Dear Parents and Caregivers,

It seems hard to believe that we are over halfway through the school year and that spring is right around the corner! The fourth quarter has got off to a great start, with sixth grade students starting the registration process for next year, our Band, Orchestra and Chorus practices well underway to get ready for a Spring Concert in June, and our iReady Reading and Math Grade Level Competitions are running strong.

During the third quarter, our Eagle Challenge Attendance Competitions came to a close with a Student vs Staff Basketball game and pizza parties for our Attendance and iReady grade level winners. During this quarter, we also celebrated students who SOAR with different activities like a Luau, Bingo and the SOAR Cart. We also receive over 500 books from Bank of America to be distributed to all our winners. Our Spirit week was also a success with students and staff. My favorite day was "Wacky Wednesday". On this day, students dressed like their favorite adult in the building and staff dressed like a student. It was great to see so many students participating during Spirit Week! Check out some of our photos from the different events held during the third quarter through this newsletter.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued support in helping us work towards our school's believe of soaring to do our best and soaring for success and our school's goals:

1. Implement RCSD ELA and Math curriculum with high-quality instruction.
2. Implement social-emotional learning competencies and the community school model while building community partnerships.
3. Differentiate instructing in grade-level content

Together we believe in all students, challenge all students, and support all students. As we enter a new season, I also wanted to take this opportunity to discuss an upcoming change within our Administration Team.

Our Blue House Assistant Principal Ellis has ended her amazing education career and is looking forward to spending time with her family as she starts her new retirement journey. In efforts to best support our students and our families, Assistant Principal Pappas will be the new House Administrator for the Blue House. Lisa Pritchard, who has been an outstanding teacher at School 33 will be filling in as the Acting Assistant Principal for the Gold House. Please know that during this transition, the entire administration team will work together to ensure our students are fully supported.

Lastly, we want to thank all our parents for their understanding and support to our dismissal procedures. We would like to remind our families that early dismissal ends at 2:30 pm. We do not call students out of class from 2:30 until 3:00 pm. Students who are picked up are release to the gym at 2:45 pm. for parent pick up. All other students are dismissed by the PA system once most of our busses are lined up in the bus loop and not before 2:50 pm. If your child rides a bus and is being picked up, please call the Main Office at (585) 482- 9290 by 1:30 pm.

Last but not least we want to say thank you for all you have done to you support your child’s academic success this school year! With your support and your child’s knowledge and effort we know our scholars will shine!

Our Florence S. Brown Pre-Kindergarten student have been busy exploring habitats, weather, seasons and colors. In our classroom we have been creating habitats using various items in our classroom and taking walks in our garden to look for signs of spring. We have found beautiful crocus and snowdrops blooming and a robin has made a nest near our slide. Students are practicing counting and measuring when they creating things using items in our block area. We have been reading Over in the Meadow, Let’s Look at Spring, and One Duck Stuck.

Kindergarteners have been learning how to identify their emotions using the Zones of Regulation during Morning Meetings. In English Language Arts the children are working on transferring their knowledge of letters and sounds to blend them into words. In Math we are focusing on teen numbers and counting by 1 and 10 to 100. In Social Studies we have been learning about Famous Black Americans and we were treated to a song about MLK by Mrs. Williams's Kindergarten class during our house huddle. We all completely enjoyed the readers from the community for World Read Aloud Day.

First grade had a very busy yet fun 3rd quarter! We were very busy exploring science through hands-on experiments. The kids enjoyed touching worms and learning about how worms make compost for agricultural literacy week. Students also enjoyed making Oobleck. We also made predictions and observations with Peeps in water, vinegar, and soda. We shared adjectives that described how Peeps felt in our hands before eating them! Yum!

