News and Announcements
Community Newsletter: Winter 2019
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The Future of Holliston High School UPDATED
 UPDATE: View the slideshow of the forum's presentation Originally designed in 1965 and opened in 1969, Holliston High School has served our community well for almost 50 years. Although it received a cosmetic renovation in 2000, now, 18 years later, the administration estimates that there are an estimated $10,000,000 in building infrastructure repairs and infrastructure replacements that we can reasonably expect to see in the coming decade. Understanding that our students’ classroom experience has changed significantly from 50 years ago and before investing such a significant amount of money in a 50-year old building, the School Committee asked the administration to review the building’s usefulness and effectiveness as a 21-century learning center. That review revealed a significant number of areas where the physical plant did not support the technology-rich, collaborative instructional model used today. Given the significance of the anticipated costs over the next decade to maintain the building and the design deficiencies that impede our ability to provide our students with comparable 21st century learning environment available in most MetroWest communities who have already modernized their high school, the School Committee feels that it is time for Holliston to begin a serious conversation as a community regarding the High School and options moving forward. To begin this discussion, the School Committee is holding a public forum, The Future of Holliston High School: A Community Conversation, on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at 7 pm in the Holliston High School auditorium. This forum is open to all members of the public. The decisions our community face are important and will likely impact our students’ high school experience for the next several decades. Your attendance and participation as we begin to explore these issues is strongly encouraged. |
Extended School Year (ESY) for Summer 2019
For those of you already thinking summer and actively searching for summer camps, planning day trips or scheduling vacations, we too have begun thinking summer. We have started our Extended School Year planning. Extended School Year (ESY) is not Summer Camp; so what is ESY? At least annually, each student’s Team must consider the need for an extended school year and record its determination in the IEP. A Team’s determination regarding the need for an ESY program must be made on an individual basis. ESY in Massachusetts, based on federal law, is designed to provide a free and appropriate public education to children with disabilities who would experience substantial regression because of interruption in their instructional program. ESY services are focused on goal areas included in the student’s IEP and based on their disability. Please note, that just because a student has received ESY services in the past, this fact alone will not qualify the student to receive ESY services in the future. The need for ESY and meeting “substantial regression” criteria must be examined yearly and is typically determined in the spring. Please click on the following link for further information and guidance on ESY services: DOE Question and Answer Guide on Special Education Extended School Year Programs For most of the students with disabilities who qualify, Holliston’s 2019 ESY dates are July 8th - August 8th, Monday-Thursday. Please be sure to contact your liaison if you have any questions regarding ESY or if ESY has not been discussed at your student’s annual Team meeting. |
It Takes A Community: A Parent/Guardian Education Evening
It Takes A Community Tuesday, November 6th, 7:00-9:00 Holliston High School Library Holliston Public Schools presents, It Takes A Community, a parent/guardian education evening focused on the most recent health/mental health screenings of our students.
When: Tuesday, November 6th, 7:00pm - 9:00pm Where: Holliston High School Library Holliston Public Schools sponsored event The Beautiful Mind, Student led Holliston High School Group will be on hand to support and continue the conversation on how the community of Holliston can continue to eliminate the stigma around teen mental illness.. |
Notice of Destruction of Student Records
 The parent/guardian or eligible (adult) student may contact the Student Services Office at 508-429-0661 to make arrangements to pick up their records or you may contact us in writing at the following address: Holliston Public Schools Unclaimed records will be destroyed on Friday, September 7, 2018. |
Holliston SEPAC Parent Ed Event - May 14th
Parent Ed Event sponsored by the Holliston Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) Monday, May 14th @ 7pm at Adams Middle School Multi-Purpose Room 109 What does Assistive Technology in the school setting look like? With Chromebooks being more readily available to all students, how is it used in the school setting? What assistive technology is available to all children as well as students with more individualized, including those requiring augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). From tier 1 -> tier 2 -> tier 3 of AAC? What does it look like in the school setting and how can I partner with educators to support my student in accessing and generalizing skills? Panel of speakers on this topic: Carol Dicruttalo, Student Services Administrator, Placentino Elementary School Becky Hakanson, SLP/AAC Consultant from Accept Collaborative Adam Steiner, Technology Integration Specialist, Adams Middle School and Miller Elementary School Heather Nunes, SLP, Placentino Elementary School Krissy Gilbert, Special Education Teacher, Miller Elementary School Marie Reggio, SLP, Adams Middle School |
School Choice Applications 2018-2019 Posted
The School Choice Application is available for download on the Forms page, under "School Choice Application." |
SEPAC Event Rescheduled: Wed. Feb 28
Community Newsletter: Winter 2018
 >> HPS Community Newsletter: Winter 2018 issue |
Email Update
 I recently notified the community that we were conducting an investigation into the cause of the email failure that some parents experienced during our email communication with the PreK-8 parent community regarding the October 24th lockdown at the Adams, Miller and Placentino Schools. As background, we solicit parent email addresses each fall as part of the student registration process and store those email addresses in our Student Information System (called iPass). In addition, parents who have access to iPass through the “Parent Portal” can update their email addresses when necessary. Parents who have provided their email address to us in previous years are not required to re-share that information annually. Several times a year, we extract the email addresses from our iPass database and upload them into the database used by our email notification system, called iContact. iContact is a commercially-available email marketing system that offers the ability to distribute emails to large email lists. This functionality is not available in iPass. Our investigation has concluded that some email addresses were inadvertently deleted from our iContact database during a recently-conducted manual periodic-maintenance review of our email lists. After discovering this human error, we performed new extraction of email addresses from iPass and uploaded them into iContact, providing us with an up-to-date email list for each school and the district. People who were not receiving emails earlier this fall from iContact should now be receiving Announcements in their inbox (they will show on your email server as being sent by: HPSAnnouncements hpsannouncements@holliston.k12.ma.us via icontactmail3.com ). If this is not the case, it is likely due to one of three possible reasons:
Bradford L. Jackson, Ed.D. Superintendent of Schools Holliston Public Schools 370 Hollis Street Holliston, MA 01746 |
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