Family Newsletter - 10-21-25

• A special thank you to Ms. Wiederhold and the guidance staff, who put on a very informative in-person presentation for our 8th grade families Tuesday evening on the High School application process – detailing important procedures, timelines and upcoming High School open houses. Our guidance staff will be scheduling individual meetings with the students to ensure they receive the necessary support to complete their high school applications, which are due at the end of November.
   
• Wednesday evening, we hosted the monthly CEC meeting for our District 21 school community. Our dance students put on a phenomenal performance to a compilation of songs – wowing the crowd, as always. Thank you to Ms. Rubin for working with the kids to highlight their talents – especially with such a quick turnaround. A very special thank you to Ms. Chris, Ms. Novini, Ms. Calcagno, Ms. Addeo and our PTA for organizing all of the food and playing hostess for the evening, as well as Ms. Lorena for providing our IS 281 swag giveaways to the CEC board. A special shoutout to Ms. Zambri for the balloons and beautiful decorations, and to those staff who attended to represent our school.
   
• Last Thursday, Mr. Hutton’s 7th Grade STEM classes went to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. They learned about the design and engineering behind various types of aircraft to achieve certain goals. The students were also able to see a 3D film about different ships and aircraft that help to protect the seas around the world.
   
• Mr. Gulino, the self-proclaimed Grandfather of STEM Education, took class 7A Engineering to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn last week.  The students explored the origins of the NYC water supply and toured the facility.  
   
• Some of our 6^th grade science classes built their own circuits and found different ways to control their outputs with Mr. Pham. While Ms. Cardazone and Mr. Zak's students are decoding ancient cave pictures in their Social Studies classes — just like real speleologists, guessing what each Stone Age sentence meant before they cracked the code.

• I met with our SGO cabinet last week for the first time, and I am so excited to share that they will be very focused on SEL integration, school events and family fun nights. To start, Ms. Mohassib has coordinated an SEL focused project for character building, as our 6th grade ELA teachers will be reading a book called “Why Not Me”, by Blake Leeper. I am thrilled to share that our 6th Grade will also be taking part in an assembly on October 28th, where Blake Leeper will be our special guest, sharing his story. He focuses on the emotional intelligence characteristics of perseverance, resilience and identity.
   
• This week is Digital Citizenship week and Digital citizenship lessons will be facilitated by our Science department. We hope our students are diligently paying attention to the information our teachers are communicating with them. I would also like to share this information for families to review with their kids pertaining to digital citizenship and healthy social media use. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/school-environment/digital-citizenship
   
• Saturday, October 25th will be the start of our Title III Saturday Academy school for our ENL students. If your child is an ENL student and in need of this support, please contact their ENL teacher, Ms. Mohassib at ext. 1261 or Ms. Napoli at 1282 to ensure that a permission slip is completed.
   
• November is almost here and it's time for our school-wide spelling bee. Special thanks to our ELA teachers, who are in the process of conducting classroom spelling bee contests, which will be completed by October 31st .  The IS 281 school-wide spelling bee will take place on November 6th.
   
• NYCPS is offering all parents the ability to opt out of receiving charter school informational mailings produced by Vanguard. You can inform your school’s students and their families that they may refuse mailings by submitting the online Charter School Informational Mailing Notice and Opt-Out Form by October 31. Note that to complete the survey, families will need their student’s OSIS number; if a student is age 18 or older, they must complete the form themself. 
   
• Our first round of Hallway Exhibition Boards are going up, and I am looking forward to reviewing student work products, highlighting engaging activities and interesting academic projects, as well as seeing how they showcase their skills in Talent. I wanted to show off the work of Ms. Richman's art students on textured design. (see pics) Her classroom is beautifully structured to accentuate all of the artistic work of her very talented students. 
   
• Cavallaro is once again offering our peer tutoring/homework help program for students in all grades, run by our 8th -grade National Junior Honor Society students. Please see the attached permission slip if you would like your child to take part.

Academic Vocabulary Word of the Week: 

10/20/25 – Explain, Interpret

Spanish: Explicar, Interpretar

Chinese:  解釋, 解釋

Russian:  Объяснить, Интерпретировать

Urdu:  کی وضاحت, تشریح

Explain (v.): to make an idea clear to someone by describing it in more detail or revealing relevant facts or ideas.

    Synonyms: describe

 Interpret (v.): to explain the meaning and understanding of an idea

    Synonyms: understand

Morphology Map:

Social Emotional Focus: Goal Setting

6th Grade – Good Character

7th Grade – Serving Community

8th Grade – Striving for Excellence