Dear Parents:

For many of our students, this is a crucial part of our school year. Hopefully, those who have started off well will soar to greater heights while those who have struggled will begin to take their school work seriously and join the rest of the school on our great journey of learning. As we begin our second nine weeks of school, I would ask that you meet with your child to review their report cards when they come home. After reviewing many of the children’s report cards, I believe that it is imperative that the school needs the support of our parents to help reinforce what is being done here in school. 

Many of the children’s grades are lower than they should be because they are not doing their homework.  It is proven that relevant homework assignments and projects reinforce the learning that has taken place in the classroom. So I ask you to please sit with your child and talk about what is important to them especially their schooling. I realize many of them believe it’s early in the year and they can pick up their effort later but as we all know, time flies and it will be end of the school year before we know it. I truly believe that with your support, our children can do great things.

To help us to that end, we will be holding our Parent Conferences Night on Thursday, November 12, 2009. Your child’s teachers will be available to meet you from 4:30 o’clock to 7 o’clock. The format for this year’s conference will be the same as last year. All teachers will be available to any parent from 4:30 pm to 7 pm. The 6^th grade teachers will be in the cafeteria, 7^th grade in the large gym and the 8^th grade in the auxiliary gym.  You are more than welcome to come anytime between those hours. We ask parents to realize that time will be limited and conferences should go no longer than 10 minutes at most. The reason for this is allow more parents the opportunity to meet with teachers they need to see. Please take advantage of this opportunity to keep the lines of communication open with the teachers. If you are not able attend this evening and you still wish to meet with the teachers, we can arrange a parent conference for you during the school day.  The students will have a half day and be dismissed at 11:30 am.

November is a great month for us because of all the great things that happen around the school.  On November 12, 2009, we will be holding our first Literacy Day. This will be an opportunity for students to do silent reading and then share their stories with classmates and teachers. It is part of our school plan to improve reading scores. We will be having our Honor Roll breakfast on November 13, 2009 and our Achievement Assembly on November 25, 2009 for those students who did so well the first marking period. My favorite of course is taking the Principal’s Honor Roll students to Tony’s New York Pizza for a luncheon on November 19, 2009.

November is a month of thanksgiving and I want to thank all our parents for the great support you give your children, their teachers and our school. To celebrate this great season, we will be holding our fifth annual Turkey Trot. We invite our parents to join us in this mile run/walk on Wednesday, November 25, 2009. Come start the holiday by creating room for that extra turkey or stuffing with a good brisk run or in my case, a good brisk walk.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Sincerely yours,