Principal Garcia's Newsletter
Friday, January 5, 2024
Torey J. Sabatini School
Important Upcoming Dates
- January 8 - 12, 2024 - Hygiene Drive Collection extended (select items only)...please see below!
- January 9, 2024 - MPS BOE Meeting at 7:30 PM
- January 10, 2024 - PTO General Meeting 7:00 PM Art Room
- January 11, 2024 - Grade 2 Breakfast with the Principal
- January 15, 2024 - Schools Closed, MLK Jr. Day
- January 15, 2024 - Incoming Kindergarten and First Grade Student Registration Opens
- January 26, 2024 - Grade 2 Awesome Art
- January 31, 2024 - District Speaker: The Impact of Screens & Social Media (info below) 7:00 PM at MJS
- February 1, 2024 - March 1, 2024 - Black History Month
- February 2, 2024 - TJS Spirit Wear Day
- February 9, 2024 - Grade 3 Breakfast with the Principal
January Monthly Activity Calendar
Click the link below to access and print the calendar for the month of JANUARY. As a family try to do as many of the boxes as you can during the entire month of January! You will see that many of the activities are geared toward indoor activities to do inside on these cold days. You may even consider completing these during the anticipated snow this weekend! A huge THANK YOU to Special Area Teachers, Ms. D'Amico, Mr. Gerenstein, Mrs. McEachern, Ms. Obermaier, and Mr. Locke, for creating this month's activity calendar!
Renaissance Star Testing
Our second window of Star administration is occurring during the month of January. The Star assessments are diagnostic assessments designed to provide educators and parents with important information about a student's progress. Students in grades 1-5 take the Star reading and/or early literacy assessment as well as the Star mathematics assessment benchmarked for their specific grade. To read general information about the Star assessments, parents are encouraged to visit their family resources page.
Kindergarten teachers administer the Star CBMs (Curriculum Based Measures) in both reading and mathematics. The Fall kindergarten reading assessments assess a student's understanding of letters and their sounds, basic phonological awareness, and early decoding. The kindergarten math assessments include recognizing numerals and their value. Often times the CBMs may be administered in other grade levels, on an as-needed individual basis. For more information regarding the Star CBMs, please click here.
Important News from Mrs. Bletcher
Happy new year! First, I want to send out a great big, THANK YOU for donating to our BRIDGES hygiene drive. We collected hundreds of items and are so grateful for your generosity. In order for students to create these important hygiene kits, we are short-handed on a few items. If you happen to have any of the following toiletries at home, or are able to pick them up between today and Friday, 1/12, we would be very grateful. Students can continue to drop items off to the bins located on the first floor connector hallway. Hygiene kits will be assembled on a day of service with the students participating during the week of 1/15 in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday.
School Counseling Lessons
During the two weeks leading up to winter break, I had the pleasure of teaching school-wide counseling lessons. The focus of the kindergarten and first grade lesson was understanding styles of conflict. Students were introduced to three animals, each representing a different way to solve a problem. Students then had to use the animals to determine how their friends solved a variety of problems.
Class lessons in grades 2-5 focused on learning the definition and 4 types of bullying. Based on their understanding, students had to determine and discuss whether a variety of situations were bullying or conflict. At the conclusion of the lesson, we began to discuss ways to stop bullying, which will be the focus of my next series of lessons.
Important Message Regarding Student Usage of Smartwatches at School
Parents...we need your help to reiterate the expectations surrounding the use of smartwatches while at school. After the holidays we typically see an increase in students wearing smartwatches who received them as a holiday gift. While this is very exciting for the students, it often results in it being a distraction during their instructional day. If your child chooses to wear a smartwatch to school, we ask that you please have a conversation with them about not using it in a distracting way (i.e. playing games, taking pictures, recording others, alarms going off, making phone calls to parents). Please note that if your child's watch is becoming a distraction in any way, classroom teachers have been instructed to have the child remove the watch and either keep it in their backpack for the day or confiscate it for the day and it will be returned at the end of the day. We thank you in advance for your cooperation and attention to this matter in helping us ensure an environment that is conducive to learning at all times.
Incoming Kindergarten and First Grade Student Registration Opens
CLICK HERE to access information regarding registration and residency requirements for new students to Madison Public Schools who will be entering kindergarten or first grade during the 2024-2025 school year. For your student’s registration to be processed, you must log in to the site, enter the appropriate information, and complete or upload the required forms. The portal for registration will open on January 15, 2024. Parents/guardians are encouraged to register your children sooner rather than later.
