John Street School

Principals Desk

August 2022

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 school year.

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 Shine Brighter Together!”. 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.

In the area of curriculum, students in Grades K-1 will be partaking in a Reading-Writing Workshop balanced literacy model which includes interactive read alouds, shared reading, phonics (Fundations), writing, and Fountas & Pinnell running records to help with prescribing the best skills support. In preparation for the Next Generation Science Standards, students in Grades K-6 will continue investigating, problem-solving, arguing and discussing scientific phenomena to help make sense of the world from their perspective through Inspire Science. This is an inquiry-driven, hands-on approach that 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. Students who have extreme difficulties with math skills will continue having an opportunity to work in our “Math Lab” for extra support. To help facilitate a middle school model experience in preparation for transitioning to H. Frank Carey, our 6th graders will continue following a departmentalized program schedule with students rotating to classes. The character virtues of focus for the upcoming school year will be “celebrating diversity”, “responsibility” and “honesty”.

Our custodial staff has been extremely busy beautifying and preparing the building and grounds for opening day. Some updates include painting, development of our Daily Living Skills Center for ISP, setting up portable hand washing stations in classrooms without sinks, and the cleaning and sanitizing of all Univents and AC filters to ensure proper ventilation. We anticipate the start of our “Field Project” to begin sometime in late September early October. Please note that once started, our arrival and dismissal procedures will need to be adjusted as the Rule St., Benris Ave., and possibly Gabriel Ave., access points will NOT be available. We will keep you posted to the new procedures and plans as more information becomes available.

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 2022/23 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 will also be able to access the “Parent Portal” through Infinite Campus, which will be going “live” on Thursday, August 18th, to see their child’s class placement and access the on-line report card during the school year.

Mr. Thomas A. Riccobono
Principal

Mr. Jung Lee
Asst. Principal