Walnut Avenue School Community

Happy Friday! Welcome to the month of May!

It has been a beautiful weather week and wonderful learning week at Walnut Avenue School. Letter sounds, what it means to reduce, open and closed syllables, geometric shape identification and studying a character's feelings to name a few learning objectives from this past week!

Thursday was Principal's Day and I am so appreciative of the kind and generous gestures from the PTA, Staff and Students - THANK YOU! I am honored to be the Principal of WAS each and every day!!

We have another exciting week at WAS next week!

• Teachers & Staff Appreciation Week
• Art Show & Second Grade Chorus Concert on Tuesday for families

Please be sure to read through this week's newsletter for all that is happening next week and the weeks ahead at WAS!

Please reach out if you have any questions.

Enjoy the weekend!

Celine McNally

Principal

On Thursday afternoon an email was sent to the school community with a link to a form that allows parents / guardians to share thoughts about the upcoming academic year. Below is a copy of that message and a link to the Google Form:

We are approaching the time of year when we begin to consider student placements for next school year. Placements will continue to be a collaborative process which includes a review of each student’s individual learning and social-emotional needs with a team of teachers (student’s classroom teacher, the specials’ teachers, and student support teachers, i.e. special education teachers, interventionists, school counselor, etc.).

Although we feel confident in our ability to appropriately place your child, we do welcome parent/guardian input. If you feel that extraordinary factors exist that the school should be aware of, please complete and submit this form by May 22nd. These factors might include your student’s special learning needs and social-emotional development.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. We will work diligently to ensure the most appropriate placement for every student.

Elementary Parent/Guardian Input Form (2025-2026 SY)

Lyla Kaiser and Esme Valenzano have both been named Grand Prize Winners in Pomptonian’s Healthy School Lunch Challenge!

Walnut Avenue School took home both Grand Prizes out of all Pomptonian elementary schools! Very impressive! The judges were truly impressed with Lyla and Esme’s creativity, attention to detail, and understanding of healthy cooking. They embraced the challenge and went above and beyond, and we could not be more proud of their achievements.

As Grand Prize Winners, they have earned the following honors:

1. A banner celebrating their success
2. Their winning meals - BBQ Chicken Brown Rice Bowl with Apple Slaw and Red Red Wrap (see the recipe below) will be featured in the WAS cafeteria on Thursday, May 15th

Please be reminded that dogs are not to be on school property.

Thank you for not bringing dogs to arrival, dismissal and letting your neighbors know that walking their dog on school property is not permitted.

Please remember adults should be supervising the students after-school on the playground and/or field.

During the school day, we have expectations and students are supervised by adults at all times. The supervision and expectations keep students safe.

We ask that if you are allowing your student to play after-school on the playground/field that you supervise the student(s) your are responsible for in order to ensure their safety.

Please be mindful of safety:

• near the driveway and parking lot
• bleachers
• lacrosse nets (do not climb or hang on nets)

We also ask that students do not dig or climb the trees after school.

Please be sure to inform the After-Care Programs of dismissal changes.

When the After-Care Programs are not informed, it puts the school and the after-care program in a concerning situation. The safety of the students is our priority and when the program is not informed of a change to dismissal, we we are needing to confirm that the student has been picked up and the After-Care Program is waiting for the confirmation, a call is then made to the program to inform them of the change that wasn't provided, and all students in the program are needing to wait to leave the school.

Here is the link - CLICK HERE - to our Nurse's Corner. Nurse Stein has information to share with families to keep us all staff on this page of our WAS website.

Thanks for working together to keep everyone healthy and safe at Walnut Avenue School.

Please call 908-709-6995 to report an absence.

If you have a change in dismissal on a given day, please be sure to include Nurse Stein, Ms. McNulty and Ms. McNally on your email to the teacher so we can be sure that the email was seen by the teacher.

If an aftercare program needs to be notified of the change, please be sure to reach out to the aftercare to notify them of the change in dismissal.

CLICK HERE for Pomptonian Food Service Information

Thank you to those that were able to attend last night’s general meeting zoom.

