November 2023
Primary Education Center Newsletter
One Purpose. Your Pathway. Our Promise.
Dear PEC Families & Friends,
We have so much to be grateful for in this school community. Thank you to all our families who completed the Parent Leader In Me survey. Your feedback will help us grow and support our school goals for the next two years in alignment with our District Strategic Plan. Our building leadership team will be reviewing all the feedback from families and staff. We look forward to sharing our work with you in the future. It is our hope that we will support our students in growing life habits that will support a growth mindset as they contribute to our community with confidence. Our first trimester will close on December 1st. Please be on the lookout for information from your classroom teacher regarding the process for Parent-Teacher Conferences. We have dedicated one full day on December 8th for these important teacher-parent conversations. We value the opportunity to collaborate with you on your child's educational plans. The first trimester parent-teacher conference provides the opportunity for families to review the growth, academic achievement and individual goals for their child.
In closing, during this season of gratitude I want to communicate how grateful I am for a dedicated staff who give their personal best every day to our shared mission. I am equally grateful for our supportive families who partner with us to create the best pathway for their child(ren). I am full of appreciation for all of my students who teach me life lessons daily. In this spirit of gratitude, consider having your child submit an note, poem or artwork one of their teachers or school helpers this month: What are you thankful for?
Check out our Morning News Program clips in Seesaw led by our dynamic PEC Student News Production Crew. Please check out the Lewiston-Porter CSD app to stay updated on information on school events and happenings throughout the day.
Respectfully yours,
Mrs. Tamara Larson
Principal, Primary Education Center
Fall Response to Intervention
The Lewiston-Porter Primary Education Center recognizes a wide range of interests and abilities within our student population. Children in the earliest grades demonstrate learning strengths and needs along a broad continuum in each academic area. All teachers strive to implement the best teaching practices in their classrooms to support the most rapid and successful attainment of learning goals for all our learners.
As we work with your children, we are mindful that some will need enrichment because they are demonstrating skills beyond what is expected of them at this time. On the other hand, we are mindful that some will need interventions because they need support to demonstrate success with skills expected of them at this time. Some students may need a little of both. We are here to meet their needs–whatever they are. In fact, our school implements a multi-tiered, school-wide academic service delivery system. We use research-based interventions, progress monitoring, and ongoing data evaluation to help students improve.
Specifically, we use the Response to Intervention (RtI) Model to identify which students may need enrichment and/or interventions. This model uses data to drive decisions on student needs. Specifically, we use a standard protocol to determine if a student will receive academic interventions. As part of this protocol, our school administers universal screening to all students in Kindergarten through second grade three times per year to identify students who are not making academic progress at expected rates in both reading and math. To learn more about this process, please see the Student Evaluation, Promotion, and Placement Handbook.
Our universal screener, aimswebPlus, generates scores that are used to determine when/if students qualify for academic interventions. You can click here to learn how to access your child’s aimswebPlus Universal Screening Results. The report will provide you with a percentile rank for your child in reading and math. The percentile rank indicates your child’s standing compared to other children in the same grade nationwide. It shows the percent of students that your child scored as high as or higher than. For example, a percentile rank of 60 means that your child scored as high as or higher than 60% of children in the same grade.
Please note, our standard protocol does not consider the aimswebPlus recommendations. Therefore, if you see something in your child’s report that differs from what your child has actually qualified for in school, don’t be alarmed. We are committed to providing your child with the best possible support for their success.
If your child qualifies for interventions using our standard protocol, you will receive a separate communication from the teacher and intervention provider. As well, the interventions will be closely monitored. We will provide you with ongoing communication on your child’s progress; students who respond to the interventions will be dismissed from that service and those who need additional academic support or other related services will continue to receive support.
Please contact me or your child’s teacher if you need further assistance in understanding how your child’s score compared to national scores. Your child’s teacher will inform you if your child needs any level of Academic Intervention Services (AIS). Thank you for your support and involvement in your child’s educational plan.
As we begin a new year let’s start by setting a goal to really make sense of numbers. Some of you may wonder what that means. Well, the term “number sense” refers to several important math abilities or skills that help us to all work with numbers in a variety of ways. It includes understanding quantities, ordering numbers, understanding concepts of more and less, comparing numbers, and understanding symbols to name a few. As adults these concepts may seem simple or natural, but to our young learners they can be challenging and seem abstract. However, building a strong foundation in number sense is critical as it is the foundation for mathematical thinking. Each month we will work on building our number sense a little bit more! Okay...so let’s get started!
