The ARHS performance of The Little Mermaid was outstanding this weekend. Thank you to Mr. Levesque and all of the Apponquet Players for such incredible performances and for visiting both AES & FES and performing a shortened version of The Little Mermaid. We held an art show at ARHS last week and it continues to remind us all of the necessity and power of the arts in children’s education.
Congratulations to our Academic Honor Bowl team who will compete at the league finals in Fairhaven on May 18. This is an incredible group of students, good luck to everyone!
Spring Sports continues to have an incredibly successful season. Girls and Boys Tennis, Lacrosse and Track have had wonderfully successful seasons, Baseball and Softball continue to win and Unified Track is doing wonderful things bringing everyone together.
The Special Olympics will be held in Dartmouth on May 19th (grades 6-12) and 25th (grades K-5) at Dartmouth High School.
Monday night, May 8th, is the Lakeville Town Meeting where we will present the approved budget from the School Committee. We have balanced both the fiscal needs of our towns with some of the needs of our students and developed the lowest budget presented in many years. Thank you to our Regional Finance Committee, Town Officials, School Committee, Building Principals, Directors and everyone involved in building this budget
It is Teacher appreciation week and I implore everyone to continue to support our remarkable educators during a time when education bashing is the norm and education praising is on the back burner. No matter the field of work one chooses, we all were taught: to read, to write, to think critically, to work together, to be responsible, by parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, paraprofessionals and so many others.
Our teachers, just as Mr. Goldberg in the story below, make monumental differences in the lives of our students. This story happens to be about a High School Teacher - but every student can recite a story about an Elementary Teacher who simply made learning a joyous magical ride and seemed to know everything about everything or a Middle School Teacher who taught us subjects with a knowledge base that was bigger than anything we could ever imagine. They did so with such joy and with kindness that made us want to know more. So, to every teacher who has been Mr. Goldberg for one student (we know that you have been for many more) THANK YOU for everything you do.
I started the second semester of tenth grade on February 1, On February 2, when I woke up to go to school, my mother didn’t. She had passed away in her sleep during the night. After we laid my mother to rest, I went back to school, but I didn’t care much to be there at all.
Since it was a new semester, my teachers didn’t know me very well. My English teacher, Mr. Goldberg, would ask the class questions and call on people to answer. When he called on me, he’d pretty much be waking me up from wherever my mind would be. I’d say, “ ’Scuse me? What was that?” He’d ask me again, and I’d have the correct answer.
One day, he asked me to meet him after class. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” he said. “You always seem lost. Your mind is always someplace else during class, but you know all the answers.”
I told him the reason I came to school every day was because my mother made me. Now that she wasn’t here, I didn’t really feel the need to go anymore. Then he said, “Well, just do me a favor. I want you to meet me in my office during sixth period.” So I met him, just to talk. Afterward, he said, “Meet me tomorrow, same time.” This went on and on, every single day. He had me meet him during his prep period. I would help him grade papers, and we would talk.
When open-school night came, I went with my sister, who had just graduated from the same school, because I had no one else to go with. My social studies teacher wouldn’t talk to her, because he thought it was some kind of trick. Mr. Goldberg happened to be outside the room, so he came in and said, “Wait a minute! Talk to her. I’ll explain later.”
In fact, Mr. Goldberg went around to all my classes and talked to all my teachers. He said, “If you have any issue with Maxie Jones, come to me.”
The next year, he did the same thing. I met with him every day, and he talked to all my teachers about whatever was going on with me. Again, he told them, “If you’ve got any problem with Maxie, come and talk to me.”
By the time I graduated from high school, I had never missed a single day of school.
At my graduation, Mr. Goldberg told me, “This feels funny. I teach tenth graders, not seniors, so I never come to the graduation.”
“Well, why are you here?” I asked.
He replied, “Because I wouldn’t miss seeing you graduate for anything in the world.”
It took me years before I realized what he had done. I graduated from high school in the top 15 percent of my class. I had a Regents Scholarship and a full ride to college. The truth is, I was always academically capable of that. But at 15—having lost my mother and not really seeing the value of education—I was in line to be a statistic, a high school dropout. I realized that the reason I showed up to school every single day was because somebody there was expecting to see me. That somebody was Mr. Goldberg” author unknown
Thank you to all of our open and reflective Faculty, Staff, Van Drivers, Assistant Principals, Paraprofessionals, Secretaries, IT and Library Media Staff, Nurses, Counselors/School Psychologists, Advisors, Team Chairs, Coaches, Food Service, Maintenance and Custodial Staff, SRO, First Responders, Schedulers, Town Officials, Central Office Administration/Staff, School Committee, and Business Partners who in their own space, in their own job, teach someone something, and incessantly support the work done within FLRSD. Each day they see the beauty within each student and the importance of appreciating all that our students and this community offers. Each day they come to work and give of themselves and for that we owe them thanks.
Have a great week everyone. May your week be filled with being taught one new thing and with you teaching someone one thing in a kind, joyful and productive way, just as our teachers and staff do everyday.
Alan Strauss, Superintendent of School
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PMC Cranberry Country Kids PMC Ride
The Cranberry Country PMC Kids Ride will take place on Sunday June 25th at the Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School in Rochester from 8 am to 1 pm.
This will be our sixth Kids Ride. Our last ride which took place in 2019 had more than 400 kids ride and raised over $100,000 for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in Boston for patient care, cancer research and family support services. 100% of all rider-raised donations goes to the DFCI via its Jimmy Fund. Parents can register their kids to ride by clicking on the link below. Parents can also register as volunteers.
https://kids.pmc.org/cranberrycountry
In addition to the ride itself, the Cranberry Country PMC Kids Ride will have the following fun activities for the riders to say thank you to them for wanting to help others and make a difference.
Bouncy houses
Balloon artist
Face Painters
Fire truck
Goodie bags
Assorted games
Dee Jay
Pizza party
Ice Cream
This year we have added our “Challenge Within A Challenge”. One of our sponsors, LifeTime Financial Strategies, LLC, is going to donate $1,000 to the school that raises the most money on a per student basis for the purchase of new gym equipment.
Freetown Lakeville Regional School District School Links
Please click on the link(s) below for district information and easy access to your child’s school news
FLRSD: News | Freetown Lakeville Regional School District
ARHS: Apponequet Regional High School News
FLMS: Freetown Lakeville Middle School News
GRAIS: George R. Austin Intermediate School News
AES: Assawompset Elementary Schools News
FES: Freetown Elementary School News
Below please find links to important forms and information. These are located on our website but hope this may assist you in locating them quickly (we will continue to add to this and if you have suggestions on what would be helpful to add please let us know) Thank you for the latest suggestions!