HAWK HAPPENINGS
The official newsletter of Hillcrest Elementary Staff
Every single student, every single day, in every single way.
July 20-something, 2019 (who keeps track on vacation???)
MUST READ
Summer Greetings from Cancun!
Hello from the balcony of our hotel in sunny Cancun, Mexico! That’s right -- Jeff and I celebrated 25 years together this past fall, and since we could not commemorate the accomplishment with a special event back then, we decided to take a special vacation during the summer. I hope that you are enjoying time with your family and friends this summer, and that you are re-charging and getting rejuvenated for a wonderful school year ahead! While I don’t want you to spend too much time thinking about the new school year yet, I felt like it might be helpful for you to have some tidbits of information to ruminate in the back of your minds, or to address/confirm some rumors that may have reached you by the pool, beach, lake, mountains, or your own backyard.
New School Colors/Logo!!
In an effort to increase consistency across the district and present ourselves more as a consistent school system (rather than a loosely connected system of different schools) Dr. Mauricio has announced that all schools in the Peekskill City School system will now have consistent school colors. Say a fond farewell to our beloved green and gold, and say hello to red, blue, and white! While we will change our colors, we will still be the Hillcrest Hawks, though a graphic designer is taking inspiration from our old HAWKS logo and is re-designing all of the schools’ logos in order to have consistency among the various images, allowing us to have our own mascots and logos, but connecting us stylistically. We will unveil the new logo as soon as it has been approved, but get ready -- we have a good reason to buy new Hillcrest Hawks Spirit Wear!
Technology Teaching Assistant
I’m sorry to announce that another beloved fixture at Hillcrest, Candis Pagels, has resigned her position as Tech TA. We will miss her excitement, enthusiasm, and flexible “can-do!” attitude, but wish her and her family all the best. In the meantime, we have posted the position and will begin interviewing soon. Anyone who has a flexible, free schedule who might like to volunteer to sit on an interview committee, please contact me as soon as possible.
New Faces at District Office
We have a few new people joining us at the district level that you may want to know about:
Adam Lodewick, our Athletic Director, resigned to accept the same position in the Bedford Central School District; taking up the helm as Athletic Director is Austin Goldberg, who comes to us from the Tuckahoe schools, where he served as Athletic Director.
The district has added two important director-level positions which will help move our work forward: Anchala Sobrin has been brought on board as the Director of STEM, and Madeleine Sanchez has been appointed Director of ELL and MLL Services. Anchala has already visited Hillcrest one morning during the Math work with Dr. Ardito, and they will both be spending time in our buildings helping us to move both initiatives.
Madeleine Sanchez, Director or ELL & MLL
Anchala Sobrin, Director of STEM
New Faces at Hillcrest
Melissa Magnotta will be joining us as a 5th-grade teacher who will be teaching Math/Science/SS opposite her ELA partner, Julia Levy.
Although it is still not official until the next board meeting, Brittany Doino will be joining us in the LOA position in 5th grade, teaching ELA, and teamed up with her partner Jamie Rossi.
Rachel Moczarski will be joining us full-time as our School Counselor. Rachel has been the school counselor at Oakside, and so she comes to us knowing 99% of our students!
We are excited to have them join our team this year!
Leadership Shifts at Oakside School
By now, you may have heard that Oakside Assistant Principal Ann Narcisse has resigned to accept a position in the Hen Hud School District. You may have also heard that this presented a unique opportunity for Staci Woodley, who has decided to step back from her role as principal of Oakside to assume the AP role on special assignment. As Staci wrote in her email to the Oakside staff: “As you know, I take all of the responsibilities in my life very seriously. While spending time in self-reflection, I tried to figure out how to do well in all of the areas I am responsible for in my personal and professional lives. In this season of caring for my family and aging parents, it is a blessing that I have an opportunity to step aside as the Oakside principal while still playing an integral part as a building administrator. Opportunities like this rarely happen. I am going to seize the moment and transition into a special assignment role of Assistant Principal at Oakside. This allows me to care for my family more and still continue our journey in becoming a school in good standing.” Staci is a great reminder of our Sanctuary training and how as educators working in trauma-informed schools, we have to remain mindful of the analogy of the airplane oxygen mask: they remind us on every flight that should the cabin pressure change and oxygen masks are deployed from above, it is imperative that we affix our own mask before attempting to help the children or elderly around us. I’m grateful that I will be able to continue working alongside Staci as a colleague, and that she will be able to continue to work on behalf of the children of Peekskill while balancing the demands of being a parent and caretaker at home.
