Dear PVES Families,
We had a wonderful opening week at PVES, with many smiles and wonderful reunions. I can’t tell you how terrific it was to see your amazing children enter our school building, with so much excitement in the air. Thank you to our incredible staff who worked so hard to make everything run so smoothly and thank you to all of you for having your children prepared for the first week. Our remote learners are now all set with their laptops and learning materials, and our Google Meets have begun! Thank you, parents, for all of the positive feedback. We are off to a safe and successful start!
This coming week, our Back to School Nights will take place virtually for all grade levels. On Monday night, September 14th, all parents of students in Grades 3 and 4 will be able to join their classroom Google Meets at 7:00 PM. Invites will be sent by individual classroom teachers. On Tuesday night, September 15th, all parents of students in Grades 1 and 2 will join meetings at 7:00 PM. And, on Wednesday night, September 16th, our Kindergarten parents will join individual Google Meets with their classroom teachers. These invitations will be emailed to you soon, and our teachers look forward to sharing very important information about the school year with you. Please make every effort to attend.
Along with our classroom teacher presentations, you will be receiving virtual invitations to meet with our professional support staff on one of these evenings. These emails will include information about meeting with Reading AIS teachers, our School Psychologist and Counselor, Speech, and ENL. Please check these emails carefully, as some of these meeting opportunities will be held on either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night, and possibly between 6:00 and 7:00 PM. We know you may be inundated with emails lately, but please take the time to read the school information. We want to communicate often with you, and it is better for your child if you are informed! If you are not able to make a particular meeting this week, you are always welcome to contact our teachers by phone call or email. We are happy to hear your concerns and questions.
Our elementary students are doing a wonderful job wearing their masks, and they are getting brief mask breaks every hour, and of course, during their classroom lunch. In following CDC guidelines, we ask that your children not wear VENTED MASKS to school. We apologize for this information coming to you after the start of school, but we will continue to make changes in the effort to keep our schools as safe as they can be. We are also hoping that children will not wear the bandana or “gator” masks, as the smaller face masks seem to be the best for our elementary students. Thank you so much for your help with this. Your children are amazing!
Our remote learners are doing a great job joining their classroom Google Meets. (Please remember that start times are approximate, as teachers are working in classrooms with busy students as well!) Hard copy work materials that need to be picked up by our virtual learners each week will be ready in the main office on Fridays between 12:00 and 2:00 PM. Please reach out to your classroom teachers if you have questions about this, as it may or may not pertain to your particular classroom. Attendance will be taken for remote learners at the first Google Meet of the day, and teachers will keep track of attendance throughout the day, for specific content areas, in their individual records. (If an in-school learner is absent from school, he or she may join a Google Meet lesson from home, but the child will still be marked absent as an in-school learner). Let’s hope for great attendance this year!
Our Lunch/Breakfast school foods company will be sending out a Survey for breakfast orders. If your child does not eat breakfast at home and is interested in eating the school breakfast, we ask that you fill out this survey accurately, and the packed breakfast will be brought to your child’s classroom. The accuracy of this survey is extremely important to our organization and efficiency, especially at the start of the school day. Thank you for filling this out if interested!
Our Arrival and Dismissal procedures are working nicely, and we thank you for your patience as we work out details to make the Parent Pick-up lines even more efficient. It is extremely important that you send in a NOTE for your child’s dismissal if there are changes in plans or if the Monday through Friday dismissal plan for your child is not yet clear. The bus notes help to avoid stress for your child and any delays in our dismissal procedures.
I hope that you all enjoy this beautiful weekend. Thank you for taking the time to thank our teachers, support staff, custodians, and clerical staff for all they have done and all they continue to do to make the opening of our schools so very successful. I am beyond proud to be part of this PVES Team. Thank you for being such an important part of it as well!
Enjoy your Back to School Night meetings this week!
Sincerely,
Dr. Margaret Podesta
Principal