Superintendent's Update

November 2024

Dear Rye Neck Families,

The Rye Neck Student Aid Fund is a non-profit organization that awards scholarships to Rye Neck seniors on a need-basis to assist them with the initial transition to higher education. Active since 1941, they have provided financial assistance to graduating seniors and this year they seek to help the Rye Neck Class of 2025 pursue their future goals. Please see the 2024-25 Student Aid Fund introductory letter and visit their page on our website to learn how to participate.

Best regards,

Dr. Eric Lutinski
Superintendent of Schools

Strategic Plan Update

Our staff shifted gears to focus on Strategic Plan Goal #2-- to Create Connections with Purpose-- on our second early release professional learning day last Wednesday. Our teaching assistants, aides, and monitors worked with a consultant from ESS (Effective School Solutions, our mental wellness partner) on de-escalation techniques to reduce tempers in every-day crises. Meanwhile, our teaching staff and specialists worked with Rye Neck PPS Director Wil Siegel. Through a short video series, the staff worked in table groups on exercises designed to increase awareness and capacity for empathy.

This work reinforced past professional learning on creating environments that are welcoming for students with various backgrounds, such as our learning on how to avoid the “single story”, where we only see people from one perspective. It also reinforced our awareness of the relationship between students’ emotional states and their capacity to learn, as with our grades 3-8 RULER approach. This portion of our Strategic Planning effort reflects the value we place on “close knit community”.

We will be using our Tuesday Superintendent’s Conference Day time for additional Strategic Planning work on the Question Formulation Technique, as well as school-based work in teams and departments. Also, a team from BOCES will visit to provide CPR and AED training for 30 staff members.

We will be using “hashtags” associated with each goal to help celebrate the achievements and milestones of the Strategic Plan. All faculty and students in grades 5-12 have been voting on choices for each goal and the Strategic Plan as a whole. Voting closes today, so I am eager to see what identities they have chosen to represent aspects of our Head, Heart, and Hands.

PSQ

As you saw in the message earlier today from Director of Technology and Communications Mary Lanza, we will be launching ParentSquare in the near future to make school-home communication easier. “PSQ” will facilitate messages, communicating in preferred languages, and access to calendars and other forms. We would like your feedback to help guide the way we use this platform, so please take some time to complete this brief Communications Survey by Monday, November 18th.

Staff Spotlight

We also like to highlight teachers and other staff members each month. Each shares personal reflections on how they got into education, memories from their time as students, and their favorite activities outside of school. To read about a staff member, click on the name below their picture.