February 2, 2025

Dear PVES Families,

Thank you to the many families who attended our wonderful K-2 ELA Night on Thursday. This literacy event was so well attended, and the students did an outstanding job participating in our reading and writing activities. A very special thank you to Mrs. Boryk, Mrs. Burdett, Mrs. Kahn, Mrs. McCarty, and to Mrs. Ribeiro who presented such valuable information on how our literacy program components are aligned with the Science of Reading and student success. We appreciate our Family, Administrative, and Board of Education support. It was a terrific evening of learning and parent collaboration!

Mid-year Report Cards will be available for our elementary parents on this Friday, February 7th online through PowerSchool. Hard copies will be mailed via U.S. mail by next week. As always, if you have any questions about your child’s progress, please contact your child’s teacher(s) directly. We look forward to this important communication.

We will practice a mandatory Lockdown Drill this week with police supervision. As always, we will let the students know that this will be a practice drill, and we will calmly review safety protocols. If you have any questions, please reach out to our main office.

This Friday, February 7th, will be Sports Jersey Day at PVES, in honor of the Super Bowl! All staff and students are welcome to wear sports jerseys and t-shirts, from local teams and clubs, dance studios, school teams, and college and professional teams. We look forward to another wonderful “spirit” day at our school. The learning community is so strong!

During the following week, February 10th through February 14th, we look forward to celebrating our Character Education monthly theme of “Kindness.” Please see the attached flyer for the theme days for each day of that week which connect with these clothing ideas:

Our Character Education themes for this month are Kindness & Friendship. The Family Challenge will be to have your family make a Friendly FaceTime (or video/phone call) or write a friendly letter. Reach out to a friend or family member who you have not seen recently and share how much you care about them. Students can draw a picture or write about who they contacted, and share what makes that person special! Have fun with this. It is so good to connect with others!

Schools will be closed for Winter Break from February 17th through February 21st. Schools will reopen on Monday, February 24th.

It looks like the Groundhog is telling us that there will be 6 more weeks of winter! We will continue to have the students play outside for recess on either the backyard or the blacktop, as long as the temperatures are not severely cold.

Kindergarten Registration continues to take place. Please be sure to call 845-528-8092 if you have a child who will be 5 years old by 12/1/25. We can’t wait to welcome our newest class in September.

Thank you for all you are doing to support your child’s strong attendance patterns, punctuality, and structured homework and reading routines. We are so grateful for your partnership.

Happy February!

Sincerely,
Dr. Margaret Podesta
Principal