a shoutout to their hardworking committee members: Kayla Wiggin, Laura French, Alfica Sehgal, María José Gómez (Cote), Katy Yang, Sarah Boyle, Lisa McEachern, Trisha Kahn, Amanda Rettig, and Rebecca Cadigan.
The PTA provides these free to all our graduating 4th Graders as well as their teachers. See a copy we donated to our Winn Brook Library!
3rd Grade End-of-Year Movie Night
On Friday May 31st our 3rd Graders had their big end-of-year movie night bash outside on the fields of Winn Brook. Attendance was great from all four classrooms and the kids loved the handmade popcorn and cotton candy. With glowsticks at the ready and sporting glow-in-the-dark temporary tattoos , our 3rd Graders frolicked until the sun went down and the show could start. As students and families looked on, the kids were treated to a joyous slideshow* set to music covering all their time at Winn Brook from Kindergarten through 3rd Grade. Then the main event began and we showed "Elemental" on a large inflatable screen with help from Belmont Media Center.
Many thanks to Fitzie Cowing as Chair for organizing the event and for our many volunteers who set up the balloon displays, worked the concessions, and chaperoned that evening: Erin Antonellis, Sutin Chen, Kate Dilawari, Paul Cowing, Sophie Boimare, Jenica Phelps, Kai-Ting Shade, Lissa Bollettino, Mandira Katuwal, Faith Stevison, Wei Duan, Laurie Schenkel, , Li-Wei Chen, Helen Liu, Beth McGuire, Hilary Luderer, Lucinda Zuniga, Erika Vogel, Leah Sabo, Emel Yontar, Michelle Machacek, and Jen Demetropoulos. Thank you to Robin Amiri-Busch for being our creative director and photographer at the kid photo station as well!
*3rd Grade Families - please reach out to your Room Parents for a copy of the slideshow!
Book Fair
The Scholastic Book Fair was a great success! Thank you to everyone who shopped, volunteered, and purchased books of the Teacher Wishlists.
Our Co-Chairs (aka Book Fairies) were Fitzie Cowing, Deepa Shakya, and Martha Pickett - and they did a terrific job coordinating with Scholastic, providing staff with a preview, collecting wish lists, setting up, and keeping things running smoothly in the gym over 4 days. Thank you our many committee volunteers for all your help all week long! Libby Weintraub, Polina Gasparian, Natalie Sierra, Amritha Ramakrishnan, Carice Reddien, Trisha Kahn, Sydney Page, Sarah Boyle, Erin Antonellis, Michal Feldman, Kim Jason, Danielle Harrell, Katie Hawko, Carrie Cibulskis, Robin Amiri Busch, Zainab Jimada, Michelle Hanley, Brittany Hatfield, Jesse Masterman, Portia Thompson, Lauren O'Hanlon, and the gentlemen in costume featured in the photo below ("Smart Cookie," etc.) - Will Jason, Prashant Jeloka, and Dave Kahn.
Donation to CUE
As approved by the PTA Executive Committee last year, we have made good on our promise to donate to the new Chenery Upper Elementary (CUE) Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO). The Winn Brook PTA has sent a check for $2,500 to the CUE PTO to help build their programming which will directly support both our outgoing 3rd and 4th Grade students next year.
By way of background, a year ago when the former Chenery Middle School changed to an upper elementary school, three big things happened:
The former Chenery PTO lost two grades worth of volunteers, institutional knowledge, and potential donations when the 7th and 8th Grades moved up to the new Belmont Middle School (BMS);
The former Chenery PTO savings were split in order to send half with the 7th and 8th Grades to create a new BMS PTO; and
An entirely new PTO for the "CUE" had to be created completely from scratch in the new school's name (think paperwork! taxes! legal review!).
The Winn Brook PTA is pleased we are in a position to support our Winn Brook alum as they head to the CUE next year. We are glad to help our colleagues, neighbors, and fellow Belmont Public School system families at the new CUE PTO with this gesture.
Safwan Update
Second Grade teacher Ms. Torniero sent the PTA a wonderful update regarding former Winn Brook student and pediatric cancer survivor, Safwan. He is happy and healthy out in California! Dad reports:
We always think about you [Ms. Torniero] and the Winn Brook family. Whenever someone asks us how we survived during that difficult time, we always mention you, Ms. Carbeck, Ms. Viglirolo and the Winn Brook community as a whole, who stood beside us to fight back. It was the Winn Brook family who never made us feel alone during that time and always cheered Safwan on to move forward. We are forever in debt to the Winn Brook family, and there is always a special place in our hearts for Winn Brook."
Ms. Torniero kindly added, "the WB PTA was so supportive of all of our initiatives to support Safwan and his family, so I wanted to pass this message and photo along." We are thrilled he is staying "Safwan Strong"!
Safwan with younger sister
Around Belmont
Free Tennis at Winn Brook
Join the Belmont High School Boys and Girls team members, the Belmont Recreation Department, and the Friends of Belmont Tennis for a FREE tennis clinic on Sunday, June 9 from 10-11 am at the Winn Brook tennis courts. Come play games with student coaches and build connections across our local tennis community. All elementary-aged children (PK-4) are welcome, and you can sign up here. We look forward to a fun tennis-filled morning!
For more information please contact: friendsofbelmonttennisma@gmail.com
Ways to Get Involved
The PTA runs on an amazing engine of volunteers like you, and we have many opportunities throughout the year for families and guardians to participate and support our students.
The year is almost done but you can volunteer here!
In the Lunchroom - The cafeteria needs up to 3 lunchroom volunteers per lunch period. This is a fun way to visit with the kids in the middle of the school day and help provide much needed (and appreciated) coverage for our staff.
With the Staff Appreciation Committee - Help keep our staff nourished, pampered, and cared for while they support our kids by signing up to bring in Monthly Teacher Treats. A couple slots are still open for tomorrow/June 6th which is the last Teacher Treat Day of the year! Sign-up to drop off goodies.
Reminders
Lost and Found
Please look through the Lost and Found racks at the end of year events, we will be rolling them out to the black top for Ice Cream Social and the lobby for the Spring Concert! Anything left at the end of the year will be donated to charity. Please contact our Lost and Found committee volunteers here with any questions.
Traffic Safety
The students' safety must be our priority. Every day we see dangerous and illegal driving and parking practices at Winn Brook by drivers in our own school community. Our Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Committee reminds us all to please:
Follow the Winn Brook Arrival & Dismissal Plan and associated map
Use the Student Drop-Off Zone on Sherman Street properly
Never obstruct crosswalks, driveways, intersections, disability spaces, or fire hydrants
Never enter or obstruct any Winn Brook parking lot or driveway
Never idle at school, it’s against MA law. Always turn off your vehicle as soon as you are in park.
Never make U-Turns/reverse direction in the school zone
Obey signage, there are one way streets and No Parking/Stopping areas during Arrival and Dismissal times
Never double-park
Never allow your child to enter or exit your vehicle while in the street
With your cooperation and effort we can ensure a much safer and healthier experience for our walkers, bikers, busers, and drivers alike while maintaining critical access for emergency and first responder vehicles at all times.
PTA Communication Channels
Weekly Winnies (the PTA weekly newsletter you are currently reading!) will be emailed to you every Wednesday with updates on events, volunteer opportunities, school happenings and more.
PTA Website & Calendar - The PTA Events Calendar and PTA News & Announcements on our website are current! NEW LINKS to the new website!
Room Parents - each classroom has 1-2 volunteer Room Parents who act as liaisons between the classroom teacher, PTA, and parents/guardians. Look for emails from them! Check here if you aren’t sure who your Room Parents are this year.