May 22, 2024

Dear Families, 

This Thursday, May 24, we have Family Game Night from 6:00 to 7:30.  Game Night is fun.   

Game Night celebrates old-fashioned play: traditional games, without screens, and families together.  The cafeteria will have board games.  The yard will have games for getting up to move.  You can bring a board game to share.  In the yard, you can jump into a kids-and-adults kickball game, or you can teach a game from your culture that you loved to play when you were young. 

Game Night is not a time for adults to chat on the sidelines or look at their phones.  You should play.  At Game Night, adults join their children in every part of a game: setting up, playing for fun, and putting away the materials.  Mostly, the goal is to connect with your own family and enjoy playing with others. 

This year’s Game Night has a potluck.  Please sign up to bring food, and to volunteer to support the event. 

Please come on Thursday evening.  Have fun playing. 

City Council and Budget at CPE1 – May 28 – 6:00 p.m. 

On Tuesday, May 28, City Council’s Deputy Speaker, Diana Ayala, is hosting a budget forum in our auditorium.  School communities from all over our district, including ours, are invited. 

Deputy Speaker Ayala will talk about the current state of the citywide budget, the pending cuts to city services (such as schools), and how you can be involved. 

Proposed Calendar Change for 2024-2025 

All families are invited to vote on a change to our school calendar for 2024-2025. 

During our two most recent parent association meetings, we talked about eliminating rec days at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.  On rec days, CPE1 classroom teachers carefully organize materials for storage and prepare their classrooms for deep cleaning.  Compared to most schools, our classrooms have many more materials to organize, store, and clean; we have to prepare things well in June so teachers can work in August to create classrooms that are absolutely ready for children’s first day back.  While teachers work in their classrooms, the rest of the staff supervises children for long stretches of outdoor activities.   

As of now, we would have three rec days at the end of next:  June 24 - June 26, 2025. If we did not have rec days, our final day would be the family outing in Central Park, on June 23, 2025. 

There are several reasons for this proposed change.  First, we have low attendance on rec days; the family outing has become the last day we see many students.  Second, early voting in our gym has made rec days more challenging.  With voting machines in the gym from mid-June through the end of school, we don’t have a large, indoor space to play during early summer storms.   

The most important reason to give up rec days is to re-purpose the time for planning.  During rec days, more than half of our staff supervise children outdoors.  If all staff contribute to breaking down classrooms, we will get many more hours in June for teachers to plan curriculum.  

That planning piece has become vital.  Please see the letter I wrote earlier this month about creating yearlong reading plans.  Because of our mixed grade classes, each class needs two years of reading plans: one for a child’s first year in the class, and separate plans for the second year in that class. 

CPE1 is allowed to propose calendar changes because we participate in a special school scheduling program, called Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence, or PROSE.  Before any PROSE school adjusts the calendar, families must approve the change by voting at a parent association meeting.  At the next PA meeting on June 18, I will propose this calendar change for a vote.   

Please come to the meeting to talk about this potential change and to vote.