The Penguin Post
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We are at 96.5% average daily attendance as a school. ✅
Attending school regularly helps children feel positive about school and about themselves. Building this habit early, even in preschool, teaches them that arriving on time and attending every day is important. Over time, strong attendance becomes a skill that supports success in high school, college, and beyond.
We kindly ask that families avoid scheduling vacations during the school year, as time away from class can be very disruptive to the learning process. When students miss school, they often feel stressed or overwhelmed trying to catch up, which can affect both their learning and their confidence.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Starting in preschool and kindergarten, too many absences can cause children to fall behind in school.
- Missing 10%, or about 2 days each month over the course of a school year, can make it harder to learn to read.
- Students can still fall behind if they miss just one or two days every few weeks.
- Being late to school may lead to poor attendance.
- Absences and tardiness can affect the whole classroom if the teacher has to slow down learning to help children catch up.
2nd grade
1st grade
4th grade
3rd Grade
2nd Grade
Kindergarten
We are excited to enter our 3rd year in partnership with our friends at Westfield Bank.
Ready, Set, Grow is a program set up to encourage children to start saving at an early age. If you wish to have your child participate in this program, simply complete and sign the application form and return it to the school or visit a branch.
Westfield Bank will be at Phelps every Thursday morning for students to make deposits.
The Phelps Counseling Department is looking forward to another great school year full of social and emotional growth! For more information on how the counseling department can be of help, please check out our Google Site.
Please note that the School Committee has approved a revision to the 2025–2026 district calendar.
On Wednesday, November 12, 2025, all schools will operate on a two-hour delay to allow for staff training. The delay will follow the same procedures as a snow delay, with each school beginning two hours later than its regular start time.
Welcome back and hope you all had a wonderful summer (I know that seems so far away by now). I’d like to share some basic housekeeping information with everyone. Please continue to bring in physical forms for your children as they occur. If your child needs medicine at school, please reach out to me. We do need a new order from the doctor every year, so if your kiddo had medicine last year and needs it again this year, I will need new updated paperwork.
Starting back to school usually means we will see some more illness in our kiddos. I’d like to just remind everyone of our illness policies. Please keep children home when they have a fever, vomiting, and/or diarrhea. They may return to school 24 hours after fever, vomiting and/or diarrhea is gone (without the use of fever-reducing medications). Symptoms in general should also be improving prior to returning to school after any illness. Please don’t hesitate to call my office with any questions regarding when to send your kiddo to school or when to keep them home.
We have already completed lice screening in the school. No news is good news! Next we will start our vision/hearing screenings. You may choose to opt your child out of this screening if you wish. A copy of a current screening completed by a specialist is required for this opt out. Please contact Nurse Taunya by email at tjasperson@agawamed.org or by phone at 413-821-9368 if you wish to opt out of this screening. If a current screening by a specialist isn't provided, your student will be screened per state guidelines.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have. I’m looking forward to having a great year with your kiddos.
We’re excited to announce new grade-level and content-specific websites designed to enhance the connection between school and home! These online resources will provide students and families with helpful tools, activities, and important updates to support learning both in and outside of the classroom. Be sure to check out your child’s grade-level page to explore all the great resources we’ve made available to help foster a fun and engaging learning experience at home. Stay tuned for more updates!
To find your website - head over to https://www.agawamed.org/o/bjp and click on MENU. All of our new sites are published here!
Our new sites are a work in progress and will continue to be updated throughout the year.
Benjamin Phelps Elementary School
Email: avillamaino@agawamed.org
Website: https://www.agawamed.org/o/bjp
Location: 689 Main Street, Agawam, MA 01001 USA
Phone: (413) 821-0586