As you noticed the images above, you may have immediately recognized image A as the value 5. Your years of experience and exposure to that organized pattern has taught you that. As you look at images B - E notice how you think about or notice them differently. You may group the dots in certain ways. For example, in image B you likely see a group of 3 and a group of 2 so you know there are 5. Show each image to your child one at a time for just a few seconds. Then ask them how much they see, but more importantly, ask them how they knew it! You may get answers like:
I counted all the dots (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
I saw 2 groups of 2 and 1 in the middle so I know 2 + 2 is 4 and 1 more is 5.
I saw a group of 4 and then a 1 so that is 5.
I just knew it was 5 (indicates strong number sense).
It is important to know that no response is more correct than another. Your child’s response is simply a reflection of where they are within the process of building their number sense. As a child moves from counting 1 object at a time to grouping smaller parts to help identify the whole amount (I see 2 and 3 and that is 5) their number sense is growing stronger!
So, how can you help build number sense at home? Playing games with dice, dominoes and cards is a family friendly way to support number sense. Some examples include, War, Go Fish and Yahtzee. Some fun family ideas for dice games can be found using the link below. Have fun and learn at the same time...Habit 4 Think Win-Win !
Be on the lookout for some holiday gift ideas for your child in the next newsletter!
If there is something math related that you are interested in knowing more about, please let me know at rorsi@lew-port.com. Until next month...remember...Math Rocks!
Niagara Hospice invited our school to participate in the first ever “Thinking of You” campaign to kickoff November as Hospice Month. Students colored butterflies in many unique and beautiful ways. Each coloring page will be given to Niagara Hospice patients and caregivers to brighten their day. As the only hospice care provider in Niagara County, Niagara Hospice provides care to over 1,000 patients and their families every year.
Mr. Hays led our lighthouse leaders with a spider race challenge. Groups were working together practicing team building skills and many of the 7 Habits.
In music class Kindergarteners learned how to play a steady beat on the xylophone. Miss Mosier showed them how to play an accompaniment to the song “Pass The Pumpkin” while their classmates sang.
Benji Casale & Katelyn Tempest
Mario Talarico
Gabriel Cruz
Ella Clark
Keagan Lee
Owen Quant
First graders love talking about the many characters in our stories! In October, we celebrated that learning by creating a Character Pumpkin Display for the entire PEC to enjoy in the front hallway. For this family project, students chose a character from a favorite book to recreate, write a book report about and present it to their classmates. Everyone was pumped for all of the Pumpkin sharing!
Our PEC friends got to display their costumes to all of their friends and family in our annual Halloween Parade. We were excited to welcome everyone to enjoy. If you had to miss it we were able to capture what fun it was, click below!
Our pre k students in Miss Peters class were excited to share their kindness with the Niagara Falls Fire Department.
Kindergarten was lucky enough to start their year off with a fun field trip to Baker Farm!
Our first graders got to explore the Buffalo Zoo, on a beautiful fall day!
Our Primary and Intermediate buildings welcomed guests Aaron Printup and the Tuscarora School elementary dancers. Mr. Printup presented information about Native American culture through dance and song. Mr. Printup is a teacher at the Tuscarora School and a member of the Tuscarora Nation. All of our students got to enjoy their perfomance.
Getting Started with Parent Portal
If you are a parent/guardian that has not yet had an opportunity to set up your parent portal, please take some time to do so as soon as possible. Having access to parent portal and using the app can be a helpful way to receive important information regarding your child's grades, missing assignments, and other important updates. This is especially true for parents of students in grades 3-12. It can also be used to verify your contact information, as you'll see in the next section. Parent Portal also gives you access to Porfolio + which is a data warehouse that we use to distribute report cards, Aimsweb reports and NYS testing data. To access the parent portal, visit our website and click on the icon that looks like the image you see pictured here on the right.
If you are trying to reset your username or password, there is a link on the sign-in page. Follow the prompts and check your email. Sometimes it may find its way into your spam box. Once you get the email you should be able to reset your account.
If you are new to Parent Portal, you should have received a letter that would give you access codes to get connected. If you did not get that letter, or if you experience difficulty getting signed up, you may call your child's school for assistance.
Click this link to visit the Parent Portal Resource Page on our website. Here you will find everything you need. I have also included some resources for you here:
1. Links to the apps:
PowerSchool App (Google Play Store)
PowerSchool App (Apple Store)
2. Video on how to get set up with PowerSchool (see below).
3. Written instructions are also available here.
*Parents will need a working email address, and a PowerSchool Access Code. This is provided by the school at the start of the year. If you need that information, please contact the main office of your child's school. For the app, you will also need the district code CSXQ.
Updating Contact Information in Parent Portal
Mobile Hotspot
Dear Families:
At Lewiston-Porter we have made a strong effort to ensure that all students have equitable access to digital materials while they're at school and while they're at home. To that end, we have partnered with T-Mobile to offer free mobile hotspots to families that are in need.
If you would like to request a hotspot please complete the form below.