John Street School
Principal's Desk
Pre-K Welcome Back Letter Supplement
John Street Welcome Back Letter Supplement
August 2023
Dear John Street Families,
We hope this letter finds you in the midst of creating life-long memories of summer activities with your family and are ready to send your children back to us for an exciting 2023-2024 school year.
As the first day of school approaches, please encourage your child to keep a writer's journal or picture diary of any exciting summer activities they've been participating in these past months. Incorporating meaningful writing experiences will provide excellent springboards for peer discussions and future writing ideas. Our goals for this year are to continue creating a safe, supportive learning environment for students and staff, building upon our strong home/school connections, providing students with new, enriched learning experiences, assisting your child with fostering new friendships, and supporting their academic growth for success through this year’s theme – “We Are Amazing!”. The character virtues of focus for the upcoming school year will be “helpfulness”, “respect” and “impulse control”.
In the area of curriculum, our balanced literacy model, which includes Fountas & Pinnell interactive read alouds, shared reading, running records, phonics (Fundations) and writing, will continue for students in Grades K – 2 and expand into Grade 3 for the best skills support. In science, students will continue investigating, problem-solving, arguing and discussing scientific phenomena to help make sense of the world from their perspective through Inspire Science. This inquiry-driven, hands-on approach will empower students to ask more questions, think more critically, and maximize their ability to creatively problem-solve on topics covering life, earth and physical sciences. They’ll also continue to participate in our monthly STEAM Discovery Lab and Coding classes. Students who have extreme difficulties with math skills will continue having an opportunity to work in our “Math Lab” for extra support. To simulate a middle school experience in preparation for their transition to H. Frank Carey, our 6th graders will continue following a departmentalized program schedule by rotating classes for math, science and social studies, while ELA will be presented by each student’s homeroom teacher.
Our custodial staff has been extremely busy preparing the building and grounds for opening day. Projects included maintaining our beautiful new field and playground, painting hallways and classrooms, installing air conditioners in 2nd floor classrooms, setting up portable hand washing stations in classrooms without sinks, and cleaning and sanitizing all Univents and AC filters to ensure proper ventilation. We hope you love our “NEW” parking and bus lots with beautiful shrubbery, lighting and security cameras. Please note that we will keep the morning “Stop & Drop” system in place for Grades K – 6 from 8:25 – 8:45 am. Starting Monday, September 18th, ONLY students attending early morning extra help can be dropped off from 8:15 – 8:25 am.
We will continue utilizing the “School Messenger” system for school-wide or special event reminders so please make sure all email addresses and contact numbers on file are current. Please note that the 2023/2024 supply lists for each grade level have been uploaded to John Street School’s homepage for your convenience at: www.franklinsquare.k12.ny.us/schools/js_supplies. Parents can access the “Parent Portal” through Infinite Campus after 4:00 pm to see their child’s class placement on Thursday, August 17th. This information can be found under the “Backpack” tab. During the school year, your child’s on-line report card can be accessed here, as well.
Sincerely,
Mr. Thomas A. Riccobono
Principal
Mr. Jung Lee
Asst. Principal