Familiar Face, Additional Responsibilities
Superintendent's Conference Day Sneak Preview
We are still in the planning phase for our Superintendent’s Conference Days on August 28 & 29, but there will likely be a Welcome Back address by Dr. Mauricio on the morning of the 28th, and time for grade level and department/content area teams. Two things we would like you to be thinking about in advance of our time together as a full staff are:
What is one of your favorite memories of elementary school? (a project, lesson, learning activity, experience, etc.)
Why did you become a teacher? What made you choose this profession, and what keeps you in this profession, in spite of the many challenges?
You don’t have to write an essay about each of these questions, but as you let it ruminate in your mind, it might be helpful to jot your thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. down as a note in your phone, on post-it notes, in your writers notebook, in a google doc, etc.
Summer Vacay Photos!
Keep emailing/texting your summer vacay photos; I will include them in my next summer update to staff. If you are texting them to me at 646-321-8298, be sure to let me know who you are if you haven’t already been texting me -- other wise I am having to guess at who is having such a great time (a fun game for me, but I don’t want to attribute your vacation to someone else!).
Room Prep
We know many of you are eager and excited to get back into school (really!) and would like to know when your rooms will be available for you to come in and begin set-up. The custodial team has been hard at work and are making great progress. We will let you know as spaces become available for you. In the meantime, relax a bit and enjoy NOT being able to get into your classrooms yet!
Summer Math Work with Dr. Ardito
Some of our colleagues gathered for 3 mornings recently to work on some planning for departmentalization and curricular planning with Dr. Ardito. Crystal and I were on our Adminstrative Retreat and couldn’t attend, but we heard it was very successful! Thank you to all of our teachers who attended, to Dr. Ardito, and to TA’s Solia Alvarado and Rachel Hess who volunteered to attend for the learning opportunity!
Student Summer Check-in Picnics!
As you may recall, we schedule two summer check-ins so that our new 4th grade students and our incoming 5th graders can come and check in with us. They are encouraged to bring their Summer Engagement packets for us to see, and we usually share a read aloud and discuss the books they have been reading and some of the packet activities. Andrew from Food Services is usually helpful in providing us with bagged lunches, and we usually have cookies and trinkets to share with the students and their families as well. You are all invited to join us at 12 Noon on July 30 and August 27, as we usually ask students to break up into small groups with staff volunteers to talk about their summer, their summer reading, the activities, and what they are looking forward to in the upcoming school year. If you are able to give an hour of your time and would like to attend, let us know by clicking here to sign up on a google sheet. We appreciate any help you can provide on behalf of our kids.
Also: we sent a revised packet to our incoming 5th graders, as we realized that some of the activities in the packet (which was the same as last summer) were really not worth repeating. If you are curious about the summer engagement packets, you can see the newly revised incoming 5th grader packet by clicking this link: Grade 5 Revised Summer Engagement Packet The packet for 4th graders can be accessed through THIS LINK.
Summer Mobile Food Pantry
We were so pleased to have so many volunteers in June and July for the Mobile Food Pantry visits to Hillcrest (see photo). The next visit will take place on August 15 (this is a NEW date replacing the previously announced August 8) and we can still use some volunteers for that date. If you are able to give some time, please sign up via this google sign up sheet.