RES NEWS

Dear RES Community,

Monday, January 20, 2025, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is a day set aside to honor and remember the life and legacy of this critical civil rights activist. Leading up to this, Mrs. Paradiso, our library media specialist, created a choice board for teachers and students to access stories and other resources and activities to help teach and learn about Martin Luther King Jr. We hope you continue to have conversations at home about why we celebrate this important day each year.

We are always looking for ways parents/guardians can be involved at RES. I wanted to take a moment to share some of the ways you might volunteer over the course of the school year. There are many ways parents/guardians can volunteer through our PTA. We have PTA committees and events that we are always looking for support with. For example, our PACE program, sandwich making, enrichment events and field trips, gardening, creating bulletin boards, and helping with class celebrations. Other volunteer opportunities include art show preparations, such as matting and hanging artwork, field day station support, class mystery reader, and other teacher initiated class projects or events. We are grateful for your partnership and support and look forward to welcoming you to the building to volunteer!

Reminder: The RES PTA will hold a general meeting , open to all RES PTA members on Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 5:30 PM in the RES Library. Josh Zabin, RPS Director of Safety and Security, will touch on how members of the School Security Team work to maintain a safe environment for students, staff, and visitors and how their duties range from monitoring entrances, conducting regular security patrols and visitor management. Further, each officer has an extensive law enforcement background and is skilled in conflict resolution and crisis management all aimed at keeping our school a safe space for learning.

Areas of discussion will center on how the School Security Officers work with both the School Resource Officers and School Administrators to respond promptly to emergencies and concerns that may arise.

Our family BINGO night is sure to be a blast and we hope you will join the fun on Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 6:00 pm in the RES cafeteria. For more information, please visit the RES PTA website.

In this edition of our newsletter, you will see highlights from our curriculum specific to kindergarten as well as happenings around the gymnasium in PE. In the moments around Ridgebury section we highlighted our PTA enrichment experience with Woodcock Nature Center. Enjoy!

My best,

Mary

Mary Scalise, Principal

Traci Mayette, Assistant Principal

Monday, January 20, 2025: NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Wednesday, January 22, 2025: Parent Session Ridgefield Library: Dr. Bogart presents about Executive Functioning and Frustration Tolerance 7:00 PM

Thursday, January 23, 2025: Math Placement Parent Presentation 9:30 AM RPS Curriculum YouTube Channel

Thursday, January 23, 2025: PTA General Meeting - 5:30 PM RES Library

Thursday, January 23, 2025: PTA Social Event - Family BINGO Night - 6:00 PM - RES Cafeteria

Friday, January 24, 2025: PTA Enrichment - Grade 1 Zoom to the Moon

Friday, January 24, 2025: PTA Enrichment - Kindergarten and Grade 2 Dentist Visit

Saturday, January 25, 2025 - Virtual Board of Education Budget Presentation

Tuesday, January 28, 2025: Choral Festival at RHS - 7:00 PM

Monday, February 3, 2025: Orchestra Festival at RHS - 7:00 PM

Tuesday, February 4, 2025: Band Festival at RHS - 7:00 PM

Friday, February 14, 2025: NO SCHOOL - Professional Learning Day for Teachers

Monday, February 17, 2025: NO SCHOOL - Presidents' Day

Tuesday, February 18 - Friday, February 21, 2025: NO SCHOOL - February Recess

As you may know, Dr. Da Silva presented the Superintendent's Proposed Budget for next school year on Thursday, January 16, 2025. Discussions that will be forthcoming will have a direct impact on Ridgebury Elementary School so I encourage you to stay updated.

You may view the budget presentation here.

On Saturday, January 25, 2025, each school principal and cost center leader will present their FY26 budgets at a virtual Board of Education Special meeting. We invite you to learn more about the FY26 budget by viewing it live or watching at a later time.

When temperatures drop below 40 degrees, students should wear a warm top layer (coat, heavy sweater, thick hoodie with underlayers), hats, and gloves. Pants or shorts with underlayers should also be worn. Dressing in layers is the best option. When snow is on the ground, snow pants and boots are required for students to play in the snow (basically anywhere other than the pavement).

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