RES NEWS

Dear RES Community,

It is starting to feel like spring! We are looking forward to what this month brings!

Last week our students enjoyed their pancake and hot cocoa treats - many thanks to our parent volunteers, PTA support, and to our families for engaging in our fundraising efforts. We are excited to continue to plan new enrichment opportunities for our students and this is possible because of the fundraising we do in partnership with the PTA.

Congratulations to our student inventors who participated in the Invention Convention, and presented their inventions on Tuesday, March 4, 2025 to their classmates during the day and parents/community members in the evening. Way to go! The RES students moving on to the state finals to represent Ridgebury are: Aaron Torres, Daniela Coto-Perez & Joy Huang, and McKenzie and Kyleigh Murphy. Congratulations!

In this edition of the newsletter you will find information about spring conferences, our Earth Day initiative, many curriculum highlights and photos from the last few weeks. Enjoy!

My best,

Mary

Mary Scalise, Principal

Traci Mayette, Assistant Principal

Monday, March 10, 2025: Grade 2 Enrichment: High Touch High Tech

Wednesday, March 12, 2025: Grade 4 Enrichment: Ridgefield Playhouse

Monday, March 17, 2025: Grade 1 Enrichment: Ridgefield Playhouse

Thursday, March 20, 2025: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM

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 Enrichment: Keeler Tavern

Thursday, April 10, 2025: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Spring Conferences

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

We will hold our second formal parent-teacher conference in April. During this conference period, meetings are not expected for every student. For some students a recent meeting or ongoing communication may have been adequate enough not to necessitate a formal spring conference. A parent/guardian or a teacher may request a spring conference.

Our conferences will take place on April 10th and April 11th, both of which are early release days for students. We will also have an evening option for conferences on April 10th. Spring conferences are scheduled for 15 minute sessions.

If a teacher requests a conference, they will do so by March 21st. If a parent/guardian would like to request a conference, please contact the classroom teacher by March 28th. Conference schedules are intended to be finalized by April 4, 2025.

We appreciate our partnership with parents. If conference is not necessary, you should always feel free to reach out Ridgebury faculty, including Ms. Mayette and me, with questions or concerns.

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