RES NEWS

Dear RES Families,

It is hard to believe it is already November! Time is flying by!

A special thank you to the RES PTA and our parent volunteers for organizing another successful book fair both during the school days and our Family Night on October 23rd.

The school was buzzing with Halloween spririt on Friday, October 30th. Check out photos in the Moments around Ridgebury section of this newsletter.

We had another wonderful Trunk or Treat event sponspored by our PTA on the afternoon of October 30th. Huge thank you's are in order to our PTA Social VP's and our parent volunteers, including the fabulous trunks! Students and families had a blast!

Friendly reminder: We have parent information sessions planned for mid November. The first session, which is scheduled during the school day will provide parents with information about assessment, data, and how we support student growth. The evening presentation is centered around educational technology. We hope to see you there!

Fall Conferences

As I shared on October 21st, In November, we will hold parent-teacher conferences on three early release days, when students will dismiss at 11:40 am.

Best,

Mary

Mary Scalise, Principal

Traci Mayette, Assistant Principal

Tuesday, November 3, 2026: NO SCHOOL - Election Day

Monday, November 9, 2026: Variety Show Rehearsal - 3:30 PM

Tuesday, November 10, 2026: Veterans Day Assembly

Tuesday, November 10, 2026: PTA Sponsored Variety Show - 6:00 PM

Wednesday, November 11, 2026: NO SCHOOL - Veterans Day

Thursday, November 12, 2026: Matilda Jr. Information Meeting - 3:45 PM RES Cafeteria

Monday, November 16, 2026: Picture Retakes

Wednesday, November 18, 2026: Presentation - Assessment, Data, and Student Growth 9:00 AM

Thursday, November 19, 2026: Presentation - Educational Technology 7:00 PM

Friday, November 20, 2026: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Parent/Teacher Conferences

Monday, November 23, 2026: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Parent/Teacher Conferences

Tuesday, November 24, 2026: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM - Parent Teacher Conferences

Wednesday, November 25, 2026: Early Dismissal 11:40 AM

Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27, 2026: NO SCHOOL - Thanksgiving Recess

Please consider supporting our RES student performers by attending the 2nd Annual RES Variety Show. Ticket sales support the RES PTA! More information coming soon. We hope to see you there!

RPS distribution flyers for outside groups via a Digital Backpack.

Organizations that meet the RPS policy may submit their request for inclusion in the digital backpack. Please help us in our effort to go green by checking students' Digital Backpacks Organizations that meet the RPS policy may submit their request for inclusion to cmelagrano@ridgefieldps.net.

• School Dismissal Manager (SDM) is an easy-to-use mobile and desktop interface that allows you to make these changes in advance or for the current day. You can also report student absences, late arrivals, early dismissals and even schedule recurring dismissal instructions for after-school activities.

• We are utilizing SDM's Late Arrival feature so that you can let the school know when your child will be arriving late. Select the day on the calendar that your child will be arriving late, then select Add Late Arrival, fill out the reason and click Submit. When reporting a late arrival for the current day, please note that the cutoff time is 8:45 am. Upon arrival, your child must still check in with the security guard at RES.

• Requests for pickup must be made through the School Dismissal Manager (SDM) system. We assume every student rides their bus to school and home. This is the default setting in SDM. An alternative plan, what SDM terms as “exceptions” must be entered before 11:15 am.

• In the event that you have an emergency and need an alternative plan after 11:15, please contact the main office at 203-894-5875. Emergency contacts, which you identify in the PowerSchool Portal, should be people you feel comfortable can pick up your child from school if there is ever the need. We do not release students to adults, even if we know them, without written permission from you, or if they are an emergency contact.

School lunch will be available from the first day of school. Aramark is the District-wide food service provider. The school lunch menu is available online on the RPS website; click Departments and click on Food Service. For students in grades 2-5, snacks and additional items will be available through MySchoolBucks system which allows students to purchase their lunch by entering a 5-digit code at the cash register. Questions in regard to MySchoolBucks can be directed to Andrea McCurry, RPS Food Service Director at 203-894-5550 x1127 or amccurry@ridgefieldps.net

It is so nice to be back to school and see how much everyone has grown over the summer. As we enjoy the colors of fall around us, I would like to offer a few tips to help the students manage symptoms as we enter allergy and cold seasons. As always, hand washing is key to preventing the spread of illness. Using tissues to blow their noses and covering their coughs are also important habits to develop. The common cold typically lasts 7 to 10 days at most. If your child has a cold that lasts 2 weeks or more then it would be reasonable to consult your pediatrician as there could be something more going on.

One thing that parents can do to assist the nurse and enabling their student to remain in school in comfort is to authorize student to be given ibuprofen or acetaminophen for pain such as a headache or ear ache or to give for fever while waiting for a parent to pick them up from school. You can do this by logging into PowerSchool and Medical Authorization. Click the boxes to authorize one or both medications as needed. This needs to be done at the beginning of each school year as it won’t carry over from one year to the next. Please note, per policy, any student with a temperature of 100.4 or higher must stay home and may not return until he/she is fever free for 24 hours without fever reducing medicine.

Another way to support your child, especially the youngest of our students, is to pack a spare change of clothes in case of accidents. We see several students with a need for a change of clothes due to a challenging ketchup packet, dexterity-challenging tasks, as well as interest and excitement in instruction or activities that dull the essential cues to visit the bathroom quickly. The health office has a limited supply of donated clothes for emergencies, so if your child comes home wearing clothes that were borrowed, please wash and return the items to the nurse.

Warmest Regards,

Sandra Ransom, RN

Each year the School Nurses across the district perform state mandated vision and hearing screenings for students in grades 2-5. Kindergarteners are excluded as they were required to have them done at their physical exam to enter kindergarten. Please see attached below.

Our screening window starts in October and continues until all grade are completed. If your child's screening result is outside of the expected range a letter will be sent home requesting they be further examined by their physician or eye doctor. We will need a copy of the follow up result after they have been tested.

If your student has had a physical exam in the last 6 months and had his/her vision and hearing tested you may opt out before the date of the screening by providing me with a copy if the results with the date tested from your physician. If they were referred to an eye doctor at that time, We will need the result from the eye doctor.

Website: https://res.ridgefield.org/
Phone: (203) 894-5875