Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all ASRSD families a wonderful Thanksgiving. May you enjoy a nice meal in the comfort of family and friends during this special holiday.

FIRST LEGO League Robotics

If you have not had a chance to attend a Robotics competition you are in for a treat!

Three Lura White and seven Page Hilltop FIRST LEGO League robotics teams will compete with teams across Massachusetts on Saturday, November 30 with matches running from 9 AM to 3 PM.  For the first time ever, the competition will take place at our Ayer Shirley Regional Middle School and is hosted by the Ayer Shirley Regional High School robotics team, Andromeda One.

This year's robot challenge, City Shaper, was powered by STAR WARS, a Force for Change.  For more information about the challenge, go to  https://info.firstinspires.org/city-shaper.  School administration, parents and community members are invited to cheer on the teams.  The event is free and open to the public.  Good luck to all of our 4th and 5th grade robotics teams!

A special thank you to our FIRST LEGO League robotics team sponsors: Ayer Shirley Parent Teacher Organization, Ayer Shirley Education Foundation, Bemis Associates Inc. and BAE Systems.

Pictures of the Week

I had the opportunity to visit Ms. Powell's 2nd Grade class at LAW this week.  It was a writing lesson and I conferenced with many of the students.  Boy, they are such good writers! And, they know the writing process!  When asked by Ms. Powell if they had completed some of the important steps in writing, their answer was "Check!"

The Bremer family from Ayer has grown by one. Kerry Bremer, Special Education Teacher for CASE Collaborative, and her family live in the town of Ayer. The family of five has become a family of six through kindness and love. Siblings Kristen and Jonathan are both graduates of Ayer Shirley Regional High School (ASRHS) where their younger sister, Kaitlyn is currently a Junior. The Bremer family runs the Unlimited Basketball and Baseball programs in Ayer for students with disabilities. Please read this heartwarming story and welcome their son Jake to our community.

Congratulations to the recipients of the John & Abigail Adams Scholarship! This merit-based scholarship provides a tuition waiver for up to eight semesters for education at any of the 29 UMass Universities, MA state universities, and MA community colleges.

To qualify a student must score in the Advanced category on one of the MCAS tests, ELA, math or STE; and score proficient or advanced on the remaining two. Students must also have a combined score on the MCAS assessments that ranks in the top 25% in their school district.

A big congrats to these awesome seniors:

Samantha Abrams Julia Alo Gustar Angulo Dimitri Battle Nasia Bykov-Newly Devin Cannava Abigail Clemence Vanessa Delk Bryce Denmark Dejah Fleurancois Clay Gensel Jake Gerace Christopher Govang Nicholas Granger Kristen Harder Spencer Lee Nicholas Lunardo

Dana Maloney 19. Anthony Mavilia 20. Ethan McFetridge 21. Tyler Meehan 22. Lucas Monteiro 23. Davis Preston 24. Deran Quinty 25. William Schilp 26. Shaunessy Straitiff 27. Minda Tiernan 28. Danielle Varner 29. Ariel Velasquez 30. Brooke Venkitachalam 31. Dylan Wade 32. Cassidy Wenstrom 33. Michael Woodland

Picture of the Week

Veterans Day Presentation at LAW. Principal Lewis on the guitar! Nice job students and thank you to Mrs. Farrow. A big thanks and much appreciation to our Veterans. Forever grateful to our #veterans. #ASRSD #PantherPride

Attendance Matters

On November 1, 2019, we sent a notice on to all parents/guardians informing you of our concerted efforts between the schools and parents to ensure every child attends school regularly. Additionally, we informed you we would report weekly attendance rates for each school. Reminder, our target for attendance is 95% or higher. Please see attendance rates for the week of November 4-8, 2019. We exceeded our target for last week. Thank you for your efforts.

Video of the Week

Please take a few minutes to listen to the ASRHS Marching Band perform the “Armed Forces on Parade” under the direction of Mr. Tim Ketterer. The band performed this morning at the 21st Annual Veterans Day Program at the high school. Mr. Tulli, high school science teacher, has run this event for all these years. Today’s event was outstanding. The student speeches were most impressive and the student body was engaged and such an attentive audience. Thank you to all, and most importantly, thank you to our wonderful veterans who attended this special event as they do every year.

ASRHS Drama Club Getting Ready for Their November Production

ASRHS Students Prepare for Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at Ayer Shirley Regional

AYER/SHIRLEY, MA: ASRHS Drama Club’s next production is a well-loved chestnut – Noel Coward’s ‘haunting’ comedy “Blithe Spirit,” sponsored by Worker’s Credit Union.  In “Blithe Spirit,” Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles's first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate, efforts to disrupt Charles's current marriage until ultimately she sabotages his car in the hope of killing him so that he will join her in the spirit world.  Unfortunately, her plan backfires and it is Ruth who suffers her wrath. Now Charles is haunted by BOTH of his wives, so he calls on Madame Arcati again to exorcise both of the spirits… he thinks.

Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” will play November 22 and 23 at 7pm; and November 23 at 2pm in the Laura S. Leavitt Auditorium at Ayer Shirley Regional High School, 141 Washington Street in Ayer.  Tickets reservations can be placed by phone, or tickets will be available at the door and in advance at the Hazen Memorial Library in Shirley.  They are $10 general admission; $5 for students and senior citizens, and as a special bonus, buy two get one free!  For more information about “Blithe Spirit” or the ASRHS Drama Club or to reserve tickets ahead of time, call (978) 772-2545 or visit ASRHS Drama online at www.jacneed.com/ASYD/AyerShirleyDrama.htm.

Worker’s Credit Union, sponsor of this production, is a state-chartered credit union headquartered in Fitchburg. WCU was established in 1914, has more than $1.7 billion in assets, over 100,000 members, and operates sixteen full-service branches located in Fitchburg, Chelmsford, Gardner, Groton, Lancaster, Leominster, Lunenburg, Orange, Westford and Townsend.  Visit them online at www.wcu.com.

 Julia Alo & Katie Kilcommins are dueling wives in ASRHS’ production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.”

Chris Govang and Deran Quinty are two Seniors celebrating their final Fall play in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at ASRHS.

Deran Quinty & Roz Lupaczyk in rehearsal for ASRHS’ “Blithe Spirit”

Communication to Parents/Guardians on Attendance Matters

Dear Parent/Guardian,

I hope this finds you well and hope you and your child’s school experience to date has been positive and rewarding. I see many bright smiles and happy students daily!

We are in the 10th week of school! Term 1 for middle and high schoolers closes today. It is hard to fathom we have completed ¼ of the school year, which brings me to the topic for which I write to you, Attendance Matters. Good attendance predicts success for students. Good attendance requires students to also attend school on time; a late start to the day is a setback and can cause undue stress to your child.

Naturally a child should be kept home if they are ill. A parent/guardian may question what constitutes whether a child be kept at home. Please see helpful guidance from Nurse Leader, Mrs. Rene Paine, Letter from Nurse Leader.

We in the district are focused on good attendance this year as every year. We do have grave concerns on our students who are frequently absent. We worry first on their health, and we also worry they are not attending school because they do not feel connected or happy at school. Why is that? Why does a child not feel connected or dislikes school? We want to know if your child feels this way so we can intervene and work with your child to feel connected and happy while at school. We are here to support families, and we strongly encourage our families to  reach out to us. Please see guidance here from School Counselor & Curriculum Leader, Ms. Cynthia Esielionis, which outlines the support and resources available to you.

Additionally, please refer to these handy tips and resources for parents provided by attendanceworks.org.

Preschool	Elementary	Middle School High School
English	English	English
Spanish	Spanish	Spanish
	Portuguese

The Massachusetts Department of Education (DESE) tracks chronic absenteeism in all districts; it is one of the indicators on the MCAS. Chronic absenteeism is when a student in Grades 1 through 12 misses 10% or more of his/her membership in any school year and this includes excused and unexcused absences. For example, our school year is 181 days and a student who misses 18 or more days is identified as being chronically absent.
What is important to us is why a student misses 10% or more of his/her school year. We understand that some students have a chronic illness. We are concerned about the students who just are not coming to school.

Please take a few minutes to reflect on the following:

Has my child(ren) attended school every day this year?
The day(s) my child was absent was due to an illness.
My child was absent on a particular day because he/she did not want to go to school.
My child refuses to attend school.

If upon reflection, you answer yes to statements 3 and/or 4, please contact your child’s counselor as soon as possible so we can partner with you get to the root cause.

We have set a goal that all students will achieve an attendance rate of 95% or higher this school year. Let’s work together to reach this goal. We can do it!  Each week in the Weekly Update beginning the week of November 11, we will report our attendance rate for the prior week at each school.

We are most pleased to report attendance rates to date, Friday, November 1, 2019.

HS - 96.90%
MS - 96.35%
PH - 97.19%
LAW - 98.59%

These are excellent rates and please work with us to continue good attendance all year.

Remember the school day starts the night before with a good night’s sleep. Attendance matters and we want your child in school every day learning away.

Most sincerely,
Dr. Malone
Superintendent

Picture of the Week

The ASRSD Unified basketball team had their first home opener against Lunenburg this past Tuesday. One of the largest crowd of spectators! We were able to squeak out the win and our players were so good, and most importantly had the time of their lives. One of the best days ever!