Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School Disctrict

Acting Superintendent's Winter News

Harrington Park School

February 10, 2023

Check out our Acting Superintendent's Winter Newsletter detailing all the happenings at HP! 

page background Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District zoom_out_map Acting Superintendent Update During these past six weeks, our mid-year Administrative transition has certainly been busy. I want to thank Mr. Herbert, Ms. Wise & Ms. Bonura for their efforts at the building level ensuring our staff, students and families have felt a level of consistency, communication and support during this time. This Winter News is being shared in an effort to provide some district level updates, highlights and a look ahead! 2023-2024 School Calendar At our Board of Education meeting last night, the calendar for the 2023-2024 school year was approved. Hyperlinked below is the approved 2023-2024 calendar. A copy will also be posted to the website. 2023-2024 School Calendar Winter Highlights: - Currently, I am working with the BOE to review potential building upgrades and renovation projects that would be shared with the HP community in the form of a possible referendum vote next school year. While the BOE is exploring improvements and upgrades, we are aware of the current fiscal climate and hope to share some proposals this spring that would enhance the facility for our students, staff and greater school community. These potential upgrades and projects would be timely as we are coming off of a 20 plus-year bond from when the "new" addition was completed back in 2000. Since then, all large building enhancements such as replacement of original boilers, the main entrance vestibule, and parking lot renovation have been complete through our regular operating budget. - Kindergarten Registration is now open on our website for children living in Harrington Park that will be 5 years old by October 1, 2023. We will host our parent Orientation on March 9th at 6:00pm. I look forward to meeting our new HP families that evening. - The HSA Denim & Diamonds Gala will be held on March 29th from 7-11pm at Seasons in Washington Township. This event is open to all community members, parents and staff. It is sure to be a special evening to socialize and support our HSA and their tremendous fiscal support back to our school. Tickets can be purchased at the HSA website here. Looking Ahead -This spring and summer, with the fiscal support of the HSA, we are exploring an upgrade to our outdated locker rooms which do not get a high volume of use in the traditional sense. To make these spaces more accessible and usable for all students and staff, we are considering converting the locker rooms to "Wellness Rooms". These spaces would still allow private areas for our sports teams to have boys and girls separately access when changing and storing items for games. However, daily these "Wellness Rooms" can be used by our Physical Education Department as an extension of PE classes for yoga or fitness instruction, by our Guidance Counselors to host Character Education classes and as an alternate location for teachers to sign up for daily brain and activity breaks. A big shout out to Mr. Torrie for his initiative with this project idea and plans. -Save the Date; Tuesday, May 9th HPSD will host a Community Blood Drive at Community Church. We will work onsite with New York Blood Center. Thank you to community member Vinny Garrison for his collaborative efforts. - HP is again looking to host our Spartan Summer Escape Camp for the first three weeks in August. A high volume of courses are offered at a competitive cost to families. We will also host our two-week Kindergarten readiness " Bright From the Start " program in late August which is offered at no cost to incoming Kindergarten families. Stay tuned for more details on both. Celebrate -We celebrated the 100th Day of School on Wednesday, February 8th with our annual Food Drive. The Student Council & Project Pride’s continued collaboration with Norwood Food Pantry provided hundreds of food and toiletry items to the greater Valley Community. We thank the HP Community for your tremendous support year after year! -On Thursday, February 9th we hosted our Annual Project Pride 8th Grade Have a Heart Event. We had over 25 staff signed up to play, myself included and almost 100% participation from the 8th grade which is incredible. This event was open to the entire school community. All proceeds go to the American Heart Association. -For the 2nd year, we participated in Global Play Day on February 1st for students in K-5. Thanks to Guidance and Administrative support, this has expanded from K-3 to K-5. Global School Play Day is celebrated at schools all around the world. We are always looking for ways to help our students grow in their communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. We integrate these skills into our curriculum regularly, but this dedicates time for students to do this work organically while engaging in activities they choose. Stay Connected -Don't forget to keep up with all HP happenings, download the new HP App (delete the old one). Be sure to follow us on Facebook; Harrington Park School -Instagram; harrington_park_school -Twitter; @HP_School and @jnitz33 -Website - www.hpsd.org Loading indicator close Created withSmore Communicate quickly and effectively with interactive newsletters. Smore empowers educators to connect with their community, streamline school communications, and increase engagement. Get started with free school newsletter templates!

