Hola Tigres,

It was good to be back in school for a full week at last! Thank you to our students, staff, and families for the focus, flexibility, and support that helped make this week's middle of year progress monitoring in SLA, ELA, and Math run smoothly. We have the majority of our data back and the overall results are a testament to our students' and teachers' dedication, bilingual brilliance, and resilience. Year after year, we are making impressive progress--especially for our youth furthest from opportunity. If you're interested in hearing more MOY data about progress towards annual goals, next steps, and potential budget implicaitons, come to LSAT on Tuesday, Feb 17th! More info in the Parent Leadership section.

As you also know, over the last two months our teachers have worked on increasing a sense of belonging, strengthening student-to-student bonds, and helping students practice the skills it takes to listen deeply to one another. As we celebrate Black History Month, we've been using to those skills to have critical conversations and celebrations. Mil gracias to Sr. Salvador and Ms. Roberson for leading staff collab at Oyster to support Elementary classroom celebrations of Black History Month! They shared resources for our Morning Meetings this month to celebrate notable figures in Black History, read stories grounded in celebrating identity and difference, and support students in being upstanders for one another all day long.

At Adams, a huge thank you to Mr. Braswell and Ms. Grullón for designing a Family Aldea lesson focused on building a stronger, more aware, and more inclusive community at Oyster-Adams. They invited students to deeply examine the impact of using slurs related to race, gender, immigration status, and sexual orientation, and to reflect on the difference between one’s intent vs. impact—a critical conversation for our young people in this political climate. Students engaged in honest dialogue about how we address these situations at Oyster-Adams. Our faculty emphasized that each of us plays a significant role in creating a safe and respectful environment for all, and we cannot do that without students standing up for each other too.

We also have exciting news to celebrate! 🎉 Our Girls Middle School Basketball Team is headed to the DCIAA Finals, where they’ll take on DEAL for the Title! The championship game will be held at Ballou High School on Tuesday at 5:00 PM. We hope to see lots of Oyster-Adams spirit in the stands cheering them on!

I'll close here because, let’s be honest, I’m sure many of us are also preparing to celebrate Bad Bunny’s much-anticipated half-time concert—and doing it in style. Our Oyster 3rd Grade did an outstanding job covering one of his songs this Fall, and we cannot wait to celebrate this Latino icon on a national stage.🇵🇷 No suelten la bandera, y no se olviden de Tirar Más Fotos...#benitobowl.

Wishing everyone a great weekend and good luck to our Tigers on Tuesday!

Carolina Brito, Directora