Dear Bellmawr Learning Community Member,

I am happy to inform you that the Burke School

renovation has been awarded to D‘Andrea Construction
Company. We had our first preconstruction meeting this
week and the company will be ready to begin on January
7, 2019 after the asbestos abatement project in the old
portion of the building is completed.
In the meantime, teachers continue to work nicely
together at the Bellmawr Park School. They are
compiling a list of lessons learned for our use and
information in the coming years. Bellmawr Park and E. M. Burke families and staff are to be
commended for supporting our annual food drive. Our “food pantry” was opened to all
Bellmawr District families who wanted to come and take whatever they needed.
The Kindergarten coach has begun to visit one day every week to work with our teachers to
better align instruction and the classroom environment with the NJ Kindergarten
Guidelines. This has been extremely helpful to have another resource to provide information and
ideas to our teachers throughout this implementation.

It’s been a busy fall in our District. Our third and fourth grade students and teachers conducted a
Chrome book demonstration at the November Board meeting. It was quite a learning experience
for all the adults in the room.
Our 6th grade students walked to the Burke School to share books they had written November
Board meeting with our kindergarten students. The 7th grade students walked to each of the
elementary schools to help the kindergarten and first grade students write letters to Santa.
The members of the Band and the Chorale performed their holiday concert and visited the Senior
Center to sing to the residents there.
At Bell Oaks, our student ambassador program is up and running. These students are goodwill
ambassadors, positive peer role models, and serve as a voice for our student body.
Students in all schools are busy performing acts of kindness: collecting food and toys for those
less fortunate than they are; providing services to those in need, visiting the Joseph House, a
homeless shelter in Camden and the Cathedral Kitchen on the same day learning about those
who have no way to feed themselves but to go to a soup kitchen.
Some of our 8th grade students are writing to students in a school in France during academic lab
and just this week received responses from their pen pals.
The elementary students participated in sing alongs in all schools next week. This is a favorite
annual event Unfortunately, because of the large numbers of students in Bellmawr Park due to
the fire we were not be able to invite parents in this year. We will bring back this practice next
year.
The district hosted an amazing professional development day on December 7th when a renowned
author Lissa Pijanowski visited with our schools. She is the author of our districtwide book
study, Architects of Deeper Learning (AOLD). Teacher feedback to the work she did with us was
extremely positive. We hope to bring her back to continue the work we started in September.
The 5th – 8th grade Multiple Disabilities program at Bell Oaks went on a CBI trip in November to
the Bellmawr Library and had lunch at Vero Pizza. They also went food shopping at ShopRite
and purchased items to cook desserts for Thanksgiving. The students worked on mapping,
reading a menu, communication skills and math concepts on all their trips. The students from
our 3rd and 4th grade program will visit the students at the Burke School for a cookie exchange.
We had a small ceremony remembering the life of Joyce Kassekert one of our teachers who
passed last June. She was a friend to all of us and will be missed, but her memory lives on as we
dedicated the Art Room at Bell Oaks to her.
Please mark your calendars for the change made to the March calendar. A professional
development day originally scheduled for March 14th has been changed to March 15th There
will be no school for students that day.
I hope some of you will be able to attend our December Board meeting set for 12-19-18 @ 6:00
so that you can listen to our preschool students who will be singing holiday songs for our
participants. You won’t want to miss that! The last day of school for students and staff in Friday
December 21, 2018. Dismissal is at 1:00.
Please accept my warmest wishes for a happy, healthy and restful holiday season!

Annette Castiglione
Annette Castiglione,

Superintendent of Schools

Build, Believe & Achieve

in Bellmawr