page background Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District zoom_out_map Acting Superintendent Update During these past six weeks, our mid-year Administrative transition has certainly been busy. I want to thank Mr. Herbert, Ms. Wise & Ms. Bonura for their efforts at the building level ensuring our staff, students and families have felt a level of consistency, communication and support during this time. This Winter News is being shared in an effort to provide some district level updates, highlights and a look ahead! 2023-2024 School Calendar At our Board of Education meeting last night, the calendar for the 2023-2024 school year was approved. Hyperlinked below is the approved 2023-2024 calendar. A copy will also be posted to the website. 2023-2024 School Calendar Winter Highlights: - Currently, I am working with the BOE to review potential building upgrades and renovation projects that would be shared with the HP community in the form of a possible referendum vote next school year. While the BOE is exploring improvements and upgrades, we are aware of the current fiscal climate and hope to share some proposals this spring that would enhance the facility for our students, staff and greater school community. These potential upgrades and projects would be timely as we are coming off of a 20 plus-year bond from when the "new" addition was completed back in 2000. Since then, all large building enhancements such as replacement of original boilers, the main entrance vestibule, and parking lot renovation have been complete through our regular operating budget. - Kindergarten Registration is now open on our website for children living in Harrington Park that will be 5 years old by October 1, 2023. We will host our parent Orientation on March 9th at 6:00pm. I look forward to meeting our new HP families that evening. - The HSA Denim & Diamonds Gala will be held on March 29th from 7-11pm at Seasons in Washington Township. This event is open to all community members, parents and staff. It is sure to be a special evening to socialize and support our HSA and their tremendous fiscal support back to our school. Tickets can be purchased at the HSA website here. Looking Ahead -This spring and summer, with the fiscal support of the HSA, we are exploring an upgrade to our outdated locker rooms which do not get a high volume of use in the traditional sense. To make these spaces more accessible and usable for all students and staff, we are considering converting the locker rooms to "Wellness Rooms". These spaces would still allow private areas for our sports teams to have boys and girls separately access when changing and storing items for games. However, daily these "Wellness Rooms" can be used by our Physical Education Department as an extension of PE classes for yoga or fitness instruction, by our Guidance Counselors to host Character Education classes and as an alternate location for teachers to sign up for daily brain and activity breaks. A big shout out to Mr. Torrie for his initiative with this project idea and plans. -Save the Date; Tuesday, May 9th HPSD will host a Community Blood Drive at Community Church. We will work onsite with New York Blood Center. Thank you to community member Vinny Garrison for his collaborative efforts. - HP is again looking to host our Spartan Summer Escape Camp for the first three weeks in August. A high volume of courses are offered at a competitive cost to families. We will also host our two-week Kindergarten readiness " Bright From the Start " program in late August which is offered at no cost to incoming Kindergarten families. Stay tuned for more details on both. Celebrate -We celebrated the 100th Day of School on Wednesday, February 8th with our annual Food Drive. The Student Council & Project Pride’s continued collaboration with Norwood Food Pantry provided hundreds of food and toiletry items to the greater Valley Community. We thank the HP Community for your tremendous support year after year! -On Thursday, February 9th we hosted our Annual Project Pride 8th Grade Have a Heart Event. We had over 25 staff signed up to play, myself included and almost 100% participation from the 8th grade which is incredible. This event was open to the entire school community. All proceeds go to the American Heart Association. -For the 2nd year, we participated in Global Play Day on February 1st for students in K-5. Thanks to Guidance and Administrative support, this has expanded from K-3 to K-5. Global School Play Day is celebrated at schools all around the world. We are always looking for ways to help our students grow in their communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. We integrate these skills into our curriculum regularly, but this dedicates time for students to do this work organically while engaging in activities they choose. Stay Connected -Don't forget to keep up with all HP happenings, download the new HP App (delete the old one). Be sure to follow us on Facebook; Harrington Park School -Instagram; harrington_park_school -Twitter; @HP_School and @jnitz33 -Website - www.hpsd.org Loading indicator close Created withSmore Communicate quickly and effectively with interactive newsletters. Smore empowers educators to connect with their community, streamline school communications, and increase engagement. Get started with free school newsletter templates!

