Philip R. Smith Elementary School

Important question: Our Open House is scheduled for Wednesday, September 18th which will be a 1:15 pm dismissal for students. Open House is an opportunity for parents and students to visit school together, and allows students to show off their classrooms, visit specials (Art, Music, PE, STEM, Media Center), families to engage in some fun learning activities together, and offers a time for parents to connect with your child's teachers. We typically run our Open House from 6:30 pm-8:00 pm but we were wondering since the students are dismissed from school at 1:15 pm, and 8:00 pm can be late for many of our younger students, if families would prefer us to run our Open House from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm allowing families to settle in at home a little earlier. PLEASE email me if you feel strongly that we should keep the later time and not shift our event 30 minutes earlier. Thank you! mdixon@swindsor.k12.ct.us

We are excited to see everyone on Monday, August 26th from 6-7:30 p.m. for our family picnic evening. AND then again on Tuesday, August 27th in the morning for meet and greet. These annual traditions are to help students and families ease into the transition back to school!

This year Breakfast will cost $1.70 and lunch $3.00.

Free/Reduced applications will go home to all families on Wednesday, August 28th.

Chartwells, food services has the menus updated but as of this morning they were resolving a tech glitch on the website.

You received an email from the SWPS transportation office yesterday regarding bus routes being complete. Log into your Parent Portal account and go to "bus information" to get your child's bus stop and times. I've been informed that you should ignore the notification that says "not started" as the routes are all done.

Parents of grades 4 and 5 students, please see the link below to a letter explaining a Student Leadership opportunity. We encourage all grade 4 and 5 students who are interested in any leadership opportunity to "apply" as we use the letters to identify students for our SLT team and offer a variety of schoolwide leadership positions from those applicants who were not selected for the Student Leadership Team.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/174p-CNaQ5c15M25qC0W9ncFsX_WQvRSEDcT2MWxx41o/edit?usp=sharing

Under Construction-PTO news will be forthcoming!

This new section of our newsletter will provide articles and information to help parents support their children to be resilient. Check out the link below for some great tips and strategies for parents and teachers!

https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/guide-parents-teachers

Car Rider Drop Off: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UcMplmOT44ZPN1U01zKNyJiLJnjvg993h8kuVkbrCGo/edit?usp=sharing

Car Rider Pick Up: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12wxRESA1xn_FiF7ZzTbfJGKhNLzA8b-vVWfRrIT0s-Q/edit?usp=sharing

We wanted to remind everyone that we still have the "Universal Stories" link available for students and staff to access. Take a look, it would be great for families to submit your story for our community to enjoy.

Here's the link...https://sites.google.com/apps.southwindsorschools.org/prs-universal-stories/home

8/28 First Day of School-Full Day

8/28 Tears and Cheers for Kindergarten Families 9:15 am in the cafe

9/2 Labor Day-No School

9/11 Early Dismissal Wednesdays begin with a 1:15 dismissal for students

9/18 Open House in evening (more specifics will be shared soon)

Nurse's Blog

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QoYcCkcavl8PlOhe7qdj66idT1cmvLoV9IW4z_DOjl8/edit?usp=sharing

Volunteer Registration: This is the newly revised Volunteer Registration form-In order to volunteer you must complete this form. If you have already completed it in the past and have been approved to volunteer, you do not need to complete it again. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-YY-42ZxOAK16oe0_MME6uberDFv5P_ubEefFX2knqcUmQQ/viewform