Forest Avenue School

A Message from Mr. Ponte

Happy New Year to our Forest Avenue School families! I hope that you all have a prosperous new year and all our children continue to work to the best of their abilities.

The staff at Forest Avenue has a number of new techniques to get the most out of our students. Last fall we started the Star Certificate program, and it has done wonders for the attitude and behaviors of the students in our school. This program has all staff members awarding gold stars to students who behave as expected, are courteous to other people, or do something above and beyond what is expected of them. We give out weekly awards to those students who have their star chosen out of the star jar. Sometimes there are bonus days when student have extra chances to be chosen. We ask that the star be signed by the parent so that you know that your child exhibited good manners and behavior. We had over 600 stars in the jar in December. Thanks again for your help in making this program so successful.

This month we have a state sponsored visit to our school called S.A.L.T. It is the School Accountability for Learning and Teaching visit. Here we have 4-8 adults visit our school and make teaching and learning recommendations based on what they see during the week. They will ask for parent participation, such as interviews and remarks from you concerning how you think your children are progressing at this school. They specifically keep a close eye on how well we teach here, but will look at all that goes on in the school. For example, they want to know what we do for after school activities, social events, and night time curricular and award assemblies. The staff and I would appreciate any support and assistance that you may provide us during the week of January 22-25. We need to hear from our parents on what works, and may not work for the children. Please fill out the Parent SALT Survey which will be sent home with students on Monday, February 4th. This is how we will continue to improve our practices, and make Forest Avenue School the best place to be. Thanks again for your support in this matter.

The monthly S.I.T. meeting is January 16th at 730am. It is a breakfast meeting. You may bring your children and they can read in the Literacy closet or COZ room. This is a nice time to find out how parents and teachers run the school and have some morning snacks with the staff. Please call if you are interested in attending.