page background Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District Acting Superintendent's Winter News Harrington Park School District zoom_out_map Acting Superintendent Update During these past six weeks, our mid-year Administrative transition has certainly been busy. I want to thank Mr. Herbert, Ms. Wise & Ms. Bonura for their efforts at the building level ensuring our staff, students and families have felt a level of consistency, communication and support during this time. This Winter News is being shared in an effort to provide some district level updates, highlights and a look ahead! 2023-2024 School Calendar At our Board of Education meeting last night, the calendar for the 2023-2024 school year was approved. Hyperlinked below is the approved 2023-2024 calendar. A copy will also be posted to the website. 2023-2024 School Calendar Winter Highlights: - Currently, I am working with the BOE to review potential building upgrades and renovation projects that would be shared with the HP community in the form of a possible referendum vote next school year. While the BOE is exploring improvements and upgrades, we are aware of the current fiscal climate and hope to share some proposals this spring that would enhance the facility for our students, staff and greater school community. These potential upgrades and projects would be timely as we are coming off of a 20 plus-year bond from when the "new" addition was completed back in 2000. Since then, all large building enhancements such as replacement of original boilers, the main entrance vestibule, and parking lot renovation have been complete through our regular operating budget. - Kindergarten Registration is now open on our website for children living in Harrington Park that will be 5 years old by October 1, 2023. We will host our parent Orientation on March 9th at 6:00pm. I look forward to meeting our new HP families that evening. - The HSA Denim & Diamonds Gala will be held on March 29th from 7-11pm at Seasons in Washington Township. This event is open to all community members, parents and staff. It is sure to be a special evening to socialize and support our HSA and their tremendous fiscal support back to our school. Tickets can be purchased at the HSA website here. Looking Ahead -This spring and summer, with the fiscal support of the HSA, we are exploring an upgrade to our outdated locker rooms which do not get a high volume of use in the traditional sense. To make these spaces more accessible and usable for all students and staff, we are considering converting the locker rooms to "Wellness Rooms". These spaces would still allow private areas for our sports teams to have boys and girls separately access when changing and storing items for games. However, daily these "Wellness Rooms" can be used by our Physical Education Department as an extension of PE classes for yoga or fitness instruction, by our Guidance Counselors to host Character Education classes and as an alternate location for teachers to sign up for daily brain and activity breaks. A big shout out to Mr. Torrie for his initiative with this project idea and plans. -Save the Date; Tuesday, May 9th HPSD will host a Community Blood Drive at Community Church. We will work onsite with New York Blood Center. Thank you to community member Vinny Garrison for his collaborative efforts. - HP is again looking to host our Spartan Summer Escape Camp for the first three weeks in August. A high volume of courses are offered at a competitive cost to families. We will also host our two-week Kindergarten readiness " Bright From the Start " program in late August which is offered at no cost to incoming Kindergarten families. Stay tuned for more details on both. Celebrate -We celebrated the 100th Day of School on Wednesday, February 8th with our annual Food Drive. The Student Council & Project Pride’s continued collaboration with Norwood Food Pantry provided hundreds of food and toiletry items to the greater Valley Community. We thank the HP Community for your tremendous support year after year! -On Thursday, February 9th we hosted our Annual Project Pride 8th Grade Have a Heart Event. We had over 25 staff signed up to play, myself included and almost 100% participation from the 8th grade which is incredible. This event was open to the entire school community. All proceeds go to the American Heart Association. -For the 2nd year, we participated in Global Play Day on February 1st for students in K-5. Thanks to Guidance and Administrative support, this has expanded from K-3 to K-5. Global School Play Day is celebrated at schools all around the world. We are always looking for ways to help our students grow in their communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. We integrate these skills into our curriculum regularly, but this dedicates time for students to do this work organically while engaging in activities they choose. Stay Connected -Don't forget to keep up with all HP happenings, download the new HP App (delete the old one). Be sure to follow us on Facebook; Harrington Park School -Instagram; harrington_park_school -Twitter; @HP_School and @jnitz33 -Website - www.hpsd.org Loading indicator close Created withSmore Communicate quickly and effectively with interactive newsletters. Smore empowers educators to connect with their community, streamline school communications, and increase engagement. Get started with free school newsletter templates!