RES NEWS

Dear RES Community,

Happy Spring! We are looking forward to warmer weather in the coming weeks.

We are so excited for our school musical, Peter Pan Jr.!

We hope you will come out to see the show later this week! A huge thank you to our directors, Mrs. Ottinger and Mr. Loucks, for their leadership and direction! Our students are working so hard, both cast and crew. Another shout out to our parent volunteers and the RES School Musical Production Team for the countless hours of behind the scenes work. THANK YOU!

Our PTA is sponsoring an all school enrichment experience on Friday, March 28th with award winning author/illustrator, David Ezra Stein. Thank you to Mrs. Paradiso, RES Library Media Specialist, for coordinating this event!

As was previously communicated, spring conferences take place in April. During this conference period, meetings are not expected for every student. For many students, a recent meeting or ongoing communication may be adequate enough not to necessitate a meeting. A parent/caregiver or a teacher may request a spring conference.

Our parent-teacher conferences will take place on April 10th and 11th, both of which will be early release days for students. We will also have an evening option for conferences on April 10th. Spring conferences will be scheduled for fifteen-minute sessions.

If a parent/caregiver would like to request a conference, please get in touch with your child's teacher by March 28th. Conference schedules are intended to be finalized by April 4th.

Please note that 5th grade conferences will not discuss math placement.

Please remind your friends, family, neighbors, and other community members with kindergarten-eligible children to enroll them today so that Ridgebury can plan for our youngest students. The full information with details about eligibility can be found here. All waiver requests for consideration for early entrance to kindergarten must be submitted by April 1, 2025. Our mini-k experience is fast approaching and only pre-registered students may attend. Please reach out to the RES main office with any questions!

My best,

Mary

Mary Scalise, Principal

Traci Mayette, Assistant Principal

Thursday, March 27, 2025: Peter Pan Jr. 6:30 PM

Friday, March 28, 2025: PTA Enrichment - Author Visit: David Ezra Stein

Friday, March 28, 2025: PowerSchool Parent Portal Opens with Report Cards

Friday, March 28, 2025: Peter Pan Jr. 6:30 PM

Wednesday, April 2, 2025: Grade 4 PTA Enrichment: Keeler Tavern

Monday April 7, 2025: PTA Enrichment Acrobat Performance

Thursday, April 10, 2025: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Spring Conferences (afternoon and evening)

Friday, April 11, 2025: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Spring Conferences

Monday, April 14 - Friday, April 18, 2025: NO SCHOOL - Spring Recess

Tuesday, April 22, 2025: Earth Day

Thursday, April 24, 2025: PTA Enrichment - Kindergarten Prospector Visit

As you may have read in Dr. Da Silva's newsletter, there are several important evening meetings this coming week. On Monday evening, the Board of Finance (BOF) will be holding a Public Hearing at 7:00 p.m. at East Ridge Middle School. This hearing is an important opportunity for community members to share their thoughts with members of the BOF on the Board of Education’s (BOE) adopted budget. If you are unable to attend the meeting, you may email the BOF members here. On Tuesday evening, the BOE will hold their regular meeting where BOE members will learn about the new recommended math resource for middle school students. Wednesday, the administration, alongside the BOE will present the BOE adopted budget to the BOF. Ultimately, the BOF makes the final decision on the budget to be presented to the community for a vote. For this reason, it is imperative that the RPS community share their thoughts on the operating budget.

Emma's poster was selected as our winning design in this year's poster contest. Emma's poster will be printed and available for purchase at our school musical, Peter Pan Jr. All sales will go directly to our PTA fundraising efforts.

Congratulations Declan, Ben and Hudson on a great season!

Hadley interviewed relatives and shared her family's story of immigration. She was recognized at the Ridgefield Playhouse on March 12, 2025!

To continue their unit on Space, artists learned about the use of perspective drawing and how it can be used in various artforms to depict spatial relationships and add interest. Artists practiced the technique in a variety of ways and had options for how they wanted to use perspective drawing to create a work of art.

Grade 2 students participated in a study about primary plants earlier this month. A big thanks to our PTA for coordinating a fun and enriching experience for our students!

The Ridgefield Public Schools have established guidelines that ensure we have a welcoming and safe school community.

Dropping off an item: If you have something to drop off for your child during the school day such as a forgotten lunch or instrument, please place the item on the table and label it with the child’s name and teacher. We will provide the item to the student.

Visitors are admitted by appointment only. At Ridgebury, we use a daily visitor log, where faculty and staff list expected RES visitors each morning. Typical visit reasons include: meeting/conference, mystery reader, parent volunteer, etc.

Please be sure to have your driver’s license ready to be scanned once you are admitted into the building. All visitors must wear a visitor sticker when in the building.

All visitors must enter the school through the main doors - never enter from another area of the school.

Thank you for your attention to this process.

Mrs. Paradiso will be reviewing the acceptable use policy in all library classes over the month of September. All families have access to and agree to the district technology policies when they sign the student handbook in PowerSchool at the beginning of the school year.

• School Dismissal Manager (SDM) is an easy-to-use mobile and desktop interface that allows you to make these changes in advance or for the current day. You can also report student absences, late arrivals, early dismissals and even schedule recurring dismissal instructions for after-school activities.

• We are utilizing SDM's Late Arrival feature so that you can let the school know when your child will be arriving late. Select the day on the calendar that your child will be arriving late, then select Add Late Arrival, fill out the reason and click Submit. When reporting a late arrival for the current day, please note that the cutoff time is 8:45 am. Upon arrival, your child must still check in with the security guard at RES.

• Requests for pickup must be made through the School Dismissal Manager (SDM) system. We assume every student rides their bus to school and home. This is the default setting in SDM. An alternative plan, what SDM terms as “exceptions” must be entered before 11:15 am.

• In the event that you have an emergency and need an alternative plan after 11:15, please contact the main office at 203-894-5875. Emergency contacts, which you identify in the PowerSchool Portal, should be people you feel comfortable can pick up your child from school if there is ever the need. We do not release students to adults, even if we know them, without written permission from you, or if they are an emergency contact.

Questions related to RPS Transportation? Please use this transportation email address:

RPSTransportation@RidgefieldPS.net. The district has several staff members monitoring this email account and will be looking to acknowledge emails from parents within a 24 hour time period and solve most issues within that time frame as well.

We know how fun it is for our students to get together after school and enjoy time together! Due to safety and limited space on the buses, we are asking that students have no more than 2 guest riders with them at a time. Anytime there is a need for more than 2 additional students to ride, families will need to make arrangements for parent pick up that day. Thank you for understanding!

School lunch will be available from the first day of school. Aramark is the District-wide food service provider. The school lunch menu is available online on the RPS website; click Departments and click on Food Service. For students in grades 2-5, snacks and additional items will be available through MySchoolBucks system which allows students to purchase their lunch by entering a 5-digit code at the cash register. Questions in regard to MySchoolBucks can be directed to Andrea McCurry, RPS Food Service Director at 203-894-5550 x1127 or amccurry@ridgefieldps.net

Address: 112 Bennetts Farm Road

Website: https://res.ridgefield.org/
Phone: (203) 894-5875