Family Newsletter - 10-19-26

• We hosted a fantastic CEC monthly meeting Wednesday evening, as our guests in attendance were impressed by the warm welcome and energetic dance performance. A special thank you to our PTA, Ms. DiMatteo, Ms. Simoes, Ms. Addeo and Ms. Calcagno for volunteering their evening to set up, serve and break down the event. They put together a bountiful spread of sandwiches, fruit, salad, dumplings, rice balls, etc. for our guests to enjoy, and our PTA offered everyone delicious cakes, cookies and drinks. Thank you to our APs and NIA community partners for their attendance, as well as to our chocolate bar maker. A huge shout out to Ms. Rubin and her dance students, who put together a 7-minute dance ensemble themed around Hispanic Heritage, Jazz and Motown…complete with costume changes. As always, they were a big hit and received lots of applause recognizing their hard work.
   
• We had an excellent turnout for SGO Cabinet elections this year. I want to thank our SGO Advisors, Ms. Cardazone, Ms. Pappalardo, Ms. Dougherty and Ms. Verdi for coordinating and managing this year’s kick-off elections. Superintendent Lynch made it very clear during Principals’ meetings and at Wednesday night’s CEC meeting, that student government and leadership are high on her priority list this year. She wants to see active and purposeful aspects of SGO in D21 schools, which I am very proud to share that we already have that “ask” here at Cav.  She will also be hosting two Student Government events throughout the school year, as student members are now part of Middle School SLT’s. We congratulate Feride, Ersi and Yahya as our new SGO cabinet for the 2026-2027 school year and look forward to the events they will be planning. Also, check out the SGO bulletin board on the first floor that features their Cav kindness tree. Our beautifully thoughtful shout outs will be displayed, building the tree into a tree of kindness.
   
• This past weekend we started our Title III Saturday Academy program, supervised by Ms. Napoli. This is a program that services and supports our ENL students.  If you believe your child would benefit from the extra help, please let your grade AP or ESL teacher know. 
   
• To keep families informed, please see The Technology in Our Schools Fall 2026 Family Letter (available in all NYCPS languages). This letter features important information about NYCPS’ new approach to student use of artificial intelligence (AI) and screen time by grade level, as well as reminders about existing policies regarding personal devices and remote learning.
   
• Please be mindful of your child's laptop usage. We are finding that students are to trying to bypass Go Guadian, our teacher program monitoring system, and bringing their home laptops from home to use. Please advise your child to leave their personal laptops home.
   
• Next week, Thursday, October 29th, we will be hosting our Fall Festival Dance. This is a fun event for our students to take part in. We have a DJ, costume contest, pizza and photo op for kids to enjoy. Students must have a permission slip to attend and make every effort to donate non-perishable food to our Food Drive for entry. (see the attached permission slip)

Academic Vocabulary Word of the Week: 

10/19/2026 – 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.

    Synonym: describe

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

    Synonyms: understand