Important Health Office Updates and Reminders for the New Year
Student Illness
The beginning of the new year is also the beginning of cold, flu and covid-19 season. If your child has a fever and/or any of the symptoms of Covid-19 or flu (cough, sore throat, chills,headache, vomiting), please keep them home from school and take them to the pediatrician to be evaluated. Your doctor will determine if a test for Covid-19 or the flu is needed. The New Jersey Department of Health Communicable Disease Service mandates that all students stay home from school if they have a fever and remain home until they are fever-free (without the use of fever reducing medications) for a full 24 hours prior to returning to school. If your child is diagnosed with Covid-19 or the flu, please contact me directly to discuss return to school procedures and timeline. For your convenience, Covid-19 district policies and helpful Covid-19 infographics can be found here: https://www.madisonpublicschools.org/article/1228204. I have also linked the NJDOH exclusion list which provides a detailed description of communicable diseases and the required school exclusion time period (not limited to Covid-19 and the flu): https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/documents/topics/outbreaks/School_Exclusion_List.pdf.
Brrrr…It’s Cold Out There:
Winter is upon us, and while we enjoyed some mild temperatures over the holiday break, our first snowfall of the season is expected this weekend. Please dress your children in layers for the school day and ensure that they have a coat, hat and gloves or mittens for recess (outdoor recess is regularly scheduled throughout the winter, temperatures and weather conditions permitting).
Attention 5th Grade Parents/Guardians: Mandatory 5th Grade Immunizations
As a reminder, when your child turns 11 years old they are required to have 2 additional vaccinations, Meningococcal and TDAP, in order to enter grade 6 in the fall. As you begin to schedule your child’s well visit around their birthday, please remember to follow up with the necessary immunizations and documentation that is required for entry into school. Please see the attached document for the necessary form and return it to the TJS health office upon completion. Should your child’s appointment be scheduled over the summer months, please send the form to the MJS nurse, Pauline Bliss, RN at blissp@madisonnjps.org.
Student Attendance
Student school attendance is critical for the overall school success of your child. Madison Public Schools District Regulation 5200 - Student Attendance, outlines the many aspects of student attendance including the possible actions for unexcused student absences. In the case of 4 or more cumulative unexcused absences, the school is required to notify the parents. Please note that absences accrue if your child is not in school for the minimum number of hours to be counted as a full day of instruction. If you need assistance with your child attending school, please contact your child's teacher, our counselor, or school nurse.
News from STEAM/Technology Teacher, Ms. D'Amico
Our 3rd grade students have begun their robotics unit and are enjoying using our new VEX GO kits! VEX integrates engineering and coding in a collaborative setting. Students have started exploring their kits by completing their first build of a person and are diving deeper into how they can use their kits to create more complex models like animals. Later in the unit students will begin to create robots they can code using an online platform.
News from Mr. Gerenstein
Hello everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fantastic break. We will implement new recess equipment for 2024. We recently ordered new equipment to try to help with providing equal access to balls at recess. Each grade level will receive a designated color-coded bag. Each bag will have Two soft throwing balls, a football, a soccer ball, a basketball, a playground/foursquare ball, a gaga ball, jump ropes, and a frisbee. We hope this new process will bring more accountability to the students to return the balls to their grade level bag and ensure we have plenty of equipment for everyone throughout the school year. With this change, students should refrain from bringing their own personal footballs, basketballs etc. to school to use.
Fourth Graders Working on Self Portraits in Ms. Obermaier's Art Class
Upcoming Parent Workshop
The Impact of Screens & Social Media: Keeping Your Kids Healthy & Safe
Madison Junior School & Project Community Pride of the Madison Area YMCA hosts a parent workshop: “The Impact of Screens & Social Media: Keeping Your Kids Healthy & Safe”
Wednesday, January 31, 2024 at 7:00PM Madison Junior School Auditorium
Presented by: Lauren Muriello
Lauren will address the Impact of Screens & Social Media on Children & Teens including:
• The impact of social media on children, teens and beyond
• The social media lifestyle - tech happy, or tech terrible?
• The latest research and trends - get in the know
• To Monitor or Not to Monitor, That is the Question
• How to Teach Critical Thinking Skills
• Take Control, or Lose Control
• Your Role as Parent - How to Really Get Through
• Creating a Healthy Balance for Your Child
PLEASE JOIN US FOR A WONDERFUL & IMPORTANT PROGRAM! Any questions, please contact Christine McIntyre at 973-845-6480
Special thanks to the Madison Elks Lodge for their generous donation.
Lauren Muriello, LPC is the Founder of Well Being Therapy Center She is a licensed psychotherapist and educational speaker having presented dynamic programs on trending topics in mental health and parenting education. Lauren Muriello, MA, LPC Licensed Psychotherapist Founder of Well Being Therapy Center Montville & Short Hills, NJ
Please join us at our next general PTO meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 10th at 7pm. All parents are welcome and encouraged to attend! We will discuss plans for our spring programming. Principal Garcia will present on the district’s MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support.
More library volunteer slots have opened up for January and February! Grab a friend and help re-shelve books — times available every Tuesday and Thursday 12-1pm.
2024 Madison Lacrosse Registration
Click HERE to access a registration form for the Spring 2024 Madison Boys Jr. Lacrosse season.