Dear PVES Families,
I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weekend! Tomorrow is our School Picture Day at PVES! The classes will follow a schedule for individual and group photos throughout the day. Thank you to all the volunteers who have reached out to the PTA to help with our picture schedule. We know our students will get their sweet smiles ready!
Schools will be closed this Thursday in honor of Yom Kippur. Schools will reopen on Friday, October 3rd. All staff and students are invited to wear the colors “blue and white” on Friday, which is our PV Pride Day. (We celebrate our school pride on the first Friday of every month, and we love to dress in our school colors on these days).
We are looking forward to our annual PVES First Responders Day on Wednesday, October 29th. We welcome all local First Responder family members, neighbors, and friends to participate in our classroom visits that morning after 9:10. Our honored visitors can share information about their important work or read a story to a class. If you are interested in joining us, please email me directly at mpodesta@pvcsd.org. We thank you for your time!
As the month of October begins this week, please note that schools will be closed on Monday, October 13th, for Columbus Day. Our Character Education themes for October will focus on “Kindness, Friendship, and Bully Prevention.” As we look ahead to the end of the month, please note our staff and students will be welcome to participate in our school Halloween Parade during the day on Friday, October 31st. This event will be for students and staff only. Students are welcome to bring their costumes to school, and no masks or scary/violent costume props will be allowed. This is not mandatory, but all K-4 grade levels will be welcome to join in the fun.
As we begin our fifth week of school, our students are now fully integrated into the daily learning structure of their classrooms and the academic day. Our Scholastic reading and writing center rotations are in full swing, with small group instruction taking place to support our English Language Arts (ELA) growth. Fundations (phonics/word work) and Heggerty (phonemic awareness) are supporting our literacy learning in all our primary classrooms, along with the Writing Revolution techniques (integrated writing instruction) being used in all K-4 classes. Our Eureka Math curriculum continues to support strong math thinking in all classes. As always, if you have any academic questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s teacher. We look forward to our parent/teacher conferences which will be held in November.
Our fire drills will continue this week, and we look forward to our fire safety lessons with the Putnam Valley Volunteer Fire Department which are scheduled for mid-October. Schools will dismiss 15 minutes early on Friday, October 10th, as part of a mandatory evacuation drill. Please make a note to be at your child’s bus stop early on that Friday afternoon.
Have a wonderful week ahead! Thank you to our PTA and all our Class Parents who met with our teachers this past week. We truly appreciate your collaboration!
Sincerely,
Dr. Margaret Podesta
Principal