Superintendent's Corner

We are one week away from the first day of school, Monday, August 26, 2024, and we are excited to welcome our students, families, and staff back to school!

As we open this school year, our administrators, teachers, and staff are dedicated to meeting the Board of Education’s mission “to enable every Amity student to become a lifelong learner and a literate, caring, creative, and effective world citizen.”

To meet this mission, the Amity Regional School District will continue our advancement of the BOWA Portrait of the Graduate (POG). The five characteristics of Collaborator, Empathizer, Problem Solver, Planner, and Communicator – and their attributes – are embedded in our curriculum and instruction throughout the district and have been the roadmap for teachers and students over the past two years.

This year, our juniors will be the first class to participate in a culminating activity that celebrates their POG journey through Amity Region 5. As part of earning one-half of their mastery-based graduation credit, juniors will develop a presentation that highlights how they have grown over the years in relation to the five POG characteristics.

Eleventh-grade students will deliver their presentations to teachers and staff from throughout the district on the scheduled early dismissal day on April 24, 2025. Mark your calendars!

We look forward to sharing more information about these students’ celebration of their POG journey throughout the school year.

The Amity Regional School District is creating a 'Civics Laboratory' this election season as we hold our district-wide student presidential election with the backdrop of the U.S. Presidential election.

Amity holds a presidential election every four years (except for 2020) with the objective to teach students civic engagement and model respectful dialogue, promoting a well-informed student body prepared to participate in our democracy.

While heated dialogue may take place outside our school walls, we expect all members of the Amity community to adhere to the highest level of civility, led by our teachers. School should always be a safe space, and during our August and October professional development, our teachers will have the opportunity to focus on their role and how to ensure that they approach all instruction in a politically neutral fashion in adherence to Board of Education policy.

We have a clear responsibility to uphold the First Amendment rights of students and staff while providing the best environment for teaching informed political discourse.

Beginning September 1, 2024, the Connecticut Menstrual Equity Law requires all schools to provide free menstrual products to students in grades three through 12, “in women’s restrooms, all-gender restrooms and at least one men’s restroom.”

The Amity Regional School District will follow this state law. While our community can hold differing views on this topic, our goal is to avoid detracting from the safe and welcoming atmosphere we seek to maintain in our schools. Your support in the district’s compliance with this law is appreciated.

The Amity website is currently being updated to make it easier to navigate and more user-friendly for those accessing it with a cell phone. Please utilize the top navigation as many of the drop-downs will be removed if they have not been already. Please check out the new layout and be on the lookout for added features as we build out our vision of an improved website.

Our communication distribution platform this year will be SchoolMessenger. Fully integrated with PowerSchool, this should look and feel very similar to our prior system Swift K12. It is very important that you have up-to-date phone numbers and emails associated with all your students so you can receive important school information and inclement weather notifications.

To get text messages from the district your phone number must be registered as your contact number with the school, and you must opt-in for messages. You should have already received an opt-in message from 67587. If you deleted the message you may still text the letter Y to 67587 to opt-in to text messages from our schools.

You will, of course, continue to receive email from your principals, teachers, and others. We appreciate that there is a high volume of communications, which is why we will continue to make information as accessible as possible.

We are anticipating an increase in lunch prices for the 2024-2025 school year. The Board of Education will make that decision at their August 19th meeting and we will communicate those changes to families as soon as possible.

Bus Routes for the 2024-2025 School Year have been updated and can be found under the Parent information tab on each school webpage or under the District Information tab on our main website.

The Jaime Hulley Arts Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides a tremendous amount of support to all three Amity schools. Please consider attending their annual Evening for the Arts gala on Saturday, September 7th featuring FACE OFF: A Tribute to Elton John & Billy Joel. For tickets and more information visit their website.

We are always in need of paraeducators and substitute teachers. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining the staff of the Amity District, please apply with the link below.

Once again, the first day of school for students is Monday, August 26, 2024! The first two days of school are also early release days for students. Students will be dismissed at 12:12 p.m.

We are looking forward to having our students, teachers, and staff back in the building and wish everyone a terrific school year!