Please join us Wednesday, May 1st from 6 to 8 pm for a Question and Answer session with Finalist Candidates for the new Bigelow Principal. The Question and Answer session will be live with online recording. Questions and feedback will be elicited from the members of the audience and a virtual ranking sheet will be sent to those who attend virtually.  

The timeline for the Principal selection process can be viewed via this link:

In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week (May 6th – 10th), the Bigelow PTO will host three luncheons for our dedicated teachers and staff.  Each lunch will be catered by families from each grade:

• Monday, May 6th: 6th Grade Families Sign-Up
• Wednesday, May 8th: 7th Grade Families Sign-Up
• Friday, May 10th: 8th Grade Families Sign-Up

Please review sign-up links for each grade above, and deliver your donated item to Bigelow the morning of your grade’s luncheon. 

We are also accepting monetary donations to fund luncheon items. If you would prefer to donate money, the steps are:

• 1. Venmo @BigelowPTONewton and add note “[Grade] Teacher Appreciation Lunch”.
• 2. Sign up for an item in the grade-specific SignUpGenius link above. In the comments include “Venmo to Bigelow PTO [$ amount]”.
• 3. A PTO volunteer will cover that item for you the day of the luncheon. 

This will be our final teacher appreciation event of the year.  Let’s give our Bigelow staff a big thanks for all that they do!

If you have any questions, please contact Laura Mandell (lauramandell@yahoo.com) for 6th Grade Luncheon; Ron Farrar (ronfarrar@gmail.com) for 7th Grade Luncheon; and Suriya Sangsub (suriya59@hotmail.com) for 8th Grade Luncheon.

Volunteer for Bigelow SERVES
Sunday, May 5th 10 am to 2 pm

Please join us Sunday, May 5th to help reinvigorate the green areas around Bigelow for NewtonSERVES 2024. The event will run from 10 am to 2 pm and volunteers are welcome to drop in for any amount of time. Every minute of your time helps!

Volunteers are encouraged to preregister HERE.

Please wear work clothes and bring a refillable water bottle. We also request the following items if you have them:

• work/gardening gloves
• yard tools (shovels, rakes, trowels, etc)
• wheelbarrow
• watering can

**Please label any tools you bring so we can be sure they are reunited with you at the end of the event.**

NewtonSERVES is an annual city-wide day of building community through service. NewtonSERVES projects focus on cleaning and improving our parks, school grounds, open space areas, and conservation lands. Please join us, Sunday, May 5th, to build our Bigelow Community while reinvigorating the green areas around the school!

All Bigelow families, friends, and neighbors are welcome!

We are looking for parent volunteers for the Spring Bling Dance on May 17th.

Roles:

• Set up 5:30-7:00 p.m.
• Serving food (pizza and drinks) 6:30 – 8:30 pm.
• Gym and hallway chaperones 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
• Clean up 8:30- 9:30 p.m.

Please email Hai Ly at ms_haily@yahoo.com with your interested role. All volunteers must have an up to date CORI/SORI form filed with Bigelow.

Thank you for your participation to make this a shiny success!

Celebrate Bike Month by walking, biking, rolling, or taking the bus to school!

Bigelow families – what is it that keeps you or your children from walking or biking safely to your destination? Be part of the solution and alert the City of Newton via Newton 311. 

Potholes, sidewalk repairs, traffic signal not working, faded or missing crosswalks, shrubs overtaking the sidewalk? Snap a photo, note the location, and submit to Newton 311: https://www.newtonma.gov/Home/Components/ServiceDirectory/ServiceDirectory/22/1140

You can also call 311 from your landline, or 617-796-1000 from your cell phone to report problems. Make Newton safer for everyone!

Brought to you by the Newton Safe Routes to School Task Force
https://www.facebook.com/NewtonSafeRoutes
newtonsaferoutes@gmail.com

Please join Bigelow FORJ and the Bigelow community on a walking/bus tour of Nubian Square. Learn about the rich history of African American culture in the heart of Roxbury. The tour will be led by a tour guide from “Visit Nubian Square” (https://www.visitnubiansquare.com). We will end the tour with a pizza lunch at the Museum of NCAAA, National Center of Afro-American Artists. 

When: Saturday, May 11, 2024, 10 am – 1 pm
Where: Nubian Square, Washington & Dudley St, Roxbury, MA
Price: Free

Please RSVP here: https://tinyurl.com/Nubian-Square-Tour or to the link in the attached flyer.

Many exciting end-of-year activities are planned for the Bigelow Class of 2024! Please look out for communications from the PTO and Principal Coston and be sure to check out the 8th Grade End-of-Year page on the PTO website: https://bigelowpto.org/bigelow-8th-grade-end-of-year-activities/

Thank you to all who braved the stormy weather last Thursday to attend our Spring PTO meeting in person and to those who joined us virutally via zoom!

Please see highlights of the meeting below and be sure to reach out to the PTO at bigelowbulldog@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or suggestions related to current PTO programs or new ideas.

• Planning for grade-level Field Trips is underway. Details are not yet finalized, but the school will need parent chaperones. More information to come!
• Bigelow 7th-graders recently had a Creative Arts & Science (CAS) event with author George O-Connor in alignment with their study of Greek mythology. Scheduling of Spring 6th grade and 8th grade CAS events is underway.
• The Hollywood Night Dance Party was a big hit! We are looking into holding another dance before the end for the year, tentatively scheduled for May 17th. More details to come!
• Principal Search Update
  • Thank you to the 3 Bigelow Parents nominated for the for Principal Search Advisory Committee: Margaret Silva, Patrick Song, and Susan St. Pierre.
  • NPS Reports that the Principal Search is on schedule and that they have 15 strong candidates. The search is confidential during the 1st round of interviews, so there is no public output yet.
  • May 1st 6-8 pm Q&A with semi-finalists (in person and virtual) will be the first open-to-the-public event. Please join to meet the candidates and provide feedback!
  • Semi-finalists will also visit Bigelow on May 2nd and May 3rd.
• Volunteers! We are actively recruiting volunteers for next year and soliciting feedback on PTO events and programs. Please email bigelowbulldog@gmail.com if you are interested or have ideas for events/programs that you’d like to see or that you could help implement.  Last year’s positions are at https://bigelowpto.org/pto-board-and-committees/ but these positions and events can change. What the PTO does next year is entirely up to us and the priorities of our community!

Please join the Bigelow community TONIGHT to participate in a discussion group presented by Bigelow FORJ. The discussion will explore themes of race, class and the criminal justice system as presented in the Boston Globe article series: Murder Nightmare in Mission Hill: The Untold Story of the Charles & Carol Stuart Shooting and the Boston Globe podcast and HBO Max docuseries: Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning.

• When: April 11th, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
• Where: Bigelow Middle School, Library
• To register, follow this link: REGISTER
• For more information, please email bigelowforj@gmail.com

The discussion will be facilitated by Amy Cook, Ph.D., Bigelow parent and Associate Professor and the Department Chair of Counseling and School Psychology Department, College of Education and Human Development at UMass Boston.

The Bigelow Baseball team is looking for donations of gently used baseball gloves and cleats for this season. If you have any of this equipment at home that you no longer need, please drop it off at the front office. Thanks!