Honesty

Please take some time to discus the word, honesty, with your child. What does it meant to be honest? Why is it important to be honest? What can happen if we are dishonest?

February always seems to fly right by. It was a busy month full of exciting things. Thank you to everyone who came out for the Globetrotters pre-game performance and stayed for the game. The kids really sounded great and it was such a wonderful opportunity for them. We kicked off our American Heart Association fundraiser with a health fair in the gym. Thank you to our GRHF partners for helping to provide healthy snacks and smoothies for everyone who attended. February was also "random acts of kindness" month. Many students were caught being kind to their peers. We were also excited to welcome back Ms. Adrianne Santucci, who is offering ten weeks of African Dance and Drumming to all of our students. Each class will participate in a 30 minute session once a week for ten weeks. Our Black History Month Assembly was GREAT!!! Special shout out to Dr. Marshall who offered to speak at our assembly. We appreciate you!

Testing

March is almost here and we are in the process of gearing up for the NYS ELA test which will be administered on March 25-27. The testing is for grades 3-8, and will be in done over two days, with the third day held for makeups. The format for grades 3-4 will be the same. On day 1, students will read 4 passages and complete a total of 24 multiple choice questions about those passages. On day 2, students will read 3 passages and answer 6 short-response questions and one extended-response question. Grades 5-6 will also follow the same format. On day 1, students will read 5 passages and answer 35 multiple-choice questions and on day 2 students will read 3 passages and answer 6 short-response questions and 1 extended response question. Our school is shooting for a 20% increase in our passing rate from last year. The best way that you can help us achieve this is to ensure that your child is present on testing day, and to have children reading and discussing their books with you regularly. We are a school in good standing, and to ensure that we maintain that standing we need to continue to show improvement. We are working hard now to give students the familiarity and ease with the testing format that they will need so that they can show what they know. NWEA scores showed that most of our students made really good growth this year, so I am hopeful that we will meet our goal of a 20% increase.

 

Uniforms

We still have students coming to school out of uniform. This is especially concerning at grade 6 as I do not have as many clothes in the portable that will fit our older students. I am asking that you ensure that your child is coming to school in uniform EVERY DAY. I know that there are occasionally going to be situations which require an exception, but some of our sixth grade students are coming to school out of uniform 3-4 times a week, which is unacceptable. Thank you, in advance, for your help with this.

We are happy to announce that Womba Africa, a dance and drumming group from Ghana, Africa will be performing for our school on April 2. I am trying to schedule them for a 2:00 performance. Parents are welcome to join us at that time if available. I will post the information on Classroom Dojo when we are closer to the performance.