At the meeting we nominated the nominating committee to find candidates for the open board positions for next 2 years.

• Co-President
• Corresponding Secretary
• VP of Fundraising (ideally 2 candidates)
• Treasurer

For those PTA members that are interested in filling a position please reach out to our 3 committee members.

1. Shannon Tyhala (shannonmbarry@gmail.com)
2. Christine Grassia (cggrassia@gmail.com)
3. Jacquelyn Miedowicz (Miedowicz4@gmail.com)

Please follow these dates regarding the nominating process.

• 5/4: All written consents for nominees are given to the committee
• 5/5: Nominees given to board
• 6/5: Vote on new positions

Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Jennie & Kim

A quick reminder that the deadline to customize your free 2 pages in the yearbook is May 9th! If you haven’t done so already, now is a great time to log into TreeRing and create a personalized memory for your child.

Important notes:

• All second graders will receive a free yearbook, courtesy of our generous PTA.

• If you haven’t purchased your yearbook yet, it’s not too late! It makes a wonderful keepsake for years to come.

• We want to make sure every student is included in the yearbook. Please help us by uploading any school-related photos you’ve taken throughout the year—class parties, field trips, events, etc.—directly to TreeRing.

If you have any questions or need help, feel free to reach out to Ling Zheng or Greccia Gomez at wascranfordyearbook@gmail.com.

Thank you for helping us make this yearbook special for all the kids!

Does your child have an interest in being a Principal . . . Now is their chance to experience it first hand!

The PTA is raffling off tickets to be the Principal for the day. We are sending home tickets, please fill them out and submit your payment with your tickets. We will do a drawing with Miss McNally on Monday, May 12th. Your child will be the Principal on Wednesday, May 14th!

Tickets are $2/ticket. There is no limit on how many tickets you buy, if you need more- reach out!!

All tickets should be returned by May 9th!

Raffle tickets will be sent home soon :)

Thank you

WAS PTA

gloriarosek@gmail.com

We are looking for volunteers to help with our Plant Sale on Friday, May 9th.

Please CLICK HERE review the available slots below, and click on the button to sign up.

We are looking for volunteers to assist in planting with the students on Friday, May 16th.

Please CLICK HERE to sign up.

Hello Families,

Our field day will be held on Friday, May 30th from 9:00 AM - 2:30 PM. (Rain date Friday, June 6th from 9:00 AM - 2:30 PM.)

We are in need of a lot of volunteers. You will be assigned a station the day of and help the children with that station. If you are unable to do the whole time, please let us know in the comment section.

Thank you in advance for your help. CLICK HERE

AM Preschool, AM Kindergarten and Grades 1& 2 class times will be 9:00 AM -11:15/11:30 AM.

Full Day Preschool will go at 11:00 AM.

PM Preschool and PM Kindergarten and both Full Day Kindergarten Classes will be from 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM.

Thank you,

The PTA

CLICK HERE

• Tuesday, May 6, 2025 - Art Show & Spring Chorus at 5:30 PM

• Friday, May 9, 2025 - Plant Sale

• Friday, May 16, 2025 - Planting Day

• Friday, May 23, 2025 - School Closed for Extended Memorial Day Weekend

• Monday, May 26, 2025 - School Closed for Memorial Day

• Friday, May 30, 2025 - Field Day

• Thursday, June 5, 2025 - Kindergarten Stepping Up Ceremonies

• Monday, June 9, 2025 - School Closed (Give Back Day)

• Tuesday, June 10, 2025 - School Closed Primary Election Day

• Wednesday, June 18, 2025 - Single Session (Last Day of School for AM Students)

• Thursday, June 19, 2025 - Last Day of School / Single Session (Last Day for PM Students)

Please CLICK HERE for the Cranford School District Social Emotional Learning Calendar for the 2024-2025 School Year

Email: mcnally@cranfordschools.org
Website: http://was.cranfordschools.org/
Location: 370 Walnut Avenue, Cranford, NJ, USA
Phone: (908) 709 - 6253