PRINCIPAL - LETTER TO COMMUNITY

  • Love

    Dear Barker Central School Community, 

    We are only a few short days away from beginning the 2024-2025 school year together at Barker Central School. We are so excited to welcome back our students, teachers, and families back into our building for another year of top-notch learning opportunities! We will continue to focus on our goals laid out in the Strategic Plan:
    Increase Student Engagement in the Learning Process: Through a collaborative process, stakeholders will be empowered to improve student engagement in the learning process through continual improvement.
    Improve Literacy for all Learners to be prepared for the 21st Century: Through a collaborative process, stakeholders will create an environment that supports increased student literacy including reading, writing, comprehension, and communication in all forms.
    Improve Instructional Outcomes for all Students: To sustain and expand student academic success by collaboratively reviewing data and developing data-driven processes which continuously foster improvements in instructional areas that impact student learning and achievement.

    There are a few important dates to share with you as we prepare for the 2024-2025 school year:

    • Welcome Back Night for students in grades 1-12 will be on Wednesday, August 28th from 5:30 to 7:00 PM. This will allow students and their families to meet the teachers, drop off supplies, and become familiar with the expectations of the upcoming school year.
    • 7th Grade Orientation will take place during Welcome Back Night on Wednesday, August 28th, from 5:30 to 6:00 PM in the auditorium. If you are a family with a student in 7th grade, please plan to attend. This event will provide information to families and students regarding the transition into the JH/HS.
    • Pre-K and Kindergarten Meet the Teacher Day will be held on Thursday, August 29th from 1:00 to 2:30 PM. This will allow our littlest learners and their families to meet the teachers, drop off supplies, see the classroom, and get acquainted with the Pre-K and Kindergarten expectations.
    • The first day of school is Tuesday, September 3rd for all students. We cannot wait to see you!
    • Opening kick-off on the new turf field will be under the lights on Friday, September 6th (Varsity Football Game vs. Medina).
    • Homecoming Celebrations will be held the week of Monday, September 23rd through Saturday, September 28th. Please save the date!!!

    Experiential learning and hands-on opportunities, such as project-based learning, STEAM exploration, field trips, and engaging assemblies, are important ways to bring education to life for our students. These experiences directly align with our district’s strategic goal of increasing student engagement in the learning process. When students are actively engaged, they are more likely to succeed academically and social-emotionally.

    In the 2023-2024 school year, our staff and PTO went above and beyond to connect students to interactive learning opportunities through field trips to local Barker treasures like the town hall and the library, to educational Niagara County hot-spots like Niagara Falls, the Aquarium of Niagara, state parks, and even to our closest city centers like the Explore & More and Buffalo AKG museums in Buffalo and the Strong Museum in Rochester, as well as countless other opportunities like band and choral competitions and trips, and club sponsored trips. We even brought field trips in-house and offered STEM mystery opportunities for our elementary students.

    Our Pratt Assembly Team, which is a collective of staff members in the elementary school with ties across the district, planned and executed several engaging and fun assemblies this year for our Barker Students. There were class competitions to win field trips, a BMX guest speaker who talked to the entire student body about being kind and working hard, an animal expert assembly - and, thanks to your at-home participation in the NFL Play 60 program, our elementary students won a dance party assembly which focused on being the best versions of ourselves. Members of our Barker Team also partnered with Niagara County Sheriff’s Office and our own Somerset Police and Barker Fire Department to create an interactive traffic safety fair for our 11th and 12th grade students.

    Each moment we can provide experiential learning opportunities for our students it helps deepen their connection to learning, the surrounding community, and to each other - creating life-long learners right in front of our eyes. We hope to continue this momentum into the 2024-2025 school year. One of my favorite moments of last school year was listening to our Pratt students on Moving-up Day talk about their favorite memories from the year - so many of them mentioned these key moments where they truly felt connected to their learning experiences.

    We are looking forward to this new school year and are so grateful for all you do to support the Barker Central School learning community and bring learning to life for our students. We can’t wait to see you soon! 

    Sincerely,

    Micaela M. Love, Ed.D.
    PK-12 Principal
    mlove@barkercsd.net
    716-795-3832
Last Modified on August 28, 2024