Dear RES Community,

The past few weeks have been filled with special events and celebrations. Our grade 5 students shared their DARE projects with families on May 13, 2024 and were awarded DARE graduation certificates from SRO, Matt Seibert. Our Kindergarten and grade 3 classes went on field trips to the Ridgefield Playhouse, grade 2 classes participated in PTA enrichment, H20 to Go, and grade 1 students enjoyed their PTA enrichment program, Get Buggy!

On May 21, 2024 we welcomed our incoming kindergarten students and parents to our Mini K sessions and orientation. This is always an exciting day at RES! Thank you to our RES PTA School Support Committee for helping to welcome our newest community members to Ridgebury.

Thank you to all who attended our Art Show, Student Council Bake Sale and Parent led art experience last Wednesday. It was a truly spectacular event. A huge thank you to our families for the donations to our bake sale, to our Student Council Advisors for coordinating the bake sale and student volunteers for this event.

As we are into the final weeks of school we have many special events planned. We are excited to welcome visitors to our events during the school day. Please be advised that for all classroom or grade level events, all visitors must check in through our security desk. Please allow for extra time for this process, as certain events involve a large number of visitors at one time.

Have a fabulous week!

My best,

Mary

Mary Scalise, Principal

Traci Mayette, Assistant Principal

Monday, May 27, 2024: Memorial Day - NO SCHOOL

Thursday, May 30, 2024: PTA Enrichment Grade 4 - Invention-ation

Thursday, May 30, 2024: Grade 1 Field Trip - Ridgefield Playhouse

Friday, May 31, 2024: Field Day (Raindates: June 3/4)

Tuesday, June 4, 2024: PTA Sponsored Kona Ice Truck (Students and Staff)

Wednesday, June 5, 2024: RES Spring Concert 6:30 pm

Thursday, June 6, 2024: PTA Enrichment - Grade 4 Keeler Tavern

Friday, June 7, 2024: PTA and Grade 5 Used Book Fair and Ice Cream Social

Monday, June 10, 2024: RHS Grad Walk 9:00 am

Monday, June 10, 2024: Grade 5 End of Year Party - Extreme Play

Wednesday, June 12, 2024: Ridgefield Library Summer Reading Presentations

Thursday, June 13, 2024: Grade 5 Promotion 9:30 am

Friday, June 14, 2024: Last Day of School - Early Dismissal 11:40 am

Students in grade 5 participated in DARE lessons with Officier Matt Seibert this spring and completed culminating projects which were displayed for families on May 13, 2024. Congratulations, RES fifth graders!

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.

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 Eric Nickelson, RPS Food Service Director at 203-894-5550 x1127 or enickelson@ridgefieldps.net

• 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.

In an effort to help parents understand our approach to developing social and emotional skills, the district has created a community SEL page, which has been recently added to the RPS Community Curriculum Site. Please access the button below to be directed to the page.

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