Parent and Co-Chair of the Black History Month Planning Committee, Tre Johnson, helps 107 get ready for #BHM2024
Dear PS 107 Families,
Today is the day that your child’s first report card of the school year will be “distributed” to their New York City Schools Account (NYCSA)! As noted in last week’s Wednesday Weekly, please follow these steps to access your child’s report card (and if you have any difficulty, reach out to Parent Coordinator Nadia Benlarbi at nbenlarbi2@schools.nyc.gov):
Go to https://www.schoolsaccount.nyc/ and sign in with your credentials.
Choose the child whose report card you are looking for
Click “My Student”
Click “Grades”
On that page, you will see an icon that says “Report Card”
This should take you to another page where you’ll again click “Report Card,” and your child’s report card will download as a PDF.
Also, as noted in last week’s Wednesday Weekly, the NYCSA system can be glitchy, and it sometimes takes a bit longer than we expect for your child’s report card to migrate to their account. If you don’t see their report card on the 31st, try again 24 hours later. Another common problem we have experienced is report card comments not migrating to NYCSA. If you don’t see comments, that is a glitch. All teachers have written comments that will accompany report cards. If you continue to have problems seeing your child’s complete report card by Friday, February 2nd, please reach out to Nadia Benlarbi. If you need a hard copy of your child’s report card and do not have access to a printer, please also reach out to Nadia, and she will print one out for you. Note that in this digital age, we are not printing report cards schoolwide so that we can save some trees!
Though report cards are coming out today, PS 107 will not hold our next Parent-Teacher Conferences until Thursday, March 7th. It was a deliberate decision by our School Leadership Team (SLT) to separate report card distribution from Parent-Teachers Conferences, as both teachers and parents found that, when they were connected, conferences tended to be mostly about what was on the report card rather than a more comprehensive discussion about student progress. Therefore, unless you have very serious concerns about what you see on your child’s report card, please wait until the March conferences to meet with your child’s teacher. The intention is not to have all parents schedule a third conference when report cards are released. Teacher comments are also quite comprehensive, and we hope that they will provide you with a full picture of how your child is doing at the midpoint of the school year.
I also encourage you not to get too stuck on number grades. The comments your child’s teacher has written will provide far more information than any number can, though I understand that numbers feel straightforward, and we tend to gravitate towards them. We have a grading policy that is holistic and takes into account multiple measures — including formal and informal assessments, teacher review of exit tickets and daily student work, and teacher observations — when assigning grades.
PROMOTION-IN-DOUBT PROCESS
Though we are only halfway through the school year, this is the time of year when schools begin to think about next year. Teachers have been asked to identify students who may be at risk of not meeting promotional criteria by the end of the year and notify parents that their child’s promotion is “in doubt.” If your child’s promotion to the next grade is in doubt, you will hear from your child’s teacher next week, and you can expect a formal letter to come home the week of February 12th with additional details. Please note that this does not mean that your child will automatically be retained in their current grade. Schools are required to provide an early warning that children are at-risk for being retained. We then provide even more support to your child and make the decision about grade retention in collaboration with you in early June. In general, our experience shows that the majority of students who are identified as “promotion-in-doubt” in January make enough progress to be promoted to the next grade by June.
WELCOME COACH STEPHANIE!
We have a new Asphalt Green Recess Coach! Please welcome Stephanie Rocco to the PS 107 community. Stephanie has extensive experience working with children and is thrilled to join our school. This week, Stephanie has started visiting our classes to introduce herself and get ideas from our students about what kinds of games they would like to see happening at recess. Welcome to PS 107, Coach Stephanie!
Speaking of recess, our recess partner, Asphalt Green, is bringing Rock’N’Recess to PS 107 this Friday, February 2nd! Several coaches will be joining Coach Stephanie to set up multiple games and activities in the Big Yard that they’ll run during all recess periods. It should be a great time for everyone!
POKEMON + OTHER TRADING CARDS
Please be reminded that Pokemon and other trading cards are not permitted in school. Teachers may make occasional exceptions for special classroom activities, but cards should not be brought to lunch and/or recess. Please see our Parent/Caregiver Handbook, page 18, for this information about this policy.
NEW YEARS FEEDBACK
Finally, thank you to the many families who responded to our request for New Years’ feedback! I will be addressing the major patterns of feedback in the next issue of the Wednesday Weekly. Items that are a bit more complicated or related to policies that are contractual will be discussed at upcoming School Leadership Team meetings and shared with the community later this year.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Black History Month begins tomorrow, February 1st! Stay tuned for a series of special events and activities organized by our parent and staff DEI Teams. First up, on Friday, February 2nd, we encourage the PS 107 community to wear red, black, and green shirts, hats, bandanas, and flags. These colors represent the pan-African movement (see below for additional details). A BIG thank you in advance to our parent Black History Month planning team: Tre Johnson and Lekan Ayanbule (co-leads) and Ben Saunders, Anais Casimir, Bajun Riddick, and Crystal Park.
Have a wonderful week!
Warmly,
Ms Joanna