Wellesley High School Superintendent Lussier has sent out an email to Wellesley Public School families with important dates regarding a survey completion deadline, focus group participation, and a virtual community update.

Wellesley families have been asked to complete a Family Reopening Survey to help the schools collect essential data on key reopening topics. The survey will close at 3pm on Friday, July 10th. One response per family, please. Here are the links:

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has asked each district to develop three plans this summer, which outline a full in-person reopening; a hybrid approach that includes both in-person and remote learning; and a full remote learning option. Depending on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that districts may employ one or more of these models over the course of the next school year.

In addition to the survey, Wellesley schools are offering three Focus Groups on July 13th and 14th to capture additional information from PreK/Elementary School, Middle School, and High School parents and guardians. If you are interested in participating, please use the link at the conclusion of the family survey to express your interest. (The WPS will need to keep these numbers manageable, so will be drawing a random sample from those who share their interest.)

A virtual WPS Community Update will take place on Thursday, July 9, 4pm -5pm for WPS team members to provide an overview of their planning efforts as well as to allow for questions and comments from the community.

Howard University, here she comes

The road for Wellesley High School 2019 graduate Alia Saleebaan has taken her from Somalia, where she lived until age 5, to Sweden until she was 15, to the United States. Along the way, she’s never stopped working toward her dream of thriving in college. In a phone interview, Alia shared with me her lifelong outlook: “No matter what, you have to keep doing, keep moving forward. You can always find reasons not to do something. There’s always a hill. But don’t ever stop in the middle. Keep going. Get to the top. You can do it.”

But like everybody, Alia needs a little help to climb that hill. After finishing as a first-year student at Mass Bay Community College, she was accepted to Howard University as a biology major for Fall 2020. Attending Howard is her dream come true. The Washington, DC private college has provided Alia with about 1/3 of tuition, fees, and room and board via a scholarship; Wellesley Scholarship Foundation has kicked in another 1/3; but there’s still at $20k+ financial gap, which she cannot completely bridge through her summer job at an optometrist’s office.

Through a Go Fund Me campaign, Alia says, “I need your donations to fill the gap that remains after all of the scholarship aid.”

You can read Alia’s story here, and donate to this first-generation college student’s cause.

Dear Skype Pal…

Wellesley High School student Louisa Eaton is launching The Building Cultural Bridges program, a cultural exchange project for Upham and Fiske fourth- and fifth-grade students in which they will Skype with a student abroad.

Run as a WHS club, Eaton in an email says, “We hope that by learning about cultures both inside and outside Wellesley they will start to be excited by different cultures and want to accept and celebrate them. Part of the program will be teaching the children about cultures inside of Wellesley. We hope this will create a better sense of community in Wellesley and a more public sense of diversity.”

The club advisor is Modern World History teacher Ms. Emily Gibbens.

Congratulations MassBay graduates from Wellesley

MassBay, Wellesley MassBay Community College honored graduating students at the College’s 58^th virtual commencement ceremony on Tue., June 30. The prerecorded ceremony celebrated the 671 graduates from 41 countries from around the world. Congratulations to all the students, but we’ll admit that those from our swell town of Wellesley hold a special place in our heart.