Students have enjoyed learning about the solar system and the patterns we experience throughout the year. In skills, we are learning long vowels with vowel teams and continue to strengthen our short vowel knowledge. We have learned about biographies, informational texts, and finding the main idea in stories. In math, we have learned place value, greater than less than, and word problems. We have learned a variety of strategies to solve problems. Students enjoy sharing their noticing's and wonderings with each other through math dialogue. Next quarter, we are excited to plant seeds and learn about plants. Also, we look forward to learning about shapes and their attributes. We are also hoping to sneak in a field trip! We are all excited that Spring has sprung as we are able to enjoy some outdoor recess! Bring on the warm weather!

This quarter second grade has been working on addition and subtraction with and without regrouping and is now moving into using arrays to introduce multiplication. In writing we are continuing work on narratives and adding adjectives into our writing so that it is more interesting for the reader. In reading we are working on comprehension while reading and listening. Second grade is also very busy learning how to write in longer sentences that connect to make single thought paragraphs. In Social Studies we are finishing our communities unit and launching our Black History unit. In Science we are learning about states of matter and we just finished a unit on changing earth and erosion and are starting on animal habitats and are looking forward to our field trip to the zoo in May to finish the unit. Lots of learning and fun is happening!

The team is currently working on opinion writing using a rubric for all to see what is expected and how to meet the writing goals. Daily lessons from MyView/My Focus are being utilized to engage all students in standards with 3rd grade rigor. Our students are exposed to daily instruction in leveled groups for Reading. We are happy to share that our third grade students have shown by data collection that their levels are increasing dramatically in reading and math. Valentine’s celebrations and 100th day celebrations took place with our third graders as well as plans to initiate I Ready 100% celebrations are in motion. Students from all our classrooms have fully engaged in SOAR practices, with multiple students invited to SOAR Breakfast days and ice cream Fridays.

Our fourth graders have been busy learning! They have been working on analyzing text features in informational text as well as identifying the main idea and answering questions using text-based evidence. Students also have been discussing character traits and making text- to- self connections. In addition, students spent time acting out a multicultural play by taking on various roles to bring it to life while determining the theme and supporting it with examples. Memorizing math facts, geometry and fractions have been the focus in math. For Black History Month, students were learning about influential African American people, leaders, inventors, and athletes. Students had fun identifying simple machines in the classroom and at home and seeing how they are useful and how they make work easier. They also have been studying energy and forces, including experimenting with ramps and cars.

The fifth grade classes are working very hard on our fractions unit! By the end of the year, our students will be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions. For English Language Arts we are working on various genres of literature. We have been reading poetry and discussing literary elements. We also read several realistic fiction pieces and discussed the plot diagram. We are working hard to write well-constructed paragraphs and responses to literature using RACE responses. RACES stands for Restate the question. Answer the question. Cite evidence. Explain how your evidence supports your answers. As our children are getting older, they are coming in contact more with the internet and social media. We are utilizing the Tech Department to assist with teaching our children internet safety and social media awareness. As always, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher with any questions or concerns.

The 6th graders have been very busy preparing for the end of this school year and their educational journey here at School #33. They demonstrated true grit, determination and perseverance during the NYS ELA test and the NYSAA. They worked extremely hard showing all that they have learned this year as well as during all of their years at School #33. We have been celebrating positive behavior and great attendance with visits to the SOAR store, a BINGO event and a staff-student basketball game. Planning has begun for our 6th grade moving up ceremony that will take place in June.

On March 18, Assemblymember Harry Bronson visited School 33. He met with some of our students to talk about our school and education in general. He also brought a number of school supplies to be distributed among our students. Thank you Assemblymember Bronson for your visit and donation to our school!

School #33 welcomes to our Administration Team and school family our new Community School Site Based Coordinator, Alexci Reyes. Mr. Reyes has been a member of RCSD for 16 years. He has served in the capacity of teacher, Latino Studies Coach and now our newest building administrator. In his new role, he will be working on strengthening partnerships with community members and families. Currently his is updating our Food Pantry, getting to know our staff, students and community partners. If you need to contact Mr. Reyes directly please call (585) 482-9290 ext. 1909 or via email at alexci.reyes@rcsdk12.org.