Dear St. John Families,
WELCOME TO AUGUST!! I am delighted to welcome you to another great year at St. John the Evangelist. We are delighted to have completed our first year in our new preschool building; the preschool staff is beyond thrilled to have various new and improved resources at their disposal and we are delighted to have them even closer to the elementary school.
Our informal Meet the Teacher is rapidly approaching and will be held on Friday, August 23th from 1:00-3:00 p.m. For new families, it is a great opportunity to drop off supplies, meet all teachers, and become increasing familiar with the school and various programs. It is always exciting to see how the children have grown over the summer, Meet the Teacher will be here before you know it!
For planning purposes, please note that Monday, August 26th and Friday, August 30th are early dismissals. Carpool will begin just before 11:30 and continue until 11:50 a.m., please note that extended day will not be offered on Friday, August 30th and there is no school on Labor Day – Monday, September 1st.
The school is coming together nicely and we will be ready to begin very shortly. I am grateful to the maintenance staff for their efforts. In addition to meeting our summer needs, they addressed various areas on the school and parish grounds. A special note of gratitude is extended to Mr. Bill and the maintenance team for their extra efforts behind the scenes.
Shifting to academics, we are pleased to once again offer Honors Literature/Creative Writing and our advanced math track for students entering fifth grade and beyond. We will pilot Geometry at the 8th grade level for the first time this year. For those students needing some additional support in their academic development, we will continue to offer reading and math resource, and a full-time Special Educator (Mrs. Gould) this year. Kudos to all of our students that participated in our Summer Learning Program from Monday-Thursday at the school and of course, our K-4th grade students that have been working diligently I assume on their summer Think Stretch booklet.
SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS
New Staff Members – I would like to formally welcome Mrs. Warhurst (part-time Kindergarten Instructional Assistant), Ms. Germek (fourth grade) , and Mrs. Lalli (Geometry) to our school community. They are all very excited to join our faculty and staff and they are preparing diligently to become familiar with our school and most importantly, our students. Please make sure to stop in and help them feel welcome at Meet the Teacher once again on Friday, August 23rd from 1:00-3:00 p.m.
I would also like to share that Mr. Gene Belardi (Math Resource) just recently retired after 19 years at SJES. We are grateful for his sense of humor and willingness to do whatever is necessary to help his students grasp a math concept. Ms. Morgan Kruck will assume his morning teaching schedule.
Upgrades/Improvements – I am happy to share that three new Active Panels are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. We added an iPad cart last year and we plan to replace the seven remaining Promethean Boards as well as purchase teacher laptops in the next two years, they have served us well over the past 9-11 years. A wireless mounted projector was recently installed in the gym, renovations were done to multiple areas that needed to be addressed, and we added some additional security to the main/rear entrance of the school building, and the front office.
Standardized Testing – We will remain online in terms of standardized testing at the third through eighth grade level. Our primary students (K-2 students) will be assessed through the PALS testing program in the fall and these same students will be evaluated once again in the spring to measure growth. Students in third through seventh grade will once again be assessed three times a year in Math, Reading, and Language Arts with the assessment tool, Performance Series by Scantron.
Sincerely,
Temple W. Macdonald