OneRCSD Community Connection
Connected to our schools. Connected to our community.
Issue I | September 24, 2026
Welcome to the first edition of the OneRCSD Community Connection, created to bring our Rochester community closer to the people, progress, and possibilities across the Rochester City School District.
Each month, we will share important District updates, celebrate the accomplishments of our students and staff, and highlight the work taking place every day in our schools. We want our community to see the progress happening across RCSD, understand where we are headed, and stay connected to how we are working together to accelerate student success.
A New School Year, A Shared Commitment
The Rochester City School District welcomed back more than 20,000 PreK through 12 students on Tuesday, September 8, and the school year is off to a strong start. I am grateful to our students, families, staff, and Rochester community for helping us begin the 2026–2027 school year with energy, excitement, and purpose. Across RCSD, students returned to classrooms, reconnected with caring adults, and began building the routines that support a successful year.
This year, our focus is OneRCSD: Connected in Action, strengthening our commitment to accelerate student success. Our community plays an important role in helping young people stay connected to learning, opportunity, and the people who support their growth. Throughout the year, you will see this commitment reflected in the work happening across our schools and throughout the District.
Our focus remains clear: improving student achievement, strengthening the experiences students have every day, and keeping our community informed about our progress and the work still ahead.
I invite you to see the joy of our opening week in our photos and media highlights.
Thank you for your partnership as we activate dreams and unlock every student’s potential. I look forward to sharing that work with you throughout the year.
Yours in Education,
Dr. Eric Jay Rosser
Superintendent of Schools
Attendance: Strive for Five. Every Day Matters!
Being in school every day is one of the strongest predictors of student success. Regular attendance helps students stay connected to learning, build strong relationships with caring adults, and remain on track academically.
Reducing chronic absenteeism is a District priority, and RCSD is taking a focused approach to address it. Through Strive for Five, RCSD’s districtwide attendance strategy, schools are reinforcing the message to Show Up Strong, Five Days Long, while using attendance data to identify students who may need additional support and working directly with families to address barriers that can keep students from school.
Our strategies include strengthening family outreach, monitoring attendance patterns, recognizing improvements in attendance, connecting students and families with supports, and working across schools and departments to respond earlier when concerns arise.
We are seeing encouraging progress. Several schools have made strong gains in attendance and reductions in chronic absenteeism, showing what is possible when schools, families, and students work together with consistent focus. Districtwide, recent data also shows improvement over previous years and continued progress toward the chronic absenteeism goal established in our Strategic Plan.
We are proud of the schools that are seeing meaningful improvement, and we are using those successes to help inform strategies across the District. At the same time, we know the work is not finished. Reducing chronic absenteeism requires sustained attention, early intervention, and continued partnership with families.
Missing just two days of school each month can add up to:
20 days of missed school in one year
60 hours of lost reading and writing instruction
30 hours of lost math instruction
More than one full year of missed learning by graduation
How Families Can Help
Families can support strong attendance by establishing consistent bedtime and morning routines, scheduling appointments outside of school hours whenever possible, and staying in close communication with their child’s school.
If transportation, health concerns, anxiety, or another challenge is affecting attendance, we encourage families to reach out. Our schools want to understand what is getting in the way and help connect families with solutions and support.
How Our Community Can Help
Our entire community has a role in reinforcing the importance of showing up for school. Encourage students to attend every day, talk with families about the importance of consistent attendance, and help amplify RCSD’s Strive for Five message throughout Rochester.
Every day in school matters. Together, we can help more students stay connected, stay engaged, and stay on the path to success.
Expanding Early Learning: RCSD Opens Two New PreK Centers
There is something special about the beginning of a child’s school journey. PreK is where curiosity grows, confidence begins to build, friendships form, and children start discovering the joy of learning.
That is why RCSD is making early learning a priority and working intentionally to connect more Rochester families with high-quality PreK opportunities for their 3- and 4-year-olds.
This school year, we are excited to welcome young learners into two new Rochester Early Childhood Education Centers, RECEC No. 39 at 145 Midland Avenue and RECEC No. 44 at 820 Chili Avenue. These centers were created especially for our youngest students, with classrooms and learning spaces designed to help children explore, create, play, and grow.
Children at both centers have access to indoor motor activity spaces, language development support, social workers, speech pathologists, and additional resources for families, including RTS bus passes. These new centers join PreK classrooms in District schools and community-based partner locations, giving Rochester families more opportunities to find the right early learning experience for their child.
The benefits of PreK reach far beyond the first day of Kindergarten. PreK is not simply daycare. It is an important first step in a child’s education, helping children build the foundational skills, confidence, and love of learning that can support them throughout their entire school experience.
Help Us Welcome Our Youngest Learners
PreK enrollment is open, and space is still available.
We want families across Rochester to know that an exciting first school experience could be waiting for their child right now.
If you know a family with a 3- or 4-year-old, encourage them to enroll today. Help us spread the word so more of Rochester’s youngest learners can start their educational journey feeling welcomed, supported, and excited about school.
RCSD Partners with Community Agencies for ‘School’s Open, Drive Carefully’ Campaign
The Rochester City School District is joining forces with local law enforcement, emergency services, and transportation leaders to urge motorists to use caution as students return to the classroom.
Building Hubs of Opportunity Through RCSD Community Schools
The Rochester City School District is expanding its Community Schools model to create stronger hubs of learning, opportunity, connection, and partnership for students, families, and neighborhoods.
At the heart of this work is a simple belief: families and communities bring strengths, knowledge, relationships, and experiences that are essential to student success. Community Schools are designed to create more ways for families to engage in their child’s education, have a voice in their school community, and connect with opportunities that support learning and growth.
This important work received a significant boost through generous funding from the ESL Foundation to support the expansion of Community Schools across the District. We are incredibly excited about this investment because it strengthens our ability to deepen family and community partnerships, expand opportunities for students, and build schools that are more connected to the neighborhoods they serve.
Through our holistic Community Schools model, RCSD works alongside families and community partners to strengthen student learning and coordinate supports that help remove barriers as they arise. The model is not defined by services alone. It is about creating stronger relationships between schools and families, increasing family voice, connecting classroom learning to the community, and making schools places where students and families feel a true sense of ownership and belonging.
Our goal is to expand the Community Schools model across RCSD so that every school is fully implementing this approach by 2031, a commitment outlined in Priority 4 of the District’s Strategic Plan. Phase 1 of our expansion includes Virgil I. Grissom School No. 7, World of Inquiry School No. 58, School of the Arts, Wilson Magnet High School, and Andrew Langston, Dr. Freddie Thomas, Loretta Johnson, and Thurgood Marshall middle schools.
While every Community School reflects the unique strengths and needs of its neighborhood, all are anchored by six core practices:
Powerful Student and Family Engagement
Collaborative Leadership and Shared Power and Voice
Expanded and Enriched Learning Opportunities
Rigorous, Community Connected Classroom Instruction
A Culture of Belonging, Safety, and Care
Integrated Systems of Support
These practices are what make the model powerful. Families are not simply recipients of services. They are partners in the life of the school and in their children's education.
At the same time, Community Schools are designed to respond when families need support. Food pantries are now operational at each Phase 1 site, with additional pantries at the new Districtwide Parent Center on the Loretta Johnson Middle School campus and at the Restorative HUB, which serves as the District’s centralized food pantry for schools without a building-based pantry.
We are deeply grateful to ESL Foundation for investing in this vision and in Rochester’s students and families. This support allows RCSD to accelerate work central to our Strategic Plan and strengthen connections among schools, families, and the broader community.
Community involvement remains essential to the success of this initiative. To learn more about RCSD Community Schools, contact Director of Community Schools Lieselle Taylor at lieselle.taylor@rcsdk12.org.
Empowering Youth Through Literacy and Mentorship
This summer, something powerful happened at Schools No. 7 and No. 9. Younger students strengthened their reading skills while Rochester teens stepped into paid leadership roles as mentors, role models, and reading buddies.
Through a partnership with the City of Rochester and PrimeTime 585, the City Council’s Literacy Program connected 40 trained teen mentors, ages 14 to 16, with 90 students entering grades 1 through 3. Using the phonics-based Read Alliance curriculum, younger students received focused literacy support from teens they could look up to and connect with. At the same time, the teen mentors gained meaningful work experience, built leadership skills, and experienced the impact they can have on younger children in their own community.
The experience extended beyond reading. Students participated in movement activities, received free lunches, and took meals home, helping create an environment where they could focus on learning and fully participate each day.
Board of Education President Camille Simmons captured what made the program so special when she described the connection that happens when a younger child gets to learn from a “big kid.” That relationship can make learning feel more personal, exciting, and possible.
This partnership created a powerful cycle of opportunity, with younger students building literacy skills while older students earned, led, mentored, and gave back. It is exactly the kind of opportunity we want to create more of